It was obvious that Emily was Kimberley’s mom… except it turned out that she wasn’t her mom. Because nothing in this type of sensationalist thriller is as it seems. Nothing. Even when the alternative twist is insane borderline nonsense.
What attracted me to Room 21 was the name of the author Jessica Huntley. I could imagine what one of my high school friends would be doing today if she still went by “Jessica Huntley” and had become a writer of lurid thrillers. I’ve listened to several of Jessica Huntley’s books now, and I can say she’s batshit crazy.
The protagonist of Room 21 Kimberley is hired as a housekeeper at a rural hotel that serves a particular type of clientele: the family and friends of rich, incestuous murderers, rapists, and pedophiles. Her employer Jennifer argues that it’s safer for society that such criminals work out their desires within the hotel’s walls with the specialty services it offers. Despite knowing all this, Kimberley isn’t trusted with the terrible secret held in Room 21.
Two narrators narrate the book from the perspectives of Kimberley, Jennifer, and a younger, seemingly unknown character. The narrator for Jennifer and the younger character does a good job. I didn’t recognize her as the same person the first time I listened to the book. The younger character describes her time as a pregnant prisoner in a mysterious room. While her situation is desperate, her pathetic-ness and tendency to refer to her baby as “my bump” (or “my bum” as I misheard at first) also makes her sound slightly unhinged. And with good reason.
It turns out Room 21 holds the real Jennifer because the person posing as Jennifer is actually Emily, the unknown character but older and a rape victim turned prisoner of the hotel turned housekeeper turned mastermind doppelganger. With Kimberley’s help, Emily plans to kill everyone in the hotel. Jennifer is also Kimberley’s sister, revealing Kimberly as a relative of this heinous family. Is the secret within Room 21 horrifying to anyone except Kimberley? What was in Room 21 before Emily locked Jennifer in there and stole her identity? Emily hasn’t been impersonating Jennifer for that long, but the staff treat the room like it’s existed for ages. None of them knew their real employer was in there?
Throughout the book, we’re lead to believe that Emily is Kimberley’s mother. Kimberley’s father’s brother has also been Kimberley’s doctor for the past twenty years and giving her drugs that led her to believe she had severe epilepsy and asthma just because he could. Among the last reveals of the book, however, is that a completely unrelated woman Rachel Evans is actually Kimberley’s mother, and Kimberley’s real father was killed in a car crash. The real rape child was hidden somewhere else out in the world by one of the hotel staff.
Still, after helping to murder everyone in the hotel, Kimberley decides to continue working there as a housekeeper. Under the new management of Kimberley and Emily, the hotel becomes a home for victims of rape and murder. And Room 21 becomes a torture chamber for victims to exact their revenge against their attackers.
Yep.
The moral of the story is rich people are evil. Jeffrey Epsteins and worse, all of them!
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