This was a strange book. Not in a bad way, but certainly not an average story. I found it surprisingly difficult to write this review, mainly because I do not want to spoil anything. Since it was a good thing for me to go into the story totally blind. The novel starts as one kind of story and ends as something completely different. I have never read a book before that changes its genre so clearly in the middle, but it turned out to be an amazing ride.

„New Yorker Danny is running from something. A loner who cannot bear to be apart from his Wi-Fi connection, he is in need of refuge. His cousin Howie is an enigmatic and successful former drug addict who just happens to own a castle. As they turn the castle from crumbling ruin to luxury hotel, Howie and Danny must navigate their uncomfortable relationship. And the castle has some surprises of its own: a sinister baroness, a tragic accident in a fathomless pool, a treacherous labyrinth, and through all of this, a story within a story.“

Blurb

I liked Danny and Ray, and I also liked Holly. I have read many reviews and articles about the book and especially about the ending, pointing out various flaws. Some of those did not bother me at all, and some of them were, in my opinion, simply not correct.

The biggest issue for me was the use of names in front of some of the direct speech parts, like:

Danny: „Hello!“

I suspect this bothered me more because I listened to the audiobook, but after a few pages I was able to ignore it.

As the story went on, I became extremely hooked. And I mean that quite literally. Even with the best Stephen King novel or any other great book, there usually comes a point where I need to stop reading or listening because I have had „enough“ for the moment. Here, that never happened. I constantly wanted to know what was going on. At times the story became so strange that I could not even guess where it was heading, and that uncertainty kept me reading.

The writing felt good and comfortable, never too flowery or overly poetic. Sometimes it was not entirely clear to me what was real and what was a dream or a thought, but that ambiguity only made the book better for me. I really liked the big twist after about 70% of the story, and I also liked the ending very much.

I rooted for Holly, Danny, and Ray, and I genuinely cared about them, even though the book is quite short. In the end, this was a clear five star read for me.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️