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Nightmare Hall #1
The Silent Scream
High on a hillside overlooking Salem University, hidden in shadows and shrouded in silence, sits Nightingale Hall. Nightmare Hall, the students call it. Because that's where the terror began.
Jess is eager to start college—until she arrives at her off-campus dorm.
She can see why everyone calls it Nightmare Hall. Especially when she learns the dark secret hidden within the house.
A girl named Giselle hanged herself there. In Jess's room.
But was it really suicide?
Or was Giselle murdered?
Echoing through the house, Jess can still hear the sound of Giselle's last scream. . .
Jess is eager to start college—until she arrives at her off-campus dorm.
She can see why everyone calls it Nightmare Hall. Especially when she learns the dark secret hidden within the house.
A girl named Giselle hanged herself there. In Jess's room.
But was it really suicide?
Or was Giselle murdered?
Echoing through the house, Jess can still hear the sound of Giselle's last scream. . .
229 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1993
About the author
Diane Hoh
83 books292 followersDiane Hoh is the author of fifty-seven novels for young adults. She grew up in Warren, Pennsylvania but currently resides in Austin, Texas. Reading and writing are her favorite things, alongside gardening and grandchildren.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
April 19, 2019
Jess Vogt arrives at her off-campus dorm which overlooks Salem University, eager to begin college. The dorm is old, dark, and dreary. Jess's room seems to have a cold draft and is always chilly. She finds out from her fellow residents at the dorm that a young and pretty student named Giselle had previously stayed in her room and committed suicide in it by hanging herself. This gives Jess the creeps. Strange things are also happening at the dorm---rooms are being broken into, doors slam and windows shatter for no reason... Jess is also getting clues that maybe Giselle didn't commit suicide and could possibly have been murdered. But by who? Jess can't see her fellow residents at the dorm doing anything like this. The more she investigates, the more she is convinced Giselle was murdered...
This was a fun old read from the 90's. It was meant for teens/young adults but I also enjoyed it. It was fast paced and provided a few chills. I really liked the creepy dorm setting. It had an interesting cast of characters. A very entertaining read.
This was a fun old read from the 90's. It was meant for teens/young adults but I also enjoyed it. It was fast paced and provided a few chills. I really liked the creepy dorm setting. It had an interesting cast of characters. A very entertaining read.
September 7, 2021
I remember having the first couple of books from this series as a teen, as I’m working my way through all the Point Horrors it was fun to revisit this one again.
It’s a great introduction that launches Nightmare Hall, as Jess moves into her new dorm room it really feels like the reader is joining the other students at college too.
Jess soon finds out that her room has a dark past as former student Giselle was found hanging from the light fixture.
Unsettling Jess is convinced that Giselle is trying to communicate with her, the strange girl in the photo booth picture was really creepy.
Did Giselle really commit suicide? It’s a good mystery that pays off, it’s a good start to the series.
The rest of the series is available on Amazon KindleUnlimited, it will be interesting to see how many more of these I can recall whilst I progress through them.
It’s a great introduction that launches Nightmare Hall, as Jess moves into her new dorm room it really feels like the reader is joining the other students at college too.
Jess soon finds out that her room has a dark past as former student Giselle was found hanging from the light fixture.
Unsettling Jess is convinced that Giselle is trying to communicate with her, the strange girl in the photo booth picture was really creepy.
Did Giselle really commit suicide? It’s a good mystery that pays off, it’s a good start to the series.
The rest of the series is available on Amazon KindleUnlimited, it will be interesting to see how many more of these I can recall whilst I progress through them.
November 24, 2023
4.5 stars
Greatly enjoyed this one, could be top 5 in my point horror read through so far. And another solid book from the Nightmare Hall series. Despite being the longest book iv read in the series, the pace was very quick, mostly due to the well written mystery and cliffhanger pages. I would say the reveal is the obvious choice, but I don't mind it as at the time this was written it probably wasn't as big a cliche as it is now.
It's Jess' freshman year at college and she moves in to an off campus house with 5 other new students. When they learn a girl committed suicide in the house the year before, they are all nervous. But when Jess starts to feel the ghost of the girl is reaching out, all the students start to be terrorised by the spectre. Why is the ghost doing this? And could it be she is trying to tell them that her death was not by her own hand?
Greatly enjoyed this one, could be top 5 in my point horror read through so far. And another solid book from the Nightmare Hall series. Despite being the longest book iv read in the series, the pace was very quick, mostly due to the well written mystery and cliffhanger pages. I would say the reveal is the obvious choice, but I don't mind it as at the time this was written it probably wasn't as big a cliche as it is now.
It's Jess' freshman year at college and she moves in to an off campus house with 5 other new students. When they learn a girl committed suicide in the house the year before, they are all nervous. But when Jess starts to feel the ghost of the girl is reaching out, all the students start to be terrorised by the spectre. Why is the ghost doing this? And could it be she is trying to tell them that her death was not by her own hand?
January 14, 2024
A great introductory book to the series. Sets up the "nightmare" hall pretty vividly and the story had just enough twists and turns to leave me unsure of who the killer was.
