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Summary: Four roommates share a suite in the quad.
Danni is beautiful and perfect, from her long blonde hair to her expensive clothes.
Margot is mysterious – brutally honest or slyly secretive, depending on her mood.
Lacey is a wild woman, who loves to party, party, party.
And Maureen is quiet and painfully shy.
But the girls are not all what they seem.
And soon one of them may be…dead.
First impressions: I liked the first Nightmare Hall book so much so wanted to read the next one! I like the cover and it looks like the characters will have an interesting dynamic, so I have high hopes.
Imagine my immense disappointment when I realised partway through that this one was actually ghostwritten by Nola Thacker, otherwise known as D.E. Athkins, AKA Deathkins. I really didn’t want to give her another chance so soon after Mirror, Mirror but I decided to push through.
Recap
Roll call:
Danni – The beautiful main character.
Lacey – The mischievous, party-girl roommate.
Maureen/Mouse – The shy, mousey roommate who’s anxious about everything.
Margot – The mysterious, secretive roommate.
Jordan – Danni’s weird love interest.
Pete – Mouse’s love interest and Jordan’s roommate.
[Note: From now on in my book recaps, I’m just going to call the anonymous villain ‘bad guy’ as an umbrella term. That doesn’t mean the bad guy won’t be a girl, I’m just gonna use it as a gender-neutral term]
[Another note: This book is told by omniscient third-person narration and switches between the characters from time to time, but I’ll try make it clear who’s perspective we’re following to make it clear]
We begin with a prologue of the bad guy packing for college! How exciting. Bad guy packs the essentials, like clothes and “a photograph of the parents” [The parents?? I’m thinking our bad guy has killed a family and is taking over someone’s life]. A college dorm is not a kitchen, though, so bad guy won’t be packing a hot plate or a popcorn popper… Ok. But our bad guy is bringing their best friend – a knife [Friendship goals!]. She [I’m assuming the bad guy is female based on the summary] wipes the blood off her bestie and lovingly places it beneath her underwear, now all set for Salem University. Let’s go!
Next, we’re in the Quad, a dormitory at Salem University, where we meet Lacey, “as in underwear… as in where did I put my panties?” [Hahahahahahaha], struggling to keep the towel wrapped around her body as she searches through the mountains of clothes she’s strewn all over her new room. It’s implied but not outright stated that she’s of Asian descent [Woo, diversity!]. She’s obviously very confident in her sexuality, completely unbothered when she notices Danni, a tall girl with hair like a lion’s mane, and Maureen, a mousey girl with glasses, watching her from the doorway. Maureen is a shy girl and clearly uncomfortable with Lacey’s wild personality, and Lacey can’t believe that she’s her new roommate since they seem so different already.
The three girls and Danni’s roommate, who hasn’t rocked up yet, will be sharing a suite – two bedrooms connected by a bathroom that is only a toilet and sink, with the communal showers down the hall, which Lacey is already complaining about [She’s got a point though, why put a toilet and sink in but no shower?? Or is that normal for College?]. Lacey finds her panties and some other clothes to wear and quickly heads off to meet a boy, unsure if she’ll be returning tonight [Get that D, girl! I love Lacey].
Danni offers to help Maureen move her stuff in, but as she goes to pick up a particular suitcase, Maureen snaps at her and snatches it from her hands. The contents spill out and Maureen barks at Danni again when she tries to help pick it up, ordering her to go away and get another box. I would have told Maureen to fuck off and unpack her own damn stuff, especially because she hasn’t even said thanks, but Danni just wonders what Maureen is trying to hide, but she’s obviously a red herring.
Anyway, Maureen starts stressing about which side of the room to take because she doesn’t know what side Lacey wants. Danni insists Lacey won’t care because she seems so casual and manages to calm Maureen down, internally comparing the experience to being like a “mental hospital nurse” [Maureen does seem super annoying and childlike but not sure about this comparison…].
Maureen smiles for the first time and Danni is shocked to see that it makes her look like a completely different person [Deathins is really breaking her back trying to make us suspicious of Maureen, lol]. Kendra, a dark-skinned RA, stops by [More diversity, woo!] to give us some exposition about the layout of Salem University, including that the Quad is four connected dorms with a courtyard in the centre; most people eat meals in the Commons, the main cafeteria in the Student Centre; and that there’s a basement, nicknamed the Dungeon, that runs underneath the whole Quad, where there’s also a meeting tonight.
Maureen is way too dramatic about the nickname and doesn’t laugh when Danni jokes about it being where the crazy people are [Implying to the reader that Maureen is craaaAaAAzy, but more likely because it’s just not a good joke and Deathkins is still going overboard with the ‘suspicious’ behaviour].
