Noelle takes a summer nightshift job at the infamous Boy Meets Girl Inn, even though she’s well aware of the grisly murders that happened there decades ago. That’s why she has a diary—to write down everything she experiences in case things go bump in the night. But the inexplicable freezing drafts, the migrating rotten-flesh smell, and the misplaced personal items don’t really scare her. Noelle has bigger problems: her father’s ailing health, her friend Alfred’s inappropriate crush, and the sore spot on the back of her head that keeps getting worse.
When a party commemorating the anniversary of the original killings ends in a ghoulish bloodbath, Noelle’s diary becomes the key piece of evidence for investigators. But the cryptic and often incoherent entries suggest there is more to the bizarre case than can be rationally explained…
Review:
I received an eARC of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This turned out to be one of those books that I still am in two minds about.
It’s about a girl Noelle, who ends up working a night-time shift during summers at the infamous Boy M”eats” Girl Motel – infamous because a grisly bloodbath took place in that exact motel ages ago! She plans on keeping a journal to account for everything that happens in her life during that particular work time – which includes being mean to her best friend for having a crush on her and hating her father for being a gross sick man.
But the journal entries we are about to read aren’t just full of Noelle’s thought, they are also full off annotations by the police officer who investigated the crime (which honestly seems like quite a tame description for what happened) that occurred during the party marking the anniversary of the massacre in the past and remarks by the producer who wanted to turn this bloodbath into a movie – they honestly were the highlights of the book.
It’s a twisted gorish book that took me a little while to get into, written in Noelle’s POV (because it is her journal, after all!) – but her voice is so blunt and dry. Let’s not forget dry, because god forbid she talk about her father’s sickness in any sort of sympathetic terms. Yes, Noelle was a little hard to like, but I didn’t actually have to like her to understand her (perks of being a shrink, I suppose!).
This is again one of those books that you actually have to be in a mood to read (I have been encountering a lot of these books – perks of being a book blogger, I suppose!) – because this book is definitely extra descriptive – as in it feels as if there is a horror movie that is playing inside your head and no matter what you just can’t escape from it!
While this book was an interesting concept, and the writing actually wasn’t that bad – it just wasn’t my cup of tea! I am sure this will find a good number of likes, but I don’t really think I would be one of them!
Rating:
⭐ ⭐ .5
Recommendation:
If you have a penchant for gorish, descriptive storylines – then this book definitely is for you. On the other hand, is you do not like being induced into vomit filled existence by gorish descriptions, then this book isn’t your forte.
For The Love of Fictional Worlds 