March 3, 2022
In this first Nightmare Room book, a YA thriller by Diane Hoh and part of the Point Horror series, we have our main character Jess moving into a rental house along with some college roommates. She discovers that a previous college student "apparently" hung herself in the room she's staying in. Soon enough, evidence pops up that could prove otherwise. Will Jess figure out the truth behind this hushed-up "suicide"...?
I didn't much care for this book. It wasn't terrible - the writing was competent enough, the characters were okay... the story just never really grabbed me. It felt a bit one dimensional and only barely held my interest enough to finish the book. The love interests between the college students was pretty shallow and seemed tacked on. The mystery aspect never provided any true suspense or tension. It was just sort of a bland reading experience. Oh, and the climax of the story, the big reveal and the "final kill"... it was goofier than hell. It was the most WTF cause of death I've read in a book in a long time. If you don't care to read this book or have it spoiled, well, here you go:
So... yeah. Iprobably definitely won't be reading anymore books from the Nightmare Hall series. Again, not necessarily terrible, just not my cup of tea. I'll stick with Fear Street for some cheesy teenage slashing fun.
I didn't much care for this book. It wasn't terrible - the writing was competent enough, the characters were okay... the story just never really grabbed me. It felt a bit one dimensional and only barely held my interest enough to finish the book. The love interests between the college students was pretty shallow and seemed tacked on. The mystery aspect never provided any true suspense or tension. It was just sort of a bland reading experience. Oh, and the climax of the story, the big reveal and the "final kill"... it was goofier than hell. It was the most WTF cause of death I've read in a book in a long time. If you don't care to read this book or have it spoiled, well, here you go:
So... yeah. I
September 3, 2025
This read just like a standard 'Point Horror' although I can see the reoccurance of characters and Nightingale Hall itself being a nice framing device for the series going forward. I do have to say as fun, pulpy and easy read as this was its definitely my least favourite Diane Hoh so far (I've read Funhouse and The Train) but that could be because I hold her other work in such high regard. I thought the the mystery aspect was a bit weak as the who in question was fairly obvious and there was this supernatural side plot that never really gets resolved so ended up feeling slightly out of place.
September 13, 2015
Silly and fun, just as I remember
March 8, 2021
Well written YA retro novel exploring an unusual house with a group of opposites 'dorming' together. The villain wasn't a big surprise, but there were red herring finger pointing to misdirect. No bodies, but sabotage in the rooms, interesting personalities, a ghost, and it's an easy, quick read.
August 20, 2025
Love a murder mystery with ghost elements! I really enjoyed this book, lots of potential suspects! I had fun guessing, and then DOUBLE FAKEOUT! I really thought I had this figured out, I was so sure it was Ian. It’s fun to be right, but it’s also fun to be surprised! I couldn’t stop reading once I really got into the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2021
This was a really nostalgic read. It's been more than 10 years since I first read this and my feelings have clearly changed. I wasn't as intrigued or scared as before. I also think that the main character needs to rethink her life choices. However, the ending that this book gave made me realize why I did love reading this series. Heh 😏 It was just so... Sneaky. 😏😏😏 I love it.
January 3, 2022
More like a 3.5
Entertaining and a pretty quick read. Kept me guessing and I'm glad to have revisited this series. Will definitely be continuing.
Entertaining and a pretty quick read. Kept me guessing and I'm glad to have revisited this series. Will definitely be continuing.
January 25, 2022
I finally got around to reading the first book in the Nightmare Hall series after reading a few of the later ones first and I find it kind of funny how it is suppose to set up this whole series for things to come in the thriller/horror/supernatural plots.
So a girl named Giselle McKendrick is found by the house mother in her dorm room on the off-campus housing called Nightingale Hall...hanging from a light fixture of apparent "suicide" Her housemates eventually move out to other places and the building stands empty until nine months later when a new crop of Salem University freshmen show up.
We have three girls: Cath, Jess and Linda with three boys: Jon, Ian and Milo. There is also Mrs. Coates, the house mother, and a handyman named Trucker. The first day they are there Mrs. Coates has a bad fall and dislocates her hip so the kids are on their own with occasional visits from Mrs. Coates' friend to bring them care packages.
Things get spooky when Ian tells them that a girl died in the house and Jess is living in her old room. It only freaks her out a little bit but then Jess discovers the room is always cold that she can't even wear shorts and a t-shirt. It's when doors start to slam on their own, muddy footprints appear out of nowhere in the halls and the college kids' belongings start to vanish and become vandalized.
Jess believes it is Giselle from beyond the grave, haunting the house due to taking her own life. but pretty soon Jess thinks maybe it is Giselle trying to tell them...she was murdered instead.
We then go into trying to discover who really killed Giselle, pointing fingers, red herrings, good misdirection, a twist and then an ending where I was left confused. I won't spoil it but the conclusion doesn't really seem to set up why strange things happen at either the school or in this off-campus housing unit.
In any case, I thought The Silent Scream was good and might have given it 5 stars if the ending (not the payoff but the actual last chapter and pages) didn't leave me feeling a little perplexed.
So a girl named Giselle McKendrick is found by the house mother in her dorm room on the off-campus housing called Nightingale Hall...hanging from a light fixture of apparent "suicide" Her housemates eventually move out to other places and the building stands empty until nine months later when a new crop of Salem University freshmen show up.
