HEARTBREAK HOTEL

Laura and Maya were childhood friends who have drifted apart in high school. Maya carries a torch for Laura but keeps it to herself, but then she and Laura kiss at Laura’s birthday party. Maya wakes up at the Heartbreak Hotel; this offers her a “timeout” from her life, but she’s stuck in a time loop in which she keeps waking up on the day of Laura’s party. Then, one morning, everything is different—she’s kicked out of her room and told to meet the other guests, who are also teenagers. The perspective shifts, and readers meet some of the other hotel guests: Martin is a lonely gay kid from a small town. He has a crush on someone he follows on Instagram and got his heart broken when he met the guy in person. Then there’s Fiona, a ballerina, whose heartbreak involves her childhood best friend, Eva, and her boyfriend Danny. Finally, there’s Finn, who doesn’t want to leave because he can’t face a world in which he’s responsible for his girlfriend’s death (“I read the checkout instructions and refused”). These characters, who are mostly strangers to each other, must become friends and work together to face their individual heartbreaks, escape the hotel, and return to their regular lives. The story of young love and grief is sad and poignant. Innocente’s expressive art is lovely, using mostly muted colors that fit nicely with the mood of the story. The hotel is literal, insofar as the characters all experience living in it, but it’s also an effective metaphor for the way people sometimes use escapism to cope with trauma. Because the characters are teenagers, they feel things particularly intensely—humiliation, betrayal, and grief are all recurring themes—and this is a deeply emotional work. There’s a dark twist at the climax, but this is ultimately a hopeful story, and one readers may find inspirational.