Danni heads to her own room to unpack her own stuff, happy that she has brand new clothes bought specifically for college instead of a beige and brown wardrobe like Maureen’s. She decides that she’ll sneak out of the suite for dinner without Maureen since she doesn’t want to “spend her first day of college with some scared rabbit of a student” [Agreed, Maureen is lame].
Danni comes from a wealthy family and was raised by nannies and housekeepers, overprotected and watched constantly. She was hoping for some freedom at Salem but is disappointed about all the rules in her all-girl dorm, including visiting hours for boys. She could have opted for off-campus housing but thought Nightingale Hall looked too scary. And besides, it’s Salem U’s policy for freshman to have roommates [Which is a great idea to force freshmen to make friends!].
Despite all this, Danni’s looking forward to life in the dorm and having a roommate, but after meeting Lacey and Maureen, she’s nervous about what her own roommate will be like. Her internal monologue is interrupted by the sounds of Maureen talking to herself in the next room “in a way that sounded definitely demented.” [OK, Danni, ease up on the crazy references plz].
“With my luck,” muttered Danni, picking up her towel and heading for the shower, “I’ll probably get the psycho roommate from hell.”
[You’re rich and beautiful, what do you mean “with my luck?”]
A short time later, Danni sneaks out of the Quad and heads to the Commons for dinner, admiring the campus on the way. She also meets and admires a super cute guy with “a great bod” named Jordan, who lives in a “small alternative residence” known as the Kennels after being kicked out of the regular dorms for partying too hard [Sickkkkk brooooo]. He walks Danni home after dinner and invites her to a party this weekend, telling her to bring some friends.
Back in the suite, Lacey’s home from her hot date already because she didn’t want to be tied down on the first day [Amen, sister!]. Maureen reminds them about the meeting in the Dungeon, and Lacey is a keen bean:
“The Dungeon? Whips? Chains? This school is definitely my kind of place.”
[Amen, sister!] They head down to the Dungeon, surprised at how big it is. Maureen froths over the laundry room [??], and there’s also a piano room and gym down there too. Danni’s a bit creeped out by the concrete corridors that seem to stretch forever.
We cut to the a few days later, and Danni’s roommate still hasn’t shown up. All Kendra knows about the girl is that her name is Margot and she chose to skip the orientation programs during this first week. Jordan calls the suite to remind Danni about the party this weekend but Maureen’s not so keen, seeming nervous and upset by the idea. Danni encourages Maureen to be more confident and it’s revealed that Maureen’s nickname back home was ‘Mouse’. She says it’s OK to call her that, too, since it makes her feel less homesick, and just like the book, that’s what we’ll be referring to her as from now on [A weird writing choice to not establish this when we met her, though].
Later, the girls hang out with another dark-skinned girl, Jodie [I’m pleasantly surprised by all this diversity! You don’t see it very often, let alone multiple times in one book], and her roommate Caren, who also live in the Quad. Jodie’s on the swim team with Linda from The Silent Scream, and I guess this book takes place at the same time as the first book, because Linda’s told Jodie all about Giselle’s “suicide” at Nightmare Hall, which Jodie relays to her friends now [I was wondering what the continuity would be like in this series. Hopefully they don’t all take place at the same time though, because that’s a a lot of drama at the beginning of one school year]. As Danni observes the two sets of roommates she’s surrounded by, she can’t help but continue to wonder what Margot will be like.
That night in bed, Danni falls asleep thinking about Giselle’s suicide and has a nightmare about being trapped in darkness and hearing someone else breathing. She wakes up and is terrified to realise she’s not alone in her room! The figure seems to glide around the room like a ghost, and Danni thinks it’s Giselle [Danni, come on, it’s clearly Margot]. The light comes on and guess what? It’s Margot, a wholesome looking girl of medium height.
The two girls introduce themselves before Margot heads to the communal bathrooms for a shower. She’s gone for a long time, leaving Danni alone with her thoughts. Why did Margot come in the middle of the night? Why is she taking so long in the shower? Danni’s also unnerved by Margot’s matter-of-fact way of answering questions, which makes Danni feel stupid. Danni falls asleep before Margot returns, and then we switch to Margot’s perspective.
Margot returns to the bedroom and stares at the sleeping Danni for a while before slipping into bed, happy to finally be on campus after a long, hard trip that took every last bit of her “intelligence, strength and stubbornness, and yes, even cunning”. This is Margot’s chance to start fresh and forget about the people who were holding her back. She hopes that Danni is the right roommate for her – she’d filled out the form so painstakingly to make sure she got the perfect one:
I wonder, thought Margot. Could this one be trusted? Could she handle the truth? Or would she be like all the others..?
She didn’t look like the others. She looked just right. Although she didn’t look like someone who could understand what Margot had been through. How could someone that pale and perfect and golden understand what Margot’s life had been like?