We have three girls: Cath, Jess and Linda with three boys: Jon, Ian and Milo. There is also Mrs. Coates, the house mother, and a handyman named Trucker. The first day they are there Mrs. Coates has a bad fall and dislocates her hip so the kids are on their own with occasional visits from Mrs. Coates' friend to bring them care packages.
Things get spooky when Ian tells them that a girl died in the house and Jess is living in her old room. It only freaks her out a little bit but then Jess discovers the room is always cold that she can't even wear shorts and a t-shirt. It's when doors start to slam on their own, muddy footprints appear out of nowhere in the halls and the college kids' belongings start to vanish and become vandalized.
Jess believes it is Giselle from beyond the grave, haunting the house due to taking her own life. but pretty soon Jess thinks maybe it is Giselle trying to tell them...she was murdered instead.
We then go into trying to discover who really killed Giselle, pointing fingers, red herrings, good misdirection, a twist and then an ending where I was left confused. I won't spoil it but the conclusion doesn't really seem to set up why strange things happen at either the school or in this off-campus housing unit.
In any case, I thought The Silent Scream was good and might have given it 5 stars if the ending (not the payoff but the actual last chapter and pages) didn't leave me feeling a little perplexed.
January 4, 2025
Empieza con un contenido sobrenatural atrayente que luego se diluye para ser reemplazado por intrusiones en los dormitorios con pequeños sabotajes. La autora inserta también algo de contenido romántico de vez en cuando entre los seis estudiantes que habitan la casa para que los protagonistas se relajen lo justo y vuelvan a ser sorprendidos otra vez con alguna amenaza menor.
Afortunadamente, en los últimos capítulos del libro la situación se vuelve más seria con intentos de asesinato y con más contenido fantasmagórico. Creo que si la trama se hubiese centrado en una historia con casas encantadas y crímenes, imitando el estilo gótico y reduciendo al mínimo los malentendidos y las rabietas de las universitarias, podríamos estar hablando de una obra de terror ejemplar, pero hay demasiadas escenas con broncas y acusaciones repetitivas que impiden una buena atmósfera. El caso es que el principio me ha atrapado mucho y el final recupera un poco ese toque, aunque podría haber estado mejor, me ha convencido a medias.
ENGLISH
It begins with an attractive supernatural content that is then diluted to be replaced by intrusions into the bedrooms with small sabotages. The author also inserts some romantic content from time to time between the six students who live in the house so that the protagonists relax just enough and are surprised again with some minor threat.
Fortunately, in the last chapters of the book the situation becomes more serious with assassination attempts and more ghostly content. I think that if the plot had focused on a story with haunted houses and crimes, imitating the Gothic style and minimizing the misunderstandings and tantrums of the university girls, we could be talking about an exemplary horror work, but there are too many scenes with fights and repetitive accusations that prevent a good atmosphere. The fact is that the beginning really caught me and the end regains that touch a little, although it could have been better, it half convinced me.
Afortunadamente, en los últimos capítulos del libro la situación se vuelve más seria con intentos de asesinato y con más contenido fantasmagórico. Creo que si la trama se hubiese centrado en una historia con casas encantadas y crímenes, imitando el estilo gótico y reduciendo al mínimo los malentendidos y las rabietas de las universitarias, podríamos estar hablando de una obra de terror ejemplar, pero hay demasiadas escenas con broncas y acusaciones repetitivas que impiden una buena atmósfera. El caso es que el principio me ha atrapado mucho y el final recupera un poco ese toque, aunque podría haber estado mejor, me ha convencido a medias.
ENGLISH
It begins with an attractive supernatural content that is then diluted to be replaced by intrusions into the bedrooms with small sabotages. The author also inserts some romantic content from time to time between the six students who live in the house so that the protagonists relax just enough and are surprised again with some minor threat.
Fortunately, in the last chapters of the book the situation becomes more serious with assassination attempts and more ghostly content. I think that if the plot had focused on a story with haunted houses and crimes, imitating the Gothic style and minimizing the misunderstandings and tantrums of the university girls, we could be talking about an exemplary horror work, but there are too many scenes with fights and repetitive accusations that prevent a good atmosphere. The fact is that the beginning really caught me and the end regains that touch a little, although it could have been better, it half convinced me.
Read
June 29, 2021The inaugural entry in the Nightmare Hall series asks a lot of important questions, like "did the girl who died in Jess's room the previous year commit suicide or was she moidered?", "does anyone consciously decide to die in a bright yellow halter top?", and "if a scream screams silently in off-campus housing, but no den mother is around to hear it, did the scream scream silently at all?"
July 25, 2024
“There's a reason why they call it
Nightmare Hall ...
Jessica Vogt gets a rude awakening when she moves into Nightingale Hall and learns that the previous spring, a student named Giselle hanged herself from a light fixture-in Jess's new room. Campus officials
pronounced it a suicide. But did Giselle really kill herself? Or was it a setup?”
I am obsessed with Diane Hoh, my favorites are her Nightmare Hall Series.
Her books are such a quick read, can’t put it down until I am finished, thankfully they aren’t too long. It Seems like they were popular back in the 90’s, point horror, ya, easily appreciated by all ages.
They do what any good, well written book does, make you forget everything for a little while.
