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Naomi's Room

Naomi's Room - Jonathan Aycliffe
“Where the darkness hides a living nightmare”
 
They had hopes and dreams but they quickly vanished. As they were finally settling into their own home in London, the family began to hear noises from upstairs. Four-year-old Naomi tells her father that while she is sleeping at night, there are eyes that are watching her. A few days later, Naomi reveals that there are two friends that are living at the house with her, Victoria and Caroline. Are these imaginative friends or something else? Naomi doesn’t expand on this conversation with her father and neither does he ask further questions, it just becomes a fact.
 
This novel is told through the eyes of the father and I was getting bored with his narration and the flow of this novel. He spoke matter-of-factly and I couldn’t feel any emotion from his writing nor was I getting emotional from reading it. I wanted to know when the “living nightmare” would begin as I was ready to find something else to read. As Naomi and her father shop at a local toy store, Naomi vanishes. Panicked, her father searches and later, the store helps in on the search but they can’t locate Naomi. The police are called in and then, they find Naomi’s damaged body outside the store. Grieving, the parents return home but they are not alone. They hear crying and strange things begin to occur at the home. “The dead don’t rest unless the living rests” and Naomi’s parents are not resting with their daughter dead. As they get outside help, the novel picks up speed and it finally gets interesting. It was creepy, weird and unexpected in the end which saved this novel.
 
The reviews are high for this novel which surprised me and many were commenting that they didn't like the ending.  It's funny how we all have different tastes.  
 
Using this for my Halloween Bingo - there were lots of ghostly themes in this short novel.