I had high hopes for Room Service after reading the synopsis. Unfortunately, after reading around 10% of the book I realized I would no longer be able to continue reading. I had to put the book down and put it in my DNF pile. The book wasn't good at all.

Room Service is a fast-paced thriller with a twisty ending that will appeal to fans of Stephanie Perkins. The plot requires a bit of a suspension of disbelief - mainly, why do these teens feel compelled to play along with the murderous game without even trying to get help? But if you can get past that hurdle, the ending is surprising and satisfying.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an egalley for review. "Room Service" by Maren Stoffels was a very quick read about a group a friends who had a tragic accident a year earlier and are gathered for a birthday party the following year. While this read very fast and switched narrators, I felt that there wasn't enough distinction between voices and the reveal was kind of sloppy.

i swear this was a read where i had to genuinely look around and make sure no one was stalking my window as i ploughed through the pages. it of course was such a thrilling ride, and with non stop tension all the way. i loved the consistent adrenaline it gave, and also made me cast nervous glances at my google home 😂

Room Service was a very fast read. I was really enjoying it until the end. It really left me wanting more.

To start with, this is a translated book. While that alone doesn't make it hard to read, it is worth noting as it can make for awkward text. The plot is familiar - teens celebrating on the anniversary of something bad happening. In this case, we don't really know what the bad thing was until nearly the end. There's a lot of dancing around the past, leading to a revenge plot that we don't fully understand. That revenge plot is quite extreme. There are crazy displays and violent threats, all in an active high class hotel. The heart of the plot makes sense and has some compelling elements. The pieces don't come together well, though, and the characters are underdeveloped.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The description of Room Service quickly grabbed my attention, especially since I have been enjoying more of the dark side of young adult books. While I liked the characters for the most part, I felt like the story was rushed and missing some pieces to entice me to keep reading. In the end, I did complete this one because I had to find out what happened. Room Service is definitely for the more mature reader and would be a good addition to high school libraries.

This was a solid, fast paced suspense novel. We are thrown into an awkward mix of friends, 1 new, 3 with a past. There’s a stalker, suicide notes, and a plan to seek revenge for the events that took place a year earlier. The end was a twist, I enjoyed the ease of reading this in one sitting.

This book started out good. Kind of intriguing and well-paced. But it got all over the place pretty quickly - and not in a good way.
The characters were okay-ish. A bit too childish, naive and not clever at all. I got annoyed of them after (round about) 30-40% of the book.
The end of the mystery part was pretty easy to guess, because it was kind of obvious. It might be a better read for people who don’t know the end around the 50% mark. The solution was … well, forced and simply all over the top.
And, my biggest problem with this book: Suicide was handled really, really insensitive. Like, wow. There should have been sensitivity reading, because it was really (I can’t say it often enough) insensitive and inappropriate.
The writing style was at least good and the pacing also. Without being so obvious and insensitive, this could have been a good book - because it is really well written from a point of craftsmanship.

Como vocês já sabem, essa resenha é em parceria com a Random House Internacional, de quem recebemos esse eARC (Advance reading copy: algo como “uma cópia de leitura avançada, ou seja, o livro ainda pode sofrer alterações antes de ser publicado). Também lembrando que essa resenha terá um formato diferente: por ser um ARC, não haverão quotes, já como os livros podem sofrer mudanças em seu texto antes de serem comercializados. Gostaríamos de agradecer profundamente a Editora pela oportunidade de parceria.

“Room Service” é mais um livro escrito por Maren Stoffels, que assim como o outro livro que li dela, “Fright Night” (que você pode ler a resenha aqui), se passa apenas em um final de semana.

Ele nos conta sobre esse determinado final de semana de um grupo de quatro amigos: Linnea, Fender, Kate e Lucas, em que eles vão para um hotel de cinco estrelas da cidade onde moram para comemorar lá o aniversário de Kate. Todos os anos Kate faz do aniversário dela um grande evento para comemorar com os amigos, mas esse é o primeiro ano que Linnea está participando, porque ela os conheceu no inicio do ano letivo ao chegar de mudança para o colégio e logo foi acolhida pelo grupo – exceto por Fender, que parece ter um pavor absurdo da garota desde o primeiro minuto em que eles se conhecem.