Her books are always well written, very descriptive with strong, likable characters. I love the group setting. The school setting is in Salem which is just creepy enough.
Silent Scream was one of my favorites.
You have a creepy feeling throughout with all kinds of little things happening to our main character, Jess.
Absolutely worth reading.
Nightmare Hall ...
Jessica Vogt gets a rude awakening when she moves into Nightingale Hall and learns that the previous spring, a student named Giselle hanged herself from a light fixture-in Jess's new room. Campus officials
pronounced it a suicide. But did Giselle really kill herself? Or was it a setup?”
I am obsessed with Diane Hoh, my favorites are her Nightmare Hall Series.
Her books are such a quick read, can’t put it down until I am finished, thankfully they aren’t too long. It Seems like they were popular back in the 90’s, point horror, ya, easily appreciated by all ages.
They do what any good, well written book does, make you forget everything for a little while.
Her books are always well written, very descriptive with strong, likable characters. I love the group setting. The school setting is in Salem which is just creepy enough.
Silent Scream was one of my favorites.
You have a creepy feeling throughout with all kinds of little things happening to our main character, Jess.
Absolutely worth reading.
July 11, 2025
I read this book in my teens and loved it, it was my first “thriller”. For the last maybe 15 years I’ve been trying to remember the title and I FINALLY figured it out. The nostalgia!!!! I loved reading it again as an adult!!!!
Did Not Finish
May 2, 2023dnf @9% - nothing wrong with her, i'm just not in the moooooooood
October 15, 2020
Onvan : The Silent Scream (Nightmare Hall, #1) - Nevisande : Diane Hoh - ISBN : 0590488260 - ISBN13 : 9780590488266 - Dar 229 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 1993
Read
April 23, 2026The Silent Scream (Nightmare Hall)
Jess has just arrived at Nightingale (or rather “Nightmare Hall as others call it) at Salem University. She meets the other residents Ian, John (a rich boy who likes sailing), Linda (guessed to be a swimmer because her hair is tinged green), Cath (who would be pretty if she didn’t look tense and anxious), and Milo (who has long hair, a beard, and glasses and is reading a book). There’s also a handyman named Trucker. Mrs. Coates isn’t there to let them in so Jess (whose the monitor) has to let them in with her key. She goes in last and tells herself its because of manners, but realizes she’s actually scared when Trucker makes the comment.
The house is spacious. Although, Jess’s room is pretty its FREEZING cold! She shrugs it off tho. It’s the first time she’s had a room to herself without having to share with her sisters. They all have a poarch party that night to get to know one another. They talk about what brought them to the house. Linda and I am on on scholarships (swimming and baseball) but it didn’t cover room and board. Cath’s parents want her to concentrate more on education than having fun. Jon thought living off campus would be more lax. Milo and Jess were brought by financial issues.
It’s revealed by Ian, that there was a girl named Giselle that died “in the purple room” (Jess’s room). Not only did she die. She killed herself. Milo tells them they really need to change the subject and a shutter slams as if in agreement. Its talked about a little that Giselle’s ghost still might be lingering around, but after this the party breaks up and they all head for bed. Mrs. Coates all of a sudden fall down the steps and an ambulance is called. (She’s dislocated her hip). Trucker goes with her to the hospital. She’s adamite about them calling her friend (Maddie) because they can’t stay there alone. Maddie doesn’t pick up and they discus what would be the harm if they stayed by themselves. Trucker returns and says she’ll probably turn them down anyway.
Jess says she’ll try again to call and see if she and Maddie can work something out. The wind starts shrieking and the lights go out. Truckers says it just happens sometimes and fixes it. Later that night, a scream wakes Jess up. She asks about the next morning and no one else heard it. So, she brushes it off as a dream. When Jess registers, she finds out that Giselle’s suicide was “assumed”.
Maddie finally answers and tells Jess, they’re grown and can watch themselves but as a promise to her friend she’ll pop in every now and then. Jess is flipping through one of her books and sees that the previous owner was Giselle McKendrick from Nightingale Hall. Everyone goes out that night (except for Milo) to check out the local hang outs. Tucker it turns out bumps into them in one of the spots is says he’s a student and takes night classes (Duffy’s). Ian and Jess take a picture in a photo booth but there’s another girl in the picture with them. Noone else came into the booth.
Ian explains it as probably a double exposure from the person who used the booth before them. Jess isn’t so sure. Cath flips out and accuses Milo of stealing her paper because he hasn’t even started his. She starts to tear his room up, but finds nothing. She leaves in anger telling him she’s going to re-do her paper so don’t think about turning hers in. After this, Ian calls a pop corn break. Everyone talks about how they visited Salem University previously for an orientation (except Jess) and had they known what they do now if they’d still be living in Nightingale Halll. Jon has missed everything so when Milo and Linda leve Jess tells him what happened. He takes Cath’s side. Jess says he’s just shy but remembers the anger on his face when Cath accused him of stealing her paper.
Giselle’s brother Avery (whose been in the Philippines) comes to pick up a trunk of his sister’s things. Its reveled that he nows Milo who was a close friend of Giselle’s until high school. Before he gets the trunk, he tells them despite what they heard Giselle didn’t commit suicide.
