In the Night Room

[cornerofmadness]

In the Night Room by Peter Straub

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I'll be honest I only finished this because I was reading it for a challenge. This actually didn't start out bad but it went sideways hard and fast. I didn't even realize it was part of a series until I came here to review it so that wasn't the issue.

It's a two part story in the first third. Tim Underhill is getting messages from dead classmates and is being stalked by an angry fan and an even angrier angel (or is he just losing it) Turns out his last book played a little too fast and loose with the details and the spirit world (which is rather detailed in this) is pissed off. The most important spirit trying to guide Tim into fixing this speaks only in late 90s/early 00s chatroom text speak. (Not a surprise given when this was written) Boy that gets old FAST.

Willy Patrick thinks she's losing her mind again. She's a young adult author who has lost her daughter and husband, has been hospitalized and is now getting married to a man who makes her feel safe but what's left of her friends think he's a bad guy (they're not wrong)

Where this story lost me was when Tim and Willy finally meet up and the story gets frankly a little gross. I did manage to finish it but I don't need to go find other books in this series. Willy is such a limp dish rag of a character I could care less about her and as for Tim... if you're going to have a bisexual character then make him bi. Doing the gay-for-you in reverse (is that a thing? straight-for-you) is a cheat and honestly feels gross. That's generally not how being bi works.


Once you realize who and what Willy is, Tim knowingly and continually sleeping with her is just creepy feeling, like middle-age man fantasy land. It just made me want to toss this book aside and I would have had I another one on hand to fulfil the challenge prompt

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