Review of The Splendor. The price you pay for luxury may be too high.

 What could be scarier than losing all your memories? How about having your memories taken from you? Hotel guests at The Splendor spend their days and nights living out their wildest fantasies, but they pay a steeper price than they realize for having their dreams come true.

I couldn't help but think that the owner of The Splendor could have accomplished the same thing if she just paid her employees a living wage instead of providing illusions. Use your money to fix the place up instead of pretending the dump was a prestigious hotel. Maybe I'm letting the economic situation of today cloud my mind but it does seem like the owner could have spent a little on upkeep. And not make your employees available 24 hours a day and have to sleep in the attic. Sheesh, the exhaustion of poor Henri made working in an Amazon warehouse look good.

One of the ways to gain sympathy when writing novels is to make the protagonist an orphan. Here we have two orphan protagonists, at least one thinks he's an orphan. And, they are likeable characters. For awhile their lives and problems slogged along for me, but once their lives were in danger the pace really picked up and became exciting. 

But, they did have a lip-biting problem. I think every character in the book bit his or her lip. My lip-bite-o-meter topped out. On top of that, the re-action to most things was to ball the hands into fists and dig the fingernails into the skin. I'm going to have to add a hurt-o-meter because the only way characters think in books today is when they intentionally hurt themselves. Why has this become a thing in YA? Are we all masochists now?

If I didn't burst into laughter every time someone bit their lip or dug their fingernails into their skin, I would have enjoyed the book  more. At least there wasn't much eyeball rolling. Thank God for small favors.

Thanks to Netgalley for loaning me an ebook of The Splendor in return for an honest relationship...er, review.