Gone At Midnight by Jake Anderson: Book Review

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Gone at Midnight: The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam
[Purchase it on Amazon | Check it out on Goodreads]

My rating:

Genre:

True Crime

What it’s about:

A Los Angeles hotel with a haunting history. A missing young woman. A cold-case mystery that has become an internet phenomenon—and for one determined journalist, a life-changing quest toward uncomfortable truths.

Twenty-one-year-old student Elisa Lam was last heard from on January 31, 2013, after she checked into downtown L.A.’s Cecil Hotel—a 600-room building with a nine-decade history of scandal and tragedy. The next day, Elisa vanished. More than a week later, complaints by guests of poor water quality led to a grim discovery: Elisa’s nude body floating in a rooftop water tank. The only clue was a disturbing surveillance video of Elisa, uploaded to YouTube in hopes of public assistance.

As the video went viral, journalist Jake Anderson set out to uncover the facts. In Gone at Midnight he chronicles eye-opening discoveries about who Elisa Lam really was and what—or whom—she was running from, offering stunning new insights into one of the most chilling and obsessively followed true crime cases of the century.

My thoughts:

If you’ve read my blog before, you might know that I’m super interested in true crime.

When it comes to true crime, there are cases that I get sort of obsessed with once in a while. And Elisa Lam’s mysterious death was one of those cases for me. I preordered this book as soon as I learned that it was coming out.

Gone At Midnight dives deep into Elisa Lam’s life, her movements leading up to her tragic death at the Cecil Hotel, and theories surrounding the case.

I liked that this book dove so deep into Elisa Lam’s story and I learned a lot of new information about her, about the Cecil Hotel, and about the incident.

I gave this book a 4-star rating but I guess I would say it’s more of 3.5 stars from me. Certain parts of it were interesting to read but certain parts were just super repetitive and I had to skip around through them, to be honest.

I also didn’t like how the author made so much of the book about himself. It’s understandable to give some information about how you relate to the case, but it started to seem like more of an autobiography at times and it just felt awkward for me to read.

I don’t necessarily recommend this book to true crime junkies in general but if you’re very interested in Elisa Lam’s story, then it’s worth a read!