FULL kudos if they...er, offed a bunch of kids in a horrifying fade-to-black kind of scene (oh, MAN, that sounds bad). We are taught at MFA School and pressured so much to make things more hopeful all the time, then if they actually managed to kill/trap-in-time-and-hauntedsville these kids, even off script where it's mostly supposition, AND get this book to publication?? I am standing, applauding, and wondering who their editor is.
And of course I want hints on the ending. This is the POINT of vicarious horror story experiences, no? To know how right our particular flavor of wrong might be...
Alexander thanked David Levithan in the Author's Note, so that's that answered.
As for the end of the book... OMG, SO! It turns out it's this whole human sacrifice deal that went wrong 33 years ago and killed the cult that was trying to ~gain power over life and death, woooOOOOooooOOooO~ (<--as the main character has been grieving her mother this whole time, this reveal was when I realized where we were going).
Of the three kids, the boy gets taken by the Big Bad—the Grand Dame—and the girls have a chance to leave the hotel, but choose to go back in after him.
They find her in the room that the main character has been dreaming about for years, and the other girl—who has ALSO been dreaming about the hotel for years—offers herself up as a willing sacrifice to take the boy's place.
So the Grand Dame is like, DEAL, because the last time we tried this it didn't work because the sacrifice wasn't willing, and then the main character starts laughing and reveals that she's been in on it the WHOLE TIME and they sacrifice the nice friend and the Grand Dame gets what she wants and also brings back the main character's mother BUT because our not-so-heroic-heroine is bad at making deals with supernatural entities, she and her mother are stuck living in the hotel with all of the cult ghosts for all of eternity, and her mother is maybe a tad NOT IMPRESSED that her daughter basically participated in killing a whole town's worth of seventh graders to bring her back, so our protagonist did all that and her relationship with her mother is shot.
The only survivor was the boy, so he's going to be in for a lifetime of therapy.
I'm dying!!! Her mother's brought back and she's TICKED!!! LOL!!! This is so perfectly middle grade, because NO MATTER WHAT, there's still room and time to get in trouble with your Mom, I love it.
David Levithan is a brave dude - and also, he clearly lived through the Lois Lowry heyday.
FULL kudos if they...er, offed a bunch of kids in a horrifying fade-to-black kind of scene (oh, MAN, that sounds bad). We are taught at MFA School and pressured so much to make things more hopeful all the time, then if they actually managed to kill/trap-in-time-and-hauntedsville these kids, even off script where it's mostly supposition, AND get this book to publication?? I am standing, applauding, and wondering who their editor is.
And of course I want hints on the ending. This is the POINT of vicarious horror story experiences, no? To know how right our particular flavor of wrong might be...
Alexander thanked David Levithan in the Author's Note, so that's that answered.
As for the end of the book... OMG, SO! It turns out it's this whole human sacrifice deal that went wrong 33 years ago and killed the cult that was trying to ~gain power over life and death, woooOOOOooooOOooO~ (<--as the main character has been grieving her mother this whole time, this reveal was when I realized where we were going).
Of the three kids, the boy gets taken by the Big Bad—the Grand Dame—and the girls have a chance to leave the hotel, but choose to go back in after him.
They find her in the room that the main character has been dreaming about for years, and the other girl—who has ALSO been dreaming about the hotel for years—offers herself up as a willing sacrifice to take the boy's place.
So the Grand Dame is like, DEAL, because the last time we tried this it didn't work because the sacrifice wasn't willing, and then the main character starts laughing and reveals that she's been in on it the WHOLE TIME and they sacrifice the nice friend and the Grand Dame gets what she wants and also brings back the main character's mother BUT because our not-so-heroic-heroine is bad at making deals with supernatural entities, she and her mother are stuck living in the hotel with all of the cult ghosts for all of eternity, and her mother is maybe a tad NOT IMPRESSED that her daughter basically participated in killing a whole town's worth of seventh graders to bring her back, so our protagonist did all that and her relationship with her mother is shot.
The only survivor was the boy, so he's going to be in for a lifetime of therapy.
THE END, LOL
What. The. Actual. Hell.
I'm dying!!! Her mother's brought back and she's TICKED!!! LOL!!! This is so perfectly middle grade, because NO MATTER WHAT, there's still room and time to get in trouble with your Mom, I love it.
David Levithan is a brave dude - and also, he clearly lived through the Lois Lowry heyday.
The twist of her mother giving her daughter Eternal Side Eye was INCREDIBLE, I loved that.