[OK, now Deathkins is really trying to pin Margot as the bad guy. So what was up with Mouse; is she really just that shy? Fighting so hard not to skip to the end and spoil it for myself hahaha]. Danni wakes the next morning to find Margot already gone, her bed neatly made. Danni notices that one of Margot’s drawers isn’t shut properly and impulsively pulls it open. It’s practically empty, except for the underwear, socks and a faded pair of jeans. The other three drawers are empty though, and Danni can’t believe she’d invaded Margot’s privacy like that [Me either, Danni. Rude]. It’s like something had come over her suddenly. She shuts the drawers, which is when she notices the only thing resting on top of the chest of drawers – a knife [How is she only noticing the knife now??? Surely you would notice what’s on top of the drawers before you even think to snoop inside them…].
She drops the knife back onto the drawers and then Margot’s in the doorway, yelling at Danni about touching her stuff. They quickly make peace, although Danni isn’t sure how much Margot saw. Lacey pokes her head in to introduce herself and comments on the letter opener on Margot’s drawers [Really? It’s just a letter opener? From the way Danni was carrying on I thought it was butcher’s knife or something. Also why was Margot so damn angry about it?]. Lacey then leaves to have a nap, even though she just woke up [Mood]. Danni informs Margot that Lacey is an alum and her family has made huge donations to Salem. Margot doesn’t seem to believe that, since Salem has high academic standards, and Danni has that feeling of unease again.
The topic quickly turns to the party and Margot mentions that the rest of her stuff hasn’t arrived yet, so to ease her own guilt for going through Margot’s things, Danni offers to let her wear anything from her closet. After all, that’s what roommates are for!
Margot hesitated. Then she smiled, a tentative, experimental smile, as if she wasn’t used to smiling. As if, thought Danni, she’d learned how to smile from a book, and practiced it in mirrors.
[I really like this description! Something definitely seems iffy about Margot, even if she’s not the bad guy] Later that night, our four suite mates head to the Kennels for Jordan’s party. Mouse is still somewhat scared of the idea, but seems to have taken a liking to Margot, adopting her as “some kind of security blanket”, and feeling more comfortable. By the end of the night, Mouse and Margot are nowhere to be found while a drunk Lacey tries to convince Danni to go out for food. Danni declines the invitation and stays behind with Jordan, so Lacey leaves with a boy named Pete. Jordan becomes “scary serious” all of a sudden, not at all like the fun, joking Jordan Danni’s been hanging with all night. This is a Point Horror, though, so of course they kiss [Is Danni from Fear Street?], but their pash sesh is quickly ruined by someone screaming for help.
Danni froze in Jordan’s arms. But he didn’t seem to notice that or the horrible screams. He kept kissing her, kissing her, his arms tightening and tightening….
“Let me go!” cried Danni. “Jordan, let me go!”
[Uhh, rapey much????] Danni breaks free and runs outside to find that the shrieking is just drunken Lacey playing a joke on them because she doesn’t like it when people don’t do what she wants [Same lol]. Danni scolds her for being a jerk, but eventually she and Jordan agree to join Lacey and Pete for food after making sure Pete isn’t too drunk to drive [Safety first!]. On the way to his car, Danni warns Lacey not to scare her like that again, but Lacey seems undeterred, declaring she’ll think of something new. Danni is unsettled by the mischievous glint to Lacey’s smile, “as if someone else was looking out at Danni from behind Lacey’s eyes” [Come on, Deathkins, do we really need to make everyone act so suspicious?].
The next day, a hungover Lacey begs for death as she cradles the toilet bowl. Margot is totally unsympathetic, telling Lacey that her behaviour is “bush league”, whatever that means [Lots of weird ‘90s slang in this book that I’m not sure was even used back then…Lacey has used ‘serious’ and ‘decent’ as terms of excited approval, and now ‘bush league’? Maybe I’ll be adding even more to my vocabulary thanks to Nightmare Hall].
Danni and Margot then head to the Quad cafeteria for some coffee, where in regards to Lacey, Margot explains that she has a problem with people who can’t handle something and lose control, and Danni assumes Margot’s dealt with something like that before. The conversation turns to boys and Danni’s feeling unsure about Jordan. “If he’s not the one, he can still be some fun” says Margot [Hahahaha love it], who then reveals her type of guy is Cary Grant, an old Hollywood movie star, and seems embarrassed about it.
That night as the two girls go to bed, Danni’s happy that they’re becoming friends while Margot replays the past 24 hours in her head. She’s grateful that Danni didn’t take much notice of her slip-ups, like what she said about Lacey and her fondness for Carey Grant, and decides she needs to be more careful.
In the adjoining room, Lacey is also settling into bed. She’s a little mad at herself for getting so drunk last night and blames it on her bad self. Apparently her good self and bad self often have conversations, and sometimes the good side wins, sometimes the bad [OK, so does Lacey maybe have some sort of mental illness or is this just a terrible way of describing her conscience?]. Her thoughts then turn to how bored she is because Mouse is so boring, and she soon concocts a plan involving Pete that’s sure to provide some entertainment at Mouse’s expense, which we aren’t privy to. But was it her good side or bad side that thought of it? It’s also hinted at that Lacey has some kind of secret from her past involving her bad side [We better find out some of these girls’ secrets soon because I’m getting bored].
