DARKROOM

After Beatrice downloads DARK[room], she realizes the game’s ghosts aren’t confined to the digital realm.

The Ghastly Girls, sophomore best friends Beatrice and Rochelle, are trying to build a following by streaming video online of themselves playing games. Their specialty is horror. Eager to up their subscriber count, Beatrice downloads the indie game DARK[room] despite desperate online warnings from other players that it could be deadly. The concept seems simple enough: snap photos of the seven unleashed ghosts in as many days. What the girls didn’t anticipate was that the ghosts would spill over from the app, haunting and terrorizing the people in their lives. At first, readers might think they’re in for a predictable, cheesy read, but in Alexander’s hands, the story is fast-paced and interesting, and the ghosts are well imagined. Take, for example, the Tooth Fairy with its dozens of fangs, pincers formed from cat’s teeth, spiderlike appearance, and terrorizing need for more teeth to add to its collection. The story is mostly propelled by action with a modest amount of character development. Alexander’s best move, though, is wrapping up the story for Beatrice and crew but giving the book a chilling epilogue, leaving room for more haunting. Beatrice defaults to White; Rochelle is Black.

Spooky thrills for digital natives.