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bhnmt61's review against another edition
5.0
The Bellweather Hotel has hosted the state high school music festival for years, but this year it is the same weekend as a murder-suicide that occurred at the hotel fifteen years before. The first night, a strange event occurs that oddly mirrors the events so long ago, and the weekend is off to a deadly start.
This is the second book I’ve read by Kate Racculia, and I suspect she’s not for everyone. But she sure works for me. I was a music nerd in high school and this book captures that experience with precision— I never made it to all-state, but I was in all-district and all-region and you can tell she’s been there (as she admits in the acknowledgments). The awkwardness of teenage hormones combined with the fleeting, infrequent moments when a group of high school musicians manages to briefly soar into transcendence— it’s all there.
There’s also a murder and a kidnapping and a whole bunch of wounded people, kids and adults, who are just barely holding themselves together. Trapped by a blizzard in an ancient, crumbling hotel, each of the main characters goes right over the edge at some point in that pressure cooker of a weekend. You could carp about the clichéd villain or the too-neat resolution of a couple of plot threads, but what might have bothered me in a more traditional mystery seems perfectly appropriate in Racculia’s eccentric, madcap, darkly comic world. Loved it. For fans of the movie Knives Out and any adult who loved The Westing Game as a child.
This is the second book I’ve read by Kate Racculia, and I suspect she’s not for everyone. But she sure works for me. I was a music nerd in high school and this book captures that experience with precision— I never made it to all-state, but I was in all-district and all-region and you can tell she’s been there (as she admits in the acknowledgments). The awkwardness of teenage hormones combined with the fleeting, infrequent moments when a group of high school musicians manages to briefly soar into transcendence— it’s all there.
There’s also a murder and a kidnapping and a whole bunch of wounded people, kids and adults, who are just barely holding themselves together. Trapped by a blizzard in an ancient, crumbling hotel, each of the main characters goes right over the edge at some point in that pressure cooker of a weekend. You could carp about the clichéd villain or the too-neat resolution of a couple of plot threads, but what might have bothered me in a more traditional mystery seems perfectly appropriate in Racculia’s eccentric, madcap, darkly comic world. Loved it. For fans of the movie Knives Out and any adult who loved The Westing Game as a child.
eggjen's review against another edition
4.0
It took me awhile to warm up this one, largely because I had to get used to each narrator and accept the fact that the author doesn't always tell the truth right away sometimes even in the same sentence it seemed she would write in one direction and then be like jk that didn't happen. But eventually the characters began to find little corns of my heart to nestle themselves in and the mystery itself became enticing enough that I found myself wanting to follow it through to the other side and I was pleasantly surprised when I found that NONE of my suspicions were correct and the author had managed to write a mystery that I could not predict the outcome to.
dapplezee's review against another edition
Reading this book was an eerie experience for me, because I recognized the setting from the blurb. I went to this same festival, at the same creepy hotel, about ten years earlier than the author did. No murders, when I was there; but it was definitely a Thing.
In real life, it was the Concord Resort Hotel, fading sibling of Grossingers (you know Grossingers as the inspiration for the hotel resort in "Dirty Dancing"). I remember rehearsing in a giant ballroom under a dim chandelier. One of the boys in the group "picked" a few glass crystals from the chandelier and gave them out to girls. I kept that crystal in my window for years until it fell one day and shattered while I was studying.
In real life, it was the Concord Resort Hotel, fading sibling of Grossingers (you know Grossingers as the inspiration for the hotel resort in "Dirty Dancing"). I remember rehearsing in a giant ballroom under a dim chandelier. One of the boys in the group "picked" a few glass crystals from the chandelier and gave them out to girls. I kept that crystal in my window for years until it fell one day and shattered while I was studying.
teresaalice's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a slowly unravelling mystery, filled with interesting characters and earlier times (okay, not that much earlier, most of it is set in 1997). Its worth the read, definitely.
readwithzelda's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
laurenb's review against another edition
4.0
So...it's sad. I will say I really enjoyed the first half, and was super intrigued. And then it got a little boring, wanting to know things and not being told any extra information. I did like it overall though, but it's not a feel good book
rdlevitt's review against another edition
3.0
Chekhov famously said about writing, "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired."
This book had...a LOT of guns. A lot of them fired, but not all. And a lot of the ones that did fire put out one of those flags that said "BANG" rather than an actual bullet.
To borrow from another auteur (Stefon), this book has everything: High school band concerts, gay awakenings, murder-suicide, kidnapping, unrequired love, stage moms, black widow marriages, overt references to The Shining, a deaf corgie...
There's a lot going on in this book, is what I'm saying.
Maybe the author was trying to do a kind of crazy "intersecting of all plots" thing where she imagined it all got tied up in a nice bow at the end, but I really think she started so many plot points it would have been impossible for her to achieve her desired results. Rather than cutting them, they were left in the book and the reader had to puzzle over what was supposed to be a charming detail vs what was actually Important To The Story. When I saw this was a first novel, my reaction was "oh, that makes sense."
Overall, it was cute and the mystery element of it was enough to keep me entertained until the end. It was also clear that the author really enjoyed writing about the student music element of it, which was cute for recovering band geeks (like me). But its shortcomings left me wishing her editors had spent a bit more time sussing out which guns were necessary to hang on the wall, as it were.
This book had...a LOT of guns. A lot of them fired, but not all. And a lot of the ones that did fire put out one of those flags that said "BANG" rather than an actual bullet.
To borrow from another auteur (Stefon), this book has everything: High school band concerts, gay awakenings, murder-suicide, kidnapping, unrequired love, stage moms, black widow marriages, overt references to The Shining, a deaf corgie...
There's a lot going on in this book, is what I'm saying.
Maybe the author was trying to do a kind of crazy "intersecting of all plots" thing where she imagined it all got tied up in a nice bow at the end, but I really think she started so many plot points it would have been impossible for her to achieve her desired results. Rather than cutting them, they were left in the book and the reader had to puzzle over what was supposed to be a charming detail vs what was actually Important To The Story. When I saw this was a first novel, my reaction was "oh, that makes sense."
Overall, it was cute and the mystery element of it was enough to keep me entertained until the end. It was also clear that the author really enjoyed writing about the student music element of it, which was cute for recovering band geeks (like me). But its shortcomings left me wishing her editors had spent a bit more time sussing out which guns were necessary to hang on the wall, as it were.
cami19's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
ljutavidra's review against another edition
5.0
Najbolja knjiga koju sam pročitala ove godine, hands down. Toliko živopisnih likova, toliko detalja, misterije koje zapravo nisu misterije nego realan život, apsolutno mi se sve svidelo i nadam se da ću se jednom dočepati knjige u fizičkom obliku i čitati je iznova i iznova.
4saradouglas's review against another edition
2.0
I was very underwhelmed. It was a mystery that wasn't very mysterious. It took place in an old hotel and they kept bringing up The Shining, but it wasn't at all scary. It takes place in the 90s, but didn't seem like it. (You mention Weezer once and that apparently sets the scene as a 90s novel) I wasn't a big fan of the characters and everything just seemed so pointless and, yeah, underwhelming.