By the following week, Danni has found a sense of belonging at Salem U and feels like she’s known her suite mates forever. Even Margot has warmed up a lot more! But Danni’s struggling to get used to Margo and it doesn’t help that she often catches Margot staring at her.
One day, Danni returns to the room to find Margot asleep in Danni’s bed. Margot wakes up and her excuse is that she sat on the bed to look at the book Danni had left on it, and must have fallen asleep. Danni thinks it’s suss because it’s a chemistry book that she’d left there, but Margot quickly heads to the Dungeon to study before Danni can ask anything further [Seems very suss, Margot’s bed was right there too. Why sleep in Danni’s?].
Elsewhere, Lacey drags Mouse to a hair salon and forces her to get a haircut. It’s never described how her new hair looks, but Mouse is shocked at it and back at the Quad, Margot genuinely agrees with Lacey that it looks good. The four of them then head to the mall to go shopping, but Margot doesn’t buy anything, explaining she’s not impulsive and spontaneous like Lacey is. Lacey’s also disgusted that Danni shops with cash, but then quickly changes her mind when she remembers that paying with cash doesn’t leave a record like a card does [What are you trying to hide, Lacey?!].
One morning, Danni can’t find her gold cashmere sweater and starts raging because Margot’s obviously been going through her things [You literally went through her stuff the day you met her, Danni, calm down]. Margot’s stuff still hasn’t arrived and Danni’s been letting her borrow her clothes, but how dare Margot take the gold cashmere sweater without asking?! She calms herself down because it’s really not that big a deal, but can’t shake the uneasy feeling when she thinks of Margot touching all her stuff.
Sure enough, Danni comes home with Lacey after classes and there’s Margot, studying while wearing the gold cashmere sweater. Danni confronts her about touching her stuff when Margot practically threatened Danni when the situation was reversed, and Margot leaps up and gets all up in Danni’s face. Margot declares that Danni told her she could have it. Danni denies this, and Margot rages more because now she’s being called a liar and a thief [This reaction is way too intense. What the hell is going on?]. Margot snatches up the letter opener and Lacey tries to intervene, but she’s easily fought off.
Margot accuses Danni of trying to make her look bad in front of Lacey as payback for yelling at her on the first day, but a terrified Danni tries to explain it was all just a misunderstanding. Margot hurls the knife at the dresser and pulls off the sweater, giving it back to Danni before storming out of the room. Lacey and Margot then discuss how crazy she is [I’d probably try and switch rooms if I were Danni! Fuck living with Margot after that, awkward].
Seemingly a few days later, Lacey sneaks up on Mouse as she’s reading a handwritten letter outside the Student Centre. It’s the perfect time to put her plan in motion, as classes have just finished. Pete walks by [With Ian from The Silent Scream, who quickly leaves], just as planned, and Lacey introduces him to Mouse. Pete’s the sports editor for the campus Newspaper, The Chronicle, and Lacey mentions how good a writer Mouse is. Mouse panics and is all like “How did you know?!? What did you see?!?”, and Lacey explains she saw some of Mouses writing on her desk when she was looking for a pencil, adding that Mouse’s secrets are safe with her [What’s the bet Mouse’s secret isn’t as big a deal as she thinks it is? We all know how much I love those kind of secrets. I’m looking at you, Shane].
Lacey then asks Pete to take Mouse to The Chronicle’s office so Mouse can sign up before heading off. Mouse senses that Lacey has some kind of ulterior motive because of the makeover and now this, but follows Pete anyway. As they walk and talk, Pete mentions his “roommate from hell” at the Kennels named Jordan and Mouse realises it’s the same guy Danni had gone out with. Pete annoyingly stops himself before revealing what’s so bad about him, though, and ushers Mouse inside The Chronicle’s office [Why the hell is everyone so secretive?!?! I’m over it].
Elsewhere, Margot drops “the perfect letter for the perfect daughter of a perfect family” into a mailbox. As she goes to leave the campus post office, she notices Danni there and is flooded with humiliation, remembering Danni’s accusations about the sweater [OK so has Margot convinced herself she’s telling the truth, or did Danni really say she could have the jumper and we just didn’t see it?? Is Danni the titular roommate?! Maybe she has some sort of split personality or something. So many questions, so little answers so far :(]. When Danni notices her, Margot’s glad to see a quick look of fear on her face.
Later, Lacey’s watching Danni hang up her laundry and we get possibly the best description of slut shaming I’ve ever read:
“You’re as bad as Mouse,” complained Lacey, who was in her characteristic horizontal position, this time on the rug by Danni’s bed.