After Avery leaves with the trunk, the gang quiz Milo, who says his friendship with Giselle drifted in high school because she was a big deal and he wasn’t. He also mentions that she had a boyfriend from out of town. Jess returns home after her classes to an empty house and discovers a trail of muddy footprints that start in the middle of the hallway and end in her room. Linda returns home and assures Jess that it was probably just someone who put muddy shoes on in the hall and took them off again when they realised the mess they were making, Linda says she can’t help her. What’s strange is the footprints seem to disappear on their own. Jess then takes a nap and wakes up to discover a shadow swinging back and forth on her wall.
The shadow has thick curly hair and Jess realizes it must be Giselle. Trucker, Linda, Ian, Milo, and Cath come running. When she looks at the wall, there’s nothing there. Even when they turn the lights off. The others say it was probably just a dream. She brings up the scream she heard on the first night, but she caves and lets herself believe like the others it was a dream. Ian suggests she convince Mrs. Coates to switch her room. She then gets ready to go to a party to take her mind off it. She has a good time but doesn’t forget what happened.
At the party, Jess meets Beth and she says she saw Giselle being beaten by an unfamiliar guy with long hair. It took place on the day before Giselle died. Ian asks her to dance, and she puts this out of her mind. She doesn’t mention what Beth told her. He kisses before they head to bed. The next day, Jess hears Linda scream. Someone has torn Linda’s swimsuit to shreds. Cath says now she knows how she feels. Linda goes off about how her scholarship is in jeopardy. Milo comes to comfort her. Linda blames Cath but Cath denies it. She says she probably did it herself because she accused Milo.
Trucker defends Cath. He was fixing the light bulb and never saw her come out of her room. Linda says she probably used the fire escape outside their window. Cath says she wasn’t able to open her window. Its almost as if it was glued shut. Tucker is able to open the window. A week goes by. Ian doesn’t ask Jess to the Fall ball. One day, Jess discovers her sweaters are on top and her tee-shirts are at the bottom of her drawer. Then she feels something soft, wet, and moving. Its fat, big, worms.
Trucker says they must have come up from the cellar. She says no someone put them there. Ian and Trucker get rid of the worms. Ian and Jess go to dinner. They invite Trucker but he turns them down. They run into friends. When the talk turns to fishing and worms, Jess has had enough. Linda is primping for a library date with Milo when her mirror explodes. The others explain this away and say that someone must have thrown something in through the open window. The furniture takes the hit. Linda and Jess are ok.
Jess puts two and two together and realizes it happened when they were talking about Giselle just like all the other times. Such when Ian brought her up at the party. The window slammed. When they were talking about her in the kitchen, the lights went out. Later in the week, Jess finds a picture of Giselle with a black slash over her face. She realizes it must have come from under the drawers when Ian removed some things from under the dressers. She then realizes it’s the same girl who showed up in the photo she and Ian took at the photo booth.
She finds a letter that says “Dear Giselle, Your time has run out. You’ve stalled long enough. You haven’t answered any of my phone calls or my letters. So I’m coming there and you’d better be ready to leave with me. I’m not taking no for an answer. Your forever love.
At breakfast, she shows everyone the photo and letter and says she’s going to try to find the other letters. Ian questions why she wants to do this and is annoyed. Jess wonders why he’s so angry. Then she thinks of how she was seen fighting with a guy with long hair like Milo and Ian. And how she overheard Jon on the phone telling a girl blond hair and blue eyes made him weak in the knees. Milo also could have been obsessed with her. Trucker thinks they were just talk.
Cath discovers her essay in Milo’s notebook when Linda grabs it to see what’s in it. Milo again denies having stole it. He says he doesn’t know how it got there. Ian finally asks Jess to the Fall Ball and she accepts tho she’s suspicious that he could be the one that was coming to see Giselle from out of town. He was angry that she didn’t toss the letter and the picture.
The next night, everyone goes to a frat party. Jess fakes a headache so she can stay home and search for the letters. The powr goes off and she goes to the basement to see if Trucker is doing something electrical. When she goes down the stairs something makes her fall down the stairs and the last thing she hears is the door being locked. She comes to realize someone shoved her, she head her head, and she smells gas. She tries to escape but the doors are locked. She finds a piece of fabric and covers her nose and mouth. She’s able to shut off the gas. Then is able to go through a window.
Someone pins her down with his foot. She can’t tell who it is because he’s whispering and she can’t see him. He says he knows she was faking having a headache and he says Giselle promised to marry him but she lied to him just so she could go to college. Jess knows it’s now her time. She says she doesn’t have the letters. He says he knows because he does. He wraps a noose around her neck. Jess finds a slice of glass. Just then a car pulls up. He runs off saying he’s not finished with her.
Jess explains to everyone (minus Milo) what happened. She tells them about the fabric she found on the nail and then recognizes where she saw it. On one of Milo’s jackets. Milo is missing. He didn’t go to the party with the others. She remembers that Milo was in the basement with Trucker and Avery and sent Trucker upstairs to get a soda. Linda gets mad and upset and says it couldn’t be Milo (despite the evidence). She says that both Jon and Ian left the party for a while. Milo then appears and has on the jacket. It has a tear on it. After being confronted, he says he was in the library studying and that the jacket reappeared on his chair after it went missing for 2 weeks. Milo packs his things (seeing they don’t believe him) and leaves.
