Vacancy

by K. R. Alexander Narrated by Sarah Beth Goer

Overview

The latest chilling frightfest from horror master K. R. Alexander . . . this time centering around a spooky hotel where guests doNOT check out the way they check in.

When Jasmine moves to Gold River after her mother's death, she finds herself powerfully drawn to the Carlisle, an abandoned hotel on the edge of town. It appears in her nightmares and calls to her during the day.

It's a local tradition in Gold River for kids to try to stay a night in the Carlisle without being scared away. When Jasmine hears about this, she convinces her friends to join her. How hard can it be to stay up all night in an abandoned old building?

Only... the building isn't abandoned. There are plenty of people staying there -- dead people. And once you walk into the hotel, they will do everything possible to stop you from checking out.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for The Collector:

"A good introduction to supernatural horror for middle-grade readers, with a suspenseful plot, sinister imagery of possessed dolls, and sympathetic characters." — Booklist

"Delightfully spooky-readers may want to avoid dolls for a while after finishing this one." — Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

2021-09-15
Does anyone who volunteers to spend a night in a derelict haunted hotel on a dare deserve what they get?

“The hotel is hungry. And we aren’t leaving here until it’s fed.” In what reads like a determined effort to check off every trope of the genre, Alexander sends new arrival Jasmine, along with two friends and several dozen other classmates, to the long-abandoned Carlisle Hotel for the annual seventh grade Dare—touching off a night of terror presided over by the leering, autocratic Grand Dame and complete with sudden gusts and blackouts, spectral visions, evil reflections in mirrors, skeletons, a giant spider, gravity reversals, tides of oily black sludge sucking screaming middle schoolers down the drain, and so much more. (No gore, though, aside from a few perfunctory drops of blood from one small scratch.) The author saves a twist for the end, and as inducement to read alone or aloud in the dark by flashlight, both his language and the typography crank up the melodrama: “He walks toward us, past the mirror, and I see it— / a pale white face in the reflection, / a gaunt, skeletal grimace, / with sharpened teeth / and hollow black eyes, staring at him / with its mouth / wide / open / in a scream….” Jasmine presents White; her closest friends are Rohan, whose name cues him as South Asian, and Mira, who has dark skin.

Light on gore and corpses; otherwise a full-bore, uncomplicated shriekfest. (Horror. 10-13)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173308092
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	11/02/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

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