[Hahaha so good] Mouse arrives home and demands to know what Lacey’s playing at with the makeover and Pete stuff, but Lacey doesn’t really give a proper answer before changing the subject to Margot, who’s absent from the room. Danni hasn’t seen her since the post office and explains that Margot leaves the dorm early and returns late at night while Danni’s sleeping. Lacey starts going through Margot’s closet, which makes Danni uncomfortable because it gives her the creeps to think of people going through her own things. Lacey senses Danni’s possessiveness of her belongings and seems to drop a hint that she’s looked through Danni’s closet before [I’m liking Lacey less and less as the book goes on].
Mouse takes the opportunity to confront Lacey about going through her things now, specifically the paper on her desk, and demands to know what she read. Lacey reveals that the words ‘sexual expression’ had jumped out at her, so how could she not read it? Mouse admits she takes advanced psych and that her parents are both psychiatrists, which absolutely repulses Danni [God knows why, though. Maybe she has something against doctors and hospitals and stuff like that after a bad experience? Would certainly explain the constant ‘crazy’ references].
That night, Danni’s woken by the phone [Which is in the bathroom for all four girls to share rather than one in each room, which seems weird to me], and when she answers it, the caller accuses Danni of being a bad friend and tells her she’ll be punished before hanging up. This obviously has something to do with Danni’s past, which just like with the other girls, we know very little about, and Danni is horrified. Then a pair of hands grab her from the darkness and Danni screams bloody murder.
It’s just Margot, though. Lacey, Mouse and Kendra burst into the room, and Danni explains about the phone call. Mouse and Lacey hadn’t heard it ring though, so nobody seems to believe Danni. Kendra wants to file a report if Danni’s worried about a stalker, but Danni doesn’t want people to think she’s weird and talk about her, so she says to just forget it. Margot suggests that maybe a past boyfriend has followed her to college, an idea which Danni is quick to shoot down, declaring it’s not possible [Why so quick to protest, Danni? What are you hiding…?].
Danni and Margot make up the next day and Danni struggles to forget about the phone call over the next few days. Eventually, Danni’s alone in the suite after class one afternoon, waiting for her roommates to return. The phone rings and it’s the creepy voice again who confesses to watching Danni and says they’ll be together again soon.
Danni is super dramatic, throwing down the receiver and collapsing onto her bed and making me think she knows why these calls are happening, or else why would she be so horrified about them?? Eventually her roommates return and notice something is seriously wrong. Danni mentions the call, and Lacey picks up the phone from the floor and listens, as if the caller would still be there [Lacey, please]. Danni thinks they don’t believe her again, but the girls encourage her to report it. She explains she doesn’t want people talking about her [Why not? WHAT ARE YOU HIDING, DANNI?!? I’m getting impatient].
Margot suggests they all go out to dinner, but Mouse has plans to meet Pete at the library about the newspaper and Lacey has a date with a boy named Travis. Mouse says that Travis isn’t Lacey’s type, but Lacey retorts that every type is her type, just in case you forgot that she’s the slutty one [I imagine ‘Promiscuous’ by Nelly Furtado plays whenever she enters a room]. Then Jordan calls to remind Danni about their movie date to watch ‘Pyscho’ at the campus Student Centre. Danni doesn’t remember making the date and definitely doesn’t remember telling him he loves those kinds of movies, as he claims [Is he gaslighting her? I feel like I’m more suss at Danni though, because this is the second time she’s told someone something and then completely denied it. Is she really this forgetful or is there something more sinister going on?!?], but tells him she’ll be down shortly. Mouse mentions that Pete had almost said something about Jordan, but stopped himself, which Danni tries to ignore but can’t help wondering about.
After the movie, which Danni thinks is gross by the way [Fuck u, Danni, horror’s the best], Jordan takes her to the campus topiary garden, used for some of the biology classes Salem offers [Wow, this campus has everything!]. As Danni stares at the animal-shaped bushes for a while, she realises Jordan’s no longer with her. She calls out to him, but there’s no reply except for the frightening whisper of her name. Scared, Danni searches for the exit:
She looked back, but she couldn’t see it. All she could see were topiary figures sitting motionless at tombstone markers on the grass.
And then she saw one of them move.
[Ooky spooky! That would be pretty creepy, but like, surely you wouldn’t get lost that easily when you just walked in. Go back the way you came?] Danni tries to run but gets tangled in a bear-shaped bush before she’s finally grabbed by the pursuer. It was just Jordan, playing a practical joke [Cheeky boy!]. It’s a bad habit of his apparently. Danni accuses him of making the phone calls but he denies it, saying he’d never do something like that. He promises to never play a joke like that again, convincing her to give him another chance, and she pretty much eliminates him as a suspect [He’s probably not the bad guy but there’s still something weird about him!].