Linnea não faz muita questão também de ficar próxima de Fender, mas está disposta a aguentar isso para não arruinar o final de semana de aniversário daquela que é sua melhor amiga. O que ela não fazia ideia no final das contas é que os três tinham um segredo dela sobre algo que aconteceu um ano atrás, no aniversário anterior de Kate: mas tem alguém no hotel onde eles se hospedaram que sabe a verdade de tudo e está em busca de se vingar pelo que eles fizeram no passado.

Em um ritmo bem pegado, porque o livro nos mostra apenas o dia anterior ao dia em que eles vão se hospedar e o dia em que estão hospedados e prestes a comemorar o aniversário da garota, a história se passa com tanta fluidez que você realmente não vê o tempo passando entre uma pagina e outra. E é um livro que se saiu melhor que muitos dos filmes de terror que tem sido lançados por aí com assassinos: ele entrega um mistério gostoso de tentar desvendar enquanto os nossos pontos de vista ficam presos apenas a três personagens: Fender, Linnea e o “Room Service”, que é como se identifica quem está por trás da vingança.

Linnea é uma ótima personagem e confesso que foi a que eu mais gostei e achei absurdamente injusto com ela tudo que acontece por várias razões, algumas que não posso falar aqui porque é um spoiler gigantesco da história principal, mas principalmente porque ela não estava ali e junto com os chamados amigos, ela passa pelas mãos da pessoa que está querendo se vingar, como se ela tivesse algo a ver quando na verdade ela nem os conhecia um ano antes.

Eu achei Fender um personagem bem complexo. Por boas paginas do livro eu me perguntava o que tinha acontecido realmente e como ele poderia estar por trás de algo tão tragico, mas a partir do momento que eu entendi qual foi o papel dele, as coisas passaram a fazer mais sentido na minha cabeça.

Como eu mencionei acima, todo o mistério é uma delicia a parte do livro: não leva muito tempo para que o “Room Service” se identifique e diga exatamente a que veio, mas depois disso tem duas viradas na trama que, uma eu imaginei que fosse exatamente como aconteceu, mas outra me pegou completamente de surpresa.

O livro é bem curto e bem recheado de cenas que te deixam cada vez mais curiosa e mais querendo chegar ao final para saber como tudo ali vai acabar se desenrolando. Esse é definitivamente o melhor tipo de livro para se passar o tempo, porque não é nada complexo demais, ao mesmo tempo que é cercado de mistérios: sobre o passado, sobre a identidade de “Room Service” (e mais coisas que, de novo, nada de spoilers).

Eu super recomendo esse livro para pessoas que, assim como eu, gostam de um bom e velho filme de terror com assassinos. Vale a pena, é bem divertido e gostoso de ler e vocês não vão se arrepender de dar uma chance.

Thanks for the free book, Penguin Random House International.

A birthday party at a fancy hotel turns into a nightmare when a stalker begins targeting the group of teens who were responsible for another girl's death.

I usually guess twists in YA thrillers (and to be fair I guessed a couple of the twists in this one) but the ending still managed to surprise me. Fans of the genre will love the suspense, the character building, the subversion of tropes, and the big reveals. It also has some crossover horror appeal (four kids trapped in a hotel with a violent lunatic but for some inexplicable reason do not call the police). Purchase this one for your Karen M. McManus fans.

The writing styles seems very amateur. It couldn't draw me in. Things that were hyped were suddenly revealed as if it wasn't a big deal. I couldn't get invested in the story.

Sadly the English translation to this book is not great. The writing is choppy and feels poorly written, which it probably was not in its native language. Aside from that, I figured out the twist five minutes into the book. I jumped to the end to see if I was right and...well...here we are.