A type writer is found in Milo’s closet. This is odd because Linda says he didn’t know how to type. He’d been handwriting all his assignments. But all of Giselle’s letters were typed and the G on the typewriter matches ehe one on the letter to Giselle. Jess points out this should prove that Milo was lying (to Linda) and she sadly starts to believe it. After the Fall Ball, Jess and Ian come back to the house. A girl comes by and says she’s returning Milo’s jacket that Milo lent her on their walk home from the library. The girl says she helped him type his essay because the teacher said because of his bad handwriting he couldn’t turn in another handwritten paper.
Jess hears a voice calling to her from the creek. When she gets there she finds a photo of Giselle in the water and there’s Trucker. Trucker says he saw Milo put the photo there and run off. Jess then notices a slash on his neck and realizes this is from when she jabbed him with the glass shard. She can’t hide her expression quick enough and Trucker realizes she knows. He’s tied Ian up so he can’t come to her rescue. Trucker starts to tell the story of how he helped Giselle when her car broke down and then he continued to help her. Her parents were both ill but after her father recovered he begin to pay attention to her again and encouraged her to go to college. Giselle told Trucker she’d only go for a year then come back to him, but she never did. So, he killed her and made it look like a suicide. Since Giselle spoke of Milo often and how sorry she was they were no longer friends when he saw Milo was a resident, he know he had the perfect patsy. Trucker comes toward Jess with a wire, but Giselle’s photo blows up and plasters itself to his face and suffocates him.
Rating: 5 and a half (Just like in most YA and middle school “horror” books, I feel like authors tend to skimp on the “scare” element. here were a couple of good scary moments in this but only a couple. Mostly it boiled down to Giselle appearing in the photo’s and Jess realizing it was Giselle (that would have scared the crap out of me) and her seeing the image of her hanging in the dark. Both good touches but some things could have been sacrificed to amp up the Giselle haunting Nightmare Hall.)
Jess has just arrived at Nightingale (or rather “Nightmare Hall as others call it) at Salem University. She meets the other residents Ian, John (a rich boy who likes sailing), Linda (guessed to be a swimmer because her hair is tinged green), Cath (who would be pretty if she didn’t look tense and anxious), and Milo (who has long hair, a beard, and glasses and is reading a book). There’s also a handyman named Trucker. Mrs. Coates isn’t there to let them in so Jess (whose the monitor) has to let them in with her key. She goes in last and tells herself its because of manners, but realizes she’s actually scared when Trucker makes the comment.
The house is spacious. Although, Jess’s room is pretty its FREEZING cold! She shrugs it off tho. It’s the first time she’s had a room to herself without having to share with her sisters. They all have a poarch party that night to get to know one another. They talk about what brought them to the house. Linda and I am on on scholarships (swimming and baseball) but it didn’t cover room and board. Cath’s parents want her to concentrate more on education than having fun. Jon thought living off campus would be more lax. Milo and Jess were brought by financial issues.
It’s revealed by Ian, that there was a girl named Giselle that died “in the purple room” (Jess’s room). Not only did she die. She killed herself. Milo tells them they really need to change the subject and a shutter slams as if in agreement. Its talked about a little that Giselle’s ghost still might be lingering around, but after this the party breaks up and they all head for bed. Mrs. Coates all of a sudden fall down the steps and an ambulance is called. (She’s dislocated her hip). Trucker goes with her to the hospital. She’s adamite about them calling her friend (Maddie) because they can’t stay there alone. Maddie doesn’t pick up and they discus what would be the harm if they stayed by themselves. Trucker returns and says she’ll probably turn them down anyway.
Jess says she’ll try again to call and see if she and Maddie can work something out. The wind starts shrieking and the lights go out. Truckers says it just happens sometimes and fixes it. Later that night, a scream wakes Jess up. She asks about the next morning and no one else heard it. So, she brushes it off as a dream. When Jess registers, she finds out that Giselle’s suicide was “assumed”.
Maddie finally answers and tells Jess, they’re grown and can watch themselves but as a promise to her friend she’ll pop in every now and then. Jess is flipping through one of her books and sees that the previous owner was Giselle McKendrick from Nightingale Hall. Everyone goes out that night (except for Milo) to check out the local hang outs. Tucker it turns out bumps into them in one of the spots is says he’s a student and takes night classes (Duffy’s). Ian and Jess take a picture in a photo booth but there’s another girl in the picture with them. Noone else came into the booth.
Ian explains it as probably a double exposure from the person who used the booth before them. Jess isn’t so sure. Cath flips out and accuses Milo of stealing her paper because he hasn’t even started his. She starts to tear his room up, but finds nothing. She leaves in anger telling him she’s going to re-do her paper so don’t think about turning hers in. After this, Ian calls a pop corn break. Everyone talks about how they visited Salem University previously for an orientation (except Jess) and had they known what they do now if they’d still be living in Nightingale Halll. Jon has missed everything so when Milo and Linda leve Jess tells him what happened. He takes Cath’s side. Jess says he’s just shy but remembers the anger on his face when Cath accused him of stealing her paper.