Back at the Quad, Danni heads for her room, trying to work out who’s been making the phone calls. She decides it has to be some random making pranking calls, but can’t figure out how they’d know her name [Surely you don’t really think it’s a stranger, Danni! Come on]. When she arrives in her room, there’s no sign of Margot, but she does find her gold cashmere sweater slashed to ribbons and “YOU MUST DIE” written on the mirror in lipstick.
Mouse and Lacey appear from the bathroom to see what’s going on, but there’s no sign of Margot. Lacey and Danni suspect Margot as the culprit, but Lacey also suggests someone else could be responsible too, since although Danni’s door was locked, Mouse and Lacey’s was unlocked when they got home. Lacey encourages Danni to go to Kendra and report it because things are looking a lot more serious, but Danni still refuses [Why?!? There has to be a reason she’s so against doing something about all this but I can’t work it out]. As the three girls clean up, the topic changes to Mouse’s library session with Pete and Mouse reveals she’s been accepted for The Chronicle. She also seems to be a lot more confident, which is nice to see.
After Mouse goes to bed, Lacey and Danni find Margot’s letter opener inside Danni’s sweater drawer. Lacey suggests that anybody could have planted it there, not just Margot, who finally returns to the room at this point. When they explain what happened, Margot is surprised and apologises to Danni for not believing her about the phone calls, but the Danni and Lacey are still suss about her [I think Margot’s weird, but every character is dodgy in some way or another, including Danni, so it’s really hard to pinpoint who the bad guy is. We’re also nearing the end of the book and all that’s happened is two phone calls and now the sweater/mirror incident lol, this book is the definition of filler pages].
The next evening, Danni bumps into Jordan at the campus post office and he asks her to dinner. Danni says she’s too busy though, but tells him to call her and they’ll make plans another time. As she heads back to the Quad, she feels like she’s being watched and thinks she sees someone duck out of sight when she turns around. With none of her roommates home, Danni decides to get a snack from the vending machines in the Dungeon, settling on a bag of taco chips [Is that another name for Doritos?] mixed with a bag of M&Ms [Which actually sounds really good].
She decides now is as good a time as any to walk through the whole basement, since she hasn’t done it yet, and the thing is [Unrealistically] huge. At one point, she realises she’s alone in the hall and suddenly feels like she’s being watched. She starts running towards the sound of voices when a door suddenly opens and a figure steps out. It’s just a random girl though, who drops her laundry, startled by Danni’s screaming. Danni is super embarrassed and apologises before heading back to her room [How fkn awkward hahahaha].
Sometime later, Lacey’s studying in her room when Mouse comes out of the bathroom, stammering about the mirror. Lacey investigates and written on the mirror in lipstick is “YOU’LL BE PUNISHED.” She opens the door to Danni and Margot’s room and there’s Danni “lying motionless, face down on the bed.” It’s just another fake-out though, and Danni wakes up when Lacey rushes over to her. She fell asleep as soon as she’d gotten back to her room, so hasn’t been in the bathroom yet. The girls show her the mirror message and once again, Lacey and Mouse want to go to report it to Kendra because it affects all of them, but Danni protests. She knows the message is for her because it matches what the caller had said during the phone calls [I don’t know why Mouse and Lacey thought this message could have been for them when the first mirror message was on Danni’s mirror anyway?].
Later that night, Danni pretends to be asleep when Margot returns home, watching her through slitted eyes. She doesn’t want to believe Margot’s been behind everything because she seems to really like Danni. What reason would she have to do all this, especially when all Danni’s done is be her friend [And snoop through her drawers and accuse her of stealing… But still, is that motive enough for Margot to be doing all this?].
Then Danni’s thoughts turn to Mouse – she’s totally transformed since her makeover; she could have called from the payphone down the hall and then run back and pretended she’d been asleep; she also could have shredded the sweater; and it would have been easy for her to write the bathroom message and then pretend she’d only just noticed it. But surely meek, old Mouse could never do these things.
Next, she considers Lacey, the attention junkie who loves a thrill and has already admitted to being the black sheep of her family:
But Lacey would never cut up a cashmere sweater, thought Danni. Never. Would she?
[What the fuck kind of logic is this to eliminate a suspect? Danni, you’re an idiot]. Lacey could have written on the mirror before Mouse got home and made the calls as well. After all, she’s always banging on about how different she is, so maybe she means it when she says she’s wild and crazy? But why target Danni?
Finally, Danni focuses on Jordan, who could have easily been making the phone calls. But it would be near impossible for him to get into Danni’s room to write the messages and slash the sweater. Margot’s finally ready for bed at this point and turns off the light, leaving Danni to wonder in the darkness.
