Author: Gina Wohlsdorf
Release Date: June 7, 2016
Series: –
Genre: Slasher, Thriller, Suspense
Pages: 241
Publisher: Algonquin Books

Rating: ★★★★★

Blurb:

When the gleaming new Manderley Resort opens in twenty-four hours, Santa Barbara’s exclusive beachfront hotel will offer its patrons the ultimate in luxury and high-tech security. No indulgence has been ignored, no detail overlooked. But all the money in the world can’t guarantee safety. As hotel manager Tessa and her employees ready the hotel for its invitation-only grand opening, a killer is in their midst. One by one, staff are picked off with ruthless precision. And before the night is over, as Tessa desperately struggles to survive, it will become clear that the strangest and most terrible truth at Manderley is simply this: someone is watching.
With stunning ingenuity, Gina Wohlsdorf puts readers front and center as the elite resort becomes a house of horrors. Riveting to the final sentence, Security is fierce, wry, and impossible to put down. With a deep bow to the literary tradition of Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and Daphne du Maurier, Wohlsdorf’s razor-wire prose blitzes readers with quick twists, sharp turns, and gasp-inducing terror. Security is at once a shocking thriller, a brilliant narrative puzzle, and a moving, multifaceted love story unlike any other.

Review

THIS BOOK IS TOTALLY AWESOME!!!

First of all, I’d like to thank Kim (one of the best book reviewers I’ve ever met and a good friend) who personally recommended this book to me. Thanks a bunch, Kim, you’ve introduced me to some pretty awesome books, but this one takes the cake.
Read Kim’s review of Security here.

Coming back to the review, I loved Security for more than a dozen reasons. If I’ll try and explain all of them, I’ll probably go nuts because I’m already feeling too excited to even write a review for this book. So I’ll just list a few reasons why I loved this book so much without getting into details:

• Unique concept. Security is written from the point of view of a stranger who see the entire hotel through a number of cameras (around 25 of them.)
• The sheer brilliance of the plot line.
• Remarkable characterization in a sense that more than half of the characters were only two-dimensional, but on purpose. That was how they were meant to be, and they played their magic in a way that was intended.
• Exceptional pacing.
• Ingenious execution of the plot.
• The shamelessly artistic dissection of human emotions.
• Excellent writing highlighted by clever dialogues and eloquent  sarcasm.
• Awfully, yet brilliantly gory slashing and trashing
• Heartbreaking ending. I’m still so upset about how the book ended that it’s literally making me go crazy. It didn’t make me weep (that would have been creepy) but it really unsettled me because I literally fell for the unknown POV guy (Mr. Head Of Security.)
• The abrupt scene cuts, in my opinion, served as a master stroke and delivered a sense of urgency quite beautifully.

I’d recommend this book to each and everyone out there who read books. You should read this book simply because if you don’t, then you’ll miss out on a really, really, really GOOD book. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do that. Do you?

Bookstagram

Other Stuff

Opening Line: The maze is twenty-five hundred yards square.

Highlights: Everything!

Lowlights: None

Memorable Quotes:

“The best security is invisible security.”

“No one, except one person, is aware that no one, except two people, have access to 1802.”

“She never looks so sad as when she looks almost happy.”

“The most thorough safety is safety one’s object of protection doesn’t know about.”

Memorable Paragraph:

“It is easy to be nice when being nice is easy, but niceness is the first thing to go when an unexamined life becomes even slightly difficult. People begin failing tests then never realized they were taking. people get pills; people get mistresses. They get angry at grand injustices they created for themselves, and they created those injustices in an effort to ignore the fundamental, foundational injustice that being alive means living in the shadow of death. It strikes them – these blessed children – as horribly unfair.”

Final Thoughts: This book is a masterpiece!

You can also read this review at Goodreads, Netgalley, and Amazon.