Giselle’s brother Avery (whose been in the Philippines) comes to pick up a trunk of his sister’s things. Its reveled that he nows Milo who was a close friend of Giselle’s until high school. Before he gets the trunk, he tells them despite what they heard Giselle didn’t commit suicide.
After Avery leaves with the trunk, the gang quiz Milo, who says his friendship with Giselle drifted in high school because she was a big deal and he wasn’t. He also mentions that she had a boyfriend from out of town. Jess returns home after her classes to an empty house and discovers a trail of muddy footprints that start in the middle of the hallway and end in her room. Linda returns home and assures Jess that it was probably just someone who put muddy shoes on in the hall and took them off again when they realised the mess they were making, Linda says she can’t help her. What’s strange is the footprints seem to disappear on their own. Jess then takes a nap and wakes up to discover a shadow swinging back and forth on her wall.
The shadow has thick curly hair and Jess realizes it must be Giselle. Trucker, Linda, Ian, Milo, and Cath come running. When she looks at the wall, there’s nothing there. Even when they turn the lights off. The others say it was probably just a dream. She brings up the scream she heard on the first night, but she caves and lets herself believe like the others it was a dream. Ian suggests she convince Mrs. Coates to switch her room. She then gets ready to go to a party to take her mind off it. She has a good time but doesn’t forget what happened.
At the party, Jess meets Beth and she says she saw Giselle being beaten by an unfamiliar guy with long hair. It took place on the day before Giselle died. Ian asks her to dance, and she puts this out of her mind. She doesn’t mention what Beth told her. He kisses before they head to bed. The next day, Jess hears Linda scream. Someone has torn Linda’s swimsuit to shreds. Cath says now she knows how she feels. Linda goes off about how her scholarship is in jeopardy. Milo comes to comfort her. Linda blames Cath but Cath denies it. She says she probably did it herself because she accused Milo.
Trucker defends Cath. He was fixing the light bulb and never saw her come out of her room. Linda says she probably used the fire escape outside their window. Cath says she wasn’t able to open her window. Its almost as if it was glued shut. Tucker is able to open the window. A week goes by. Ian doesn’t ask Jess to the Fall ball. One day, Jess discovers her sweaters are on top and her tee-shirts are at the bottom of her drawer. Then she feels something soft, wet, and moving. Its fat, big, worms.
Trucker says they must have come up from the cellar. She says no someone put them there. Ian and Trucker get rid of the worms. Ian and Jess go to dinner. They invite Trucker but he turns them down. They run into friends. When the talk turns to fishing and worms, Jess has had enough. Linda is primping for a library date with Milo when her mirror explodes. The others explain this away and say that someone must have thrown something in through the open window. The furniture takes the hit. Linda and Jess are ok.
Jess puts two and two together and realizes it happened when they were talking about Giselle just like all the other times. Such when Ian brought her up at the party. The window slammed. When they were talking about her in the kitchen, the lights went out. Later in the week, Jess finds a picture of Giselle with a black slash over her face. She realizes it must have come from under the drawers when Ian removed some things from under the dressers. She then realizes it’s the same girl who showed up in the photo she and Ian took at the photo booth.
She finds a letter that says “Dear Giselle, Your time has run out. You’ve stalled long enough. You haven’t answered any of my phone calls or my letters. So I’m coming there and you’d better be ready to leave with me. I’m not taking no for an answer. Your forever love.
At breakfast, she shows everyone the photo and letter and says she’s going to try to find the other letters. Ian questions why she wants to do this and is annoyed. Jess wonders why he’s so angry. Then she thinks of how she was seen fighting with a guy with long hair like Milo and Ian. And how she overheard Jon on the phone telling a girl blond hair and blue eyes made him weak in the knees. Milo also could have been obsessed with her. Trucker thinks they were just talk.
Cath discovers her essay in Milo’s notebook when Linda grabs it to see what’s in it. Milo again denies having stole it. He says he doesn’t know how it got there. Ian finally asks Jess to the Fall Ball and she accepts tho she’s suspicious that he could be the one that was coming to see Giselle from out of town. He was angry that she didn’t toss the letter and the picture.
The next night, everyone goes to a frat party. Jess fakes a headache so she can stay home and search for the letters. The powr goes off and she goes to the basement to see if Trucker is doing something electrical. When she goes down the stairs something makes her fall down the stairs and the last thing she hears is the door being locked. She comes to realize someone shoved her, she head her head, and she smells gas. She tries to escape but the doors are locked. She finds a piece of fabric and covers her nose and mouth. She’s able to shut off the gas. Then is able to go through a window.
Someone pins her down with his foot. She can’t tell who it is because he’s whispering and she can’t see him. He says he knows she was faking having a headache and he says Giselle promised to marry him but she lied to him just so she could go to college. Jess knows it’s now her time. She says she doesn’t have the letters. He says he knows because he does. He wraps a noose around her neck. Jess finds a slice of glass. Just then a car pulls up. He runs off saying he’s not finished with her.