The next day, Lacey meets up with Jordan to discuss Danni, but before we can find out the specifics of the conversation, we cut to Mouse. She’s with Pete, struggling with her own secrets [That we still don’t know, lol] she’s been keeping. She starts to confess what she’s been hiding, but again we cut away before we learn anything. We’re with Margot now, who’s thinking about her roommates, wishing they were all dead for God knows why. She’s annoyed that she’s failed, but I have no idea what she means, because there’s no specifics. By this time it’s the early evening and Margot’s heading home. She thinks she sees Danni up ahead and quickens her pace, and now we switch to Danni.
Over the course of the day, Danni’s decided to face her fears and sit down her housemates tonight and talk everything through to find out what they know and what they suspect. She’s feeling a lot better now, not as scared, but then the feeling of being watched/followed catches up to her again. Instead of looking behind her or running to the dorm, she keeps the same speed, determined to show she’s not scared anymore. The suite is empty when she arrives, so she heads for the shower rooms to rinse off. Just as she finishes up the shower, the lights go out, plunging the room into darkness [Ooky spooky!].
Danni fumbles out of the shower and manages to reach the door just as Kendra bursts in with a flashlight and the lights come on again. Kendra explains that the old wiring in the building causes power outages sometimes [Would’ve been nice if this was established earlier in the book, but OK]. and Danni heads back to her room. Shortly after, Margot arrives home and invites Danni to study and watch TV down in the Dungeon’s lounge, leaving a note for Lacey and Mouse. Danni’s hesitant so Margot leaves without her, taking a flashlight in case of another blackout, but Danni changes her mind not long after that. The Dungeon is pretty empty, most likely deserted after the blackout, and when Danni arrives at the lounge, she finds it empty with the TV on. And then the lights go out.
The book then tricks us into thinking we’re still following Danni, but it’s really Margot, as revealed in the following chapter [Sneaky! It’s not immediately obvious because in stead of saying “Margot did blah blah blah”, it’s written as “she did blah blah blah”, so it’s very easy to assume we’re still with Danni]. Anyway, Margot hears footsteps right behind her and whips out the flashlight, facing the culprit. The light glints on something metal and a horrible scream is heard before the flashlight’s knocked from Margot’s hand. She drops down and turns it off so the attacker can’t see her, then moves from the spot, inching forward in the dark in search of the way out. She finds the wall and moves along it, but eventually her hand touches another person. The person grabs Margot’s arm and Margot flicks the flashlight on, revealing Lacey. There’s another horrible scream and the knife flashes down again.
Margot drops the flashlight and starts running from Lacey, still blind in the darkness. Some light appears ahead of her as a door opens and an alarm goes off [I guess it wasn’t a blackout this time?]. An emergency exit! Margot hurries toward the exit, not even thinking that it could be a trap. That is until Danni steps in front of her in the doorway [This is where we first learn we’ve been following Margot since the lights went out]. Margot ducks out of the way as Danni tries to stab her and demands to know why she’s doing this, kickstarting the bad guy monologue.
Turns out Danni was kept in a private wing of her family home with 24/7 care because she’s “special”. She knew her parents and carers were lying to her when she somehow found out about the outside world and college and realised that “special people didn’t have to live alone with a companion who was paid to watch you.” She killed her nurse and escaped to Salem, but had started to suspect Margot of making fun of her, copying her mannerisms and such. Margot explains that she was doing those things because she’d admired Danni, but Danni doesn’t believe this, accusing Margot of learning her secret and planning to send her back. And now Margot needs to be “PUNISHED” [This bad guy reveal is an absolute fucking mess and makes barely any sense, despite some clues that Danni was the bad guy].
Before Danni can attack Margot, Mouse yells out and Danni’s suddenly surrounded by cops and security guards. As Danni’s taken away, Lacey also appears, perfectly fine except where the knife nicked her palm [Honestly didn’t even know she got attacked because these last chapters seem like a rushed mess].
A few hours later, the three remaining roommates are back in the suite to give us a big exposition dump before the book ends. Turns out Lacey had suspected Danni for a little while [Didn’t want to tell anyone sooner, Lacey?] after noticing that things weren’t adding up with Danni – all of her clothes were brand new; she paid for everything in cash, as if she didn’t want to be traced; and she never got any mail, despite going to the mailbox and talking about calling her family constantly. When they got their phone bills, Lacey had snooped at Danni’s and saw that there had been no long distance calls made [Lacey Nancy Drewing all over the suite would’ve made a much better story].
She explains that the phone calls were all in Danni’s head and she’d written the mirror messages and destroyed the sweater herself. She really did believe someone was onto her, however, losing her grip on reality and fixating on Margot for some reason. Lacey had decided to keep a close eye on Danni, but noticed Danni was doing the same thing to Margot. She spoke to Jordan to get his perspective, and he’d also had some suspicions about Danni. The girls then think back to what the police had told them about Danni.
