The Truth in 60 is a feature created to spotlight the reviews for books that I never got around to reviewing when I finished them or that I don’t have much to say about. They are designed to be quick reviews that you can read in about a minute (60 seconds) and move on.
Source: Library.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Series: –
Narrator: Imogen Church
Edition: Audiobook, 9 Hours 34 Minutes
Genre: Thriller
Purchase: Amazon / Audible / Barnes & Noble
Rating: 4/5 Stars
What should be a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware’s suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.
Leonora, known to some as Lee and others as Nora, is a reclusive crime writer, unwilling to leave her “nest” of an apartment unless it is absolutely necessary. When a friend she hasn’t seen or spoken to in years unexpectedly invites Nora (Lee?) to a weekend away in an eerie glass house deep in the English countryside, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. Forty-eight hours later, she wakes up in a hospital bed injured but alive, with the knowledge that someone is dead. Wondering not “what happened?” but “what have I done?”, Nora (Lee?) tries to piece together the events of the past weekend. Working to uncover secrets, reveal motives, and find answers, Nora (Lee?) must revisit parts of herself that she would much rather leave buried where they belong: in the past.
In a Dark Dark Wood is a unreliable narrator novel where we are given a rather intriguing mystery that twists and bends as the characters struggle to process what is happening. I really loved how utterly insane this turned out to be. It’s certainly not a thriller based purely on ‘likelihood’ but I loved seeing how each chapter chips away at the possibility of each characters’ innocence. The setting adds to this eerie ‘someone is always watching’ feeling, and the instability of all the characters really adds a great amount of tension. I’m not big on thrillers, but I’m quite fond of these unreliable narratives.
Source: Purchased
Publisher: Ecco
Series: –
Edition: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Genre: Mystery, Paranormal
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Book Depository
Rating: 3/5
A tale of family, ghosts, secrets, and mystery, in which the lives of the living and the dead intersect in shocking, surprising, and moving ways
Wealthy Richard Walker has just died, leaving behind his country house full of rooms packed with the detritus of a lifetime. His estranged family—bitter ex-wife Caroline, troubled teenage son Trenton, and unforgiving daughter Minna—have arrived for their inheritance.
But the Walkers are not alone. Prim Alice and the cynical Sandra, long dead former residents bound to the house, linger within its claustrophobic walls. Jostling for space, memory, and supremacy, they observe the family, trading barbs and reminiscences about their past lives. Though their voices cannot be heard, Alice and Sandra speak through the house itself—in the hiss of the radiator, a creak in the stairs, the dimming of a light bulb.
The living and dead are each haunted by painful truths that will soon surface with explosive force. When a new ghost appears, and Trenton begins to communicate with her, the spirit and human worlds collide—with cataclysmic results.
Rooms is a fairly intriguing idea that sort of fell flat for me. I liked the idea of seeing the every day lives of people through the eyes of the house and the ghosts that have resided there over many years, and I liked that it was a good way to really lay out the issues that span across several different eras of families. But this one seemed to get really bogged down in the sheer heaviness of itself. The subject matter is pretty dark on its own, dealing with depression, addiction, and broken families but something about the way it was written made it all seem a lot harder to get through. The writing is without a doubt beautiful, but somehow it just doesn’t mesh well with the tone or characters within this. I was mostly just happy to see this one end.
In Libris Veritas 
Love these short reviews! Quick and to the point 🙂
I’m interested in reading Rooms because I love Lauren Oliver’s style and was a huge fan of the Delirium books when they were coming out 🙂
Happy Reading! x
Thanks for sharing about both of these. I am still trying to figure out if In a Dark, Dark Wood is somethng I would like reading, and I am on the fence about Rooms. This is a great feature. 🙂
I have only read one book by Lauren Oliver and it was Replica which was good. I have Before I Fall on my shelf to read before the movie comes out. Rooms sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing this.