Jess explains to everyone (minus Milo) what happened. She tells them about the fabric she found on the nail and then recognizes where she saw it. On one of Milo’s jackets. Milo is missing. He didn’t go to the party with the others. She remembers that Milo was in the basement with Trucker and Avery and sent Trucker upstairs to get a soda. Linda gets mad and upset and says it couldn’t be Milo (despite the evidence). She says that both Jon and Ian left the party for a while. Milo then appears and has on the jacket. It has a tear on it. After being confronted, he says he was in the library studying and that the jacket reappeared on his chair after it went missing for 2 weeks. Milo packs his things (seeing they don’t believe him) and leaves.
A type writer is found in Milo’s closet. This is odd because Linda says he didn’t know how to type. He’d been handwriting all his assignments. But all of Giselle’s letters were typed and the G on the typewriter matches ehe one on the letter to Giselle. Jess points out this should prove that Milo was lying (to Linda) and she sadly starts to believe it. After the Fall Ball, Jess and Ian come back to the house. A girl comes by and says she’s returning Milo’s jacket that Milo lent her on their walk home from the library. The girl says she helped him type his essay because the teacher said because of his bad handwriting he couldn’t turn in another handwritten paper.
Jess hears a voice calling to her from the creek. When she gets there she finds a photo of Giselle in the water and there’s Trucker. Trucker says he saw Milo put the photo there and run off. Jess then notices a slash on his neck and realizes this is from when she jabbed him with the glass shard. She can’t hide her expression quick enough and Trucker realizes she knows. He’s tied Ian up so he can’t come to her rescue. Trucker starts to tell the story of how he helped Giselle when her car broke down and then he continued to help her. Her parents were both ill but after her father recovered he begin to pay attention to her again and encouraged her to go to college. Giselle told Trucker she’d only go for a year then come back to him, but she never did. So, he killed her and made it look like a suicide. Since Giselle spoke of Milo often and how sorry she was they were no longer friends when he saw Milo was a resident, he know he had the perfect patsy. Trucker comes toward Jess with a wire, but Giselle’s photo blows up and plasters itself to his face and suffocates him.
Rating: 5 and a half (Just like in most YA and middle school “horror” books, I feel like authors tend to skimp on the “scare” element. here were a couple of good scary moments in this but only a couple. Mostly it boiled down to Giselle appearing in the photo’s and Jess realizing it was Giselle (that would have scared the crap out of me) and her seeing the image of her hanging in the dark. Both good touches but some things could have been sacrificed to amp up the Giselle haunting Nightmare Hall.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2024
I read this with my book club that I run on Instagram where we revisit Point Horror and other books from our childhood - @talespointhorrorbookclub
Nightmare Hall: The Silent Scream is book one in the Nightmare Hall series written by Diane Hoh. This series was unique amongst the off-shoots of point horror as all the books in the Nightmare Hall Series were written by Diane Hoh.
The story for book one of Nightmare Hall is basically a whodunit story based in a fictional university called Salem University. A group of students, Jess, Ian, Jon, Cath, Linda and Milo who are starting at the university cannot afford to stay on campus so decide to take up digs at Nightingale Hall with old Mrs Coates to be their house mother and Trucker the handy man, but they soon find out that people have nicknamed the house on the hillside Nightmare Hall due to recent events that have taken place there.
The scene and atmosphere of the hall are set up nicely in the prologue at the beginning of the book which gives a chilling back story about a young girl called Giselle McKendrick who committed suicide in her bedroom at Nightingale Hall the bedroom that in present day Jess occupies. For a point horror book I found this prologue quite disturbingly terrifying. Even though the prologue is short it has the dramatic chilling impact it needs to set the story off nicely.
The story is told from Jess's point of view. Jess is definitely a better example of a point horror character than some point horror characters I have re-read recently. She is smart, witty and loves pizza (who doesn't?)! The other students are all different. You have Jon, the ladies man, Linda, the athlete, Ian, the nice guy, Milo, the geek, Trucker, the handy handy man and Cath who is just Cath but does provide some laughs. When the house mother of Nightingale Hall has a somewhat sporadic accident the new students at Nightingale Hall are determined to be grown up and look after themselves and have a good time whilst doing it. But thanks to some strange goings on, including a ghostly photograph, things going missing, noises in the night, getting locked in the cellar and a strange worm encounter that would put I'm A Celebrity Get Me out of Here! to shame there is defiantly something awry in Nightingale Hall. Jess soon starts to think that maybe Giselle's death was not a suicide...maybe someone was responsible for her death and is now trying to cover their tracks and kill her in the process!
I have to admit I don't really remember this book from the first time around in the 90's. I obviously had it and read it as it was in my collection upon digging the books out of the shed, but I remembered nothing whatsoever about it. As far as point horrors go I thought this was pretty good. I found the reveal in the end a bit guessable, but enjoyed the whole whodunit premise and loved all the spooky, terrifying stumbling blocks Jess and her friends had to contend with and overcome.
There were some rather dated dialogue and some great 90's references in the book. For example, Jon dreams of Kim Basinger and orange laces that everyone seemed to have on their trainers (I'm sure these are back in fashion actually?!). So this gave the book quite a retro feel and did make me laugh on a more than a few occasions adding some comedic value to what, as a young reader years ago would never have picked up on. There were also some big shocking fashion no no's. At one point Cath choses to where a pale blue cloud dress (!?) to the Fall Ball....the imagination runs wild with that one and James Dawson has put a lovely picture he found of a pale blue cloud dress on his point horