Nightmare Hall #2: The Roommate (Diane Hoh)

I apologize for the lack of posts and that my first post isn't SVU related. Unfortunately, my computer died a few weeks ago and I finally got the word that they had to wipe the hard drive. The 20 or so odd reviews for SVU books that I had save, but not posted, are now gone and I just can't face re-reading those books right now. Look for some Sweet Valley High reviews first, until I can get back in the SVU mindset.

This is yet another one of those books where nothing seems to happen, even though the book is almost 200 pages long. Basically there are four girls living together at college. Lacey gets there first, only to learn that she has the boring Mouse for a roommate. The two girls share a bathroom with two other girls, but only Danni arrives.

Danni wakes up in the middle of the night and finds Margot, her new roommate standing over her. She gets a little suspicious because Margot doesn’t have a lot of clothes, carries around a silver letter opener that looks like a knife and does odd stuff like take a shower in the middle of the night.

The girls try to hang out as friends, but Margot always seems to bring down the group. Like they go to a frat party and she glares at all the guys, including the one Danni wants to date, the same guy who invited them. Mouse clings to Margot, until Lacey gives her a makeover. Suddenly she’s a hot piece of ass that all the guys want and gets an editor position on the college newspaper. What is this crap, is she related to Elizabeth Wakefield?

Danni is loving college, but she’s still trying to get used to living with people. She grew up with two wealthy parents who bought her everything she wanted, but traveled all the time so she was raised by nannies and housekeepers. She doesn’t like sharing with people and has a meltdown when Margot wears one of her sweaters and swears that Danni told her to keep it.

It doesn’t help when Danni starts getting threatening messages. First, someone calls her on the phone and threatens to tell everyone what she did. Then the same person leaves painted messages on her doors and the mirror in her room. Her roommates band together with her, trying to help her and discover who’s stalking her.

Yeah, anyway the book leads up to a moment where Margot, Danni and Mouse are stuck in the tunnels underneath their dorm. Danni goes crazy, knocks Mouse down and tries to kill Margot. At the last moment, Lacey shows up with the cops and their RA and manage to save the day. Damn it! Danni was the only person in this book that I liked!

It turns out that Danni was a psychopath, who was stuck under lock and key by her parents because she went crazy. One night, she killed her nurse and ran away. She had all the money in the world, but chose to go to college. Obviously she really was nuts. Lacey figured out that she was faking the phone calls and left the notes herself. Mainly Lacey figured something was wrong because Danni always paid for stuff in cash and never used a credit card, which makes absolutely no sense. Oh well, it’s over.