I could not finish this book. First of all, it felt as if I started in the middle of a book. There was no development of characters. No build up of a story. I was just there. This made it difficult to get into it. I gave up at the 50% mark. The writing was very one-dimensional and awkward. The dialogue between characters felt weird. The characters were flat. It was just all wrong.

Four friends gather at a luxurious hotel to celebrate a birthday. It's supposed to be a great night, but it quickly turns into a nightmare as they begin to receive note delivered to them mysteriously hinting that their friend's death a year ago on that same night was all their fault. Is one of them hiding something or are they all collectively to blame? Friendships will be tested, hearts will break, and the heartbreaking truth will all come out before the night is over.

This is a fast paced read that many will devour in a day or two. The twist at the end will certainly surprise you- I know I was not expecting it. As I read Room Service, I pictured it as a movie. There are definitely scenes throughout this story that would look really beautiful (and scary) if done right on the big screen!

Room Service is written by Maren Stoffels but translated by Laura Watkinson. I would have liked to have read the original because I somehow feel that the translation caused the sentence structures to be a bit weird although I don't think any of the action or suspense suffered as a result of the translation.

If you can get past the fact that the teens think that they are smarter than the adults, then you'll enjoy this more than I did. The teens are surrounded by adults who are either clueless or kept in the dark. Both conditions create the need for the suspension of disbelief: the reader has to accept that a dangerous, threatening stalker is not something in which to involve any authority figures.

Beyond that, I did enjoy the suspense and the twist. The author cleverly allowed one character's frequent insistence that he didn't want to be involved in the shenanigans to become a part of the plot. The author also played on the characters' interactions during the story and prior interactions at school to create the necessary relationship tangles that augmented the plot. And I was genuinely, pleasantly surprised by the plot twist.

I’m sorry because it’s possible that this is a really good book in the original text, but the translated version, at least, is not good. The writing feels choppy and unnatural and the sentences are overly simplistic. It really feels like this was written by a tween.

This is a quick and easy suspense novel that I think will please fans of the genre. It doesn't get too bogged down in anything other than what's happening in the now, with the looming past. The plot twists and secrets revealed were surprising and worth the wait.

After the big reveal leaves a slightly disappointing ending, nothing really happens, and it's quick. Fender doesn't even get that mad at you know who, and then they all just sit there waiting for the cops? I am not even sure when the police were called, or why, for that matter.

The ending aside, this was a fun read, and I couldn't put it down. This book will have wide appeal amongst the middle school and high school students who enjoy mysteries and suspense.

Book Review: Room Service
by Maren Stoffels
Pub Date: 29 Jun 2021
read courtesy of http://www.netgalley.com

Room Service is written by Maren Stoffels but translated by Laura Watkinson. I would have liked to have read the original because I somehow feel that the translation caused the sentence structures to be a bit basic; although, I do not think any of the action or suspense suffered as a result of the translation.

If you can get past the fact that this is yet another book where the teens think that they are smarter than the adults, then you'll enjoy this more than I did. The teens are surrounded by adults who are either clueless or kept in the dark by the teens. Both conditions create the need for the suspension of disbelief: the reader has to accept that a dangerous, threatening stalker is not something in which to involve any authority figures.

Beyond that, I did enjoy the suspense and the twist. The author cleverly allowed one character's frequent insistence that he didn't want to be involved in the shenanigans to become a part of the plot. The author also played on the characters' interactions during the story and prior interactions at school to create the necessary relationship tangles that augmented the plot. And I was genuinely, pleasantly surprised by the plot twist.

That the story can only exist because the adults are idiots, however, is the thing keeping me from rating this book higher than ⭐⭐⭐. Some really crafty insights come through the characters during their plight, but the persistence of invisible adults dampened my overall enjoyment.

Amazing story. Well developed characters that are in a twisted engrossing thriller. Highly recommended. Super suspense that comes to a satisfying end! Highly recommended . A true roller coaster thrill ride