A review by medini_l
Hotel Ruby by Suzanne Young

2.0

‘Stay tonight. Stay forever.’

No, thank you.

Man, the blurb is so misleading! It promises something creepy and mysterious, but in reality, this
book couldn’t scare a toddler.

The first three-fourth of this book was so boring that I kept wondering why I was still reading it. Audrey Casella, the protagonist, is such a dreary and one-dimensional character. Her internal monologue kept me yawning away and I honestly couldn’t be bothered by any of her feelings of guilt, sorrow, or whatever. The love interest, Elias was so dull. The romance was half-hearted and their chemistry? What chemistry? Practically non-existent. The secondary characters, too, didn’t evoke an ounce of interest in me whatsoever. The only character I genuinely liked was Audrey’s brother, Daniel. He was the only one who seemed a little more ‘normal’ than the rest of the cardboard cut-outs.

Spoiler

Ironic, since he’s dead.

However, I liked the way [a:Suzanne Young|164576|Suzanne Young|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1357757103p2/164576.jpg] described the atmosphere of Hotel Ruby. It had this strange, suspenseful, dream-like aura about it, as though the air was buzzing with an electric charge. The evasiveness of the staff, the unseeing guests, the haunting music; it was kind of unique. The descriptions, the easy writing flow and the ending saved this book from a 1-star rating.