According to her extremely wealthy parents, she’d always been a strange child, becoming increasingly paranoid and violent as she got older. Gradually, one wing of their mansion had become “a sort of posh prison” for Danni, with barred windows and paid nurses and companions 24/7 [I guess this explains why Danni was constantly comparing things to hospitals and stuff]. But Danni had dreamed of a normal life and managed to get an application to Salem [And how exactly would she gotten an application, though? She was watched 24/7 and was always in the house by the sounds of it?? Ugh]. Danni waited for her parents to leave for a trip, murdering her companion at the time with a knife and escaping. It was kept quiet because Danni’s family was rich and well-connected, but no-one knew where Danni had disappeared to.
Mouse suggests Margot’s letter opener had triggered Danni’s volatile behaviour on campus before turning her attention to Lacey. She wants to know why her roommate acts like such an airhead when she’s clearly a lot smarter. Lacey sheepishly admits she was a straight A student in high school but didn’t want to be labelled smart because she hates labels [OK, but she’s happy to be labelled a promiscuous dingbat???? Also, really? This is her big secret? What the hell was up with the good self/bad self thing? Why was she making it seem like she was going to use Pete to humiliate Mouse or something? Ugh].
Next, we learn that all Mouse confessed to Pete earlier was what she was like before her makeover [As if it even matters, it’s not like she was pretending to be someone else??? She just gained more confidence in herself with Lacey’s help].
Finally we learn that Margot’s big secret is that she’s a scholarship student [Are you fucking kidding me?]. The rest of her stuff never arrived because she has no other stuff, and she has no pictures of her parents because they died when she was little and she was brought up by foster parents [So you don’t have a photo of your foster family who raised you? Rude…]. Margot was using Danni as a role model for how to act and what to wear, which helps explain why Danni thought Margot had learned her secret [Please tell me how it makes sense for Danni, who’s implied to have been kept locked up in her house her whole life, to understand social norms better than Margot, who’s grown up in foster care? I don’t know much about foster care but surely it’s not as detrimental to a person’s social awareness as Deathkins seems to think. Please correct me if I’m wrong]. Anyway, Margot’s ashamed of where she comes from and didn’t want the others to hold it against her [Wow, imagine being poor or a foster kid and reading this book. Also, when we first met Margot, she was so happy to be at college and away from the people that were holding her back – did she mean the foster parents who raised her?? There’s no shame in being in a foster family and not being rich. Fuck you, Margot].
Anyway, Margot asks how the girls even knew she was in trouble, and Lacey reveals she’d seen the knife in Danni’s belongings when she was snooping earlier and saw that it wasn’t there anymore after she read Margot’s note about studying in the basement. Then the girls decide it’s bedtime, but Margot wants a shower first because she’s so dirty.
As Margot washes the night’s events away alone in the shower room, a figure on the other side of the shower curtain frightens her. It’s just Lacey though, bringing Margot some “bath gel goo” [Sorry, what? Hahahahaha] and Deathkins clearly couldn’t come up with a good way to end the book because we get this shit:
Lacey grinned over her shoulder as she tried to leave. “Hey. You weren’t scared, were you, Margot?”
“Me? Nah,” said Margot. “Not me. I knew it was you the whole time. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t scared at all.”
[You actually were scared, Margot. Why are you lying? This whole last page is literally just filler, it easily could have ended with Margot deciding to go shower because she’s filthy from what happened. If it’s an attempt at a humorous quip the Point Horror books usually ends with, it doesn’t work. It’s just fkn stupid]
Final Thoughts
This was another book were nothing really happened, just like The Secret Bedroom. Everyone was a suspect, which was completely unnecessary and hindered the character development, and there was never any real danger until right at the end in the basement. There was no explanation of why Pete thought Jordan was the “roommate from hell”, or maybe it was because he was a prankster? Either way it was never explained clearly and everyone’s secrets were fucking stupid.
Even though there were small hints here and there that Danni was the bad guy, it ultimately feels like a cop-out because Danni was the main character and even though she wanted to keep the roommates in the dark about her past, there was no reason she couldn’t think about it internally. The things she said and her thoughts just don’t make sense, especially at the start of the book. It’s a similar issue to when we switched to Margot and Lacey’s perspective – why were they all written as if they were keeping a secret from themselves, even when alone?
The big climax in the Dungeon was also written horribly. It was hard to know what was happening in the dark, I guess to help put the reader inside Margot’s mind, but it just didn’t work the way I assume it was intended. There was way too much telling and not showing by the end of the book too. I get that Danni’s bad guy reveal is the big twist, but it would have been a lot more interesting if it wasn’t a twist at all and we watched her descend into madness over time, rather than it coming from almost nowhere in the last few pages. If this followed the normal Point Horror formula, Lacey would have been the main character and we would have followed her solving the case from all the clues instead of only being told about it at the end.
It was a better book than Mirror, Mirror and Sister Dearest, though, so i’ll give it 3 suspicious roommates with stupid secrets out of 29.
