“Ravencliffe awaits!”
Found footage horror is nothing new to the literary world. Neither are psychological thrillers. Nor are creepy haunted hotels. Yet there is still something so timeless about this formula that we here at What We Reading can’t help but continue to lap up. What can we say, we’re suckers for suspense and chandeliers. Louise Mumford’s The Hotel is a story we saw listed as one of the ‘creepiest’ and ‘eerie’ thrillers from 2023. Naturally, we had to pick it up and give it a spin. And what did we think of this college film project gone bad? Join us for our The Hotel book review to find out!
Date Published: 2023
Author: Louise Mumford
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Pages: 321
Goodreads Rating: 3.52/5
Premise
The Hotel follows four students, Bex, Leo, Oscar and Richard, as they travel to Ravencliffe, an eerie abandoned Victorian hotel perched on the steep cliffs along the Welsh coast. They’re there to film a project around the building, its tragic history and its eccentric owner, but only three of the students return home. Leo vanishes, never to be seen again.
A decade on, and the remaining three have all gone there own separate ways and the film they shot has become a global sensation. An opportunity to film a reunion show represents one final chance to return to the hotel and confront the truth about what really happened to Leo.
However, as soon as they arrive back on location, things begin to go wrong again. Objects disappear and reappear, accidents plague the shoot and Bex realises that her one-time friends know far more about what happened that fateful night than they are letting on.
What Worked
We mentioned it in the introduction, but we love found footage horror, especially when it’s done in a book. It can be difficult to sell the eeriness through just descriptions rather than visuals, but Louise Mumford does an excellent job in conveying Ravencliffe as a gothic, ‘permanently-unlucky’ location that would make for an excellent horror setting.
Mumford’s decision to break the story apart between the past and present is also an effective strategy for keeping readers engaged. Each of these timelines is peeled away gradually, which is a handy technique. If the audience isn’t enjoying one timeline, they have a steady stream of chapters set in the past or present to keep them reading.
Overall, the premise and setting are undoubtedly the high points of The Hotel. The details in fleshing out Ravencliffe make it easy to visualise, and it more than mirrors the mood Mumford attempts to set out, especially in the present timeline with Bex.
What Didn’t
We mentioned Bex above, so let’s kick off what didn’t work in The Hotel with her. Bex is another one of those main characters who is constantly the moral centre for everyone else in the book but is constantly making herself appear so unlikeable by talking down, snapping back and criticising everyone around her. These sorts of protagonists don’t come across as interesting or flawed, they just come across as totally unbelievable.
The Hotel also has a major pacing issue. The first third of the book is painfully slow, but our biggest gripe was with the second half. The final quarter of the story is dominated by people crawling through tunnels, which is painful to read (especially in a book called ‘The Hotel’), and there are at least four ending scenes that we’re sure Mumford couldn’t decide on so she simply threw them all in.
The end reveals are predictable, and underwhelming and the final circuit of farewells and final scenes genuinely made it feel slightly laborious getting to the final page.
Finally, can we spare a moment to talk about how ludicrous it is that one film by some students would kickstart this global craze? With none of the lead characters in said film endorsing or promoting it, it manages to justify annual conventions, merchandise and a big bucks reunion show? We’re all for suspending our disbelief, but that is a stretch.
Verdict
It’s rare that we feel so let down by a story, and we really don’t like being so negative towards anyone successful enough to publish a book here at What We Reading. But, we have to be honest when it comes to our book reviews.
We really didn’t like The Hotel.
The pacing doesn’t feel concise, it stutters in getting going and feels laboured at the end, the characters are bland as anything and go through no development, and Bex as a protagonist just isn’t the sort of lead we could get behind. The reveals and ‘twists’ don’t do the premise justice, overall, this feels like a book that doesn’t know what it is. Is it a spooky haunted house horror? A gripping supernatural thriller? A psychological thriller split between timelines? The answer is all, and none, of the above.
With that being said, plenty of readers enjoyed this book and we can see why. Bex is sure to appeal to some, and the creepy setting of Ravencliffe more than sells the vibe Louise Mumford was going for.
One to check out if you think it’ll be up your alley, but we’ll be skipping the Ravencliff reunion if it ever hits our screens.
Our Rating: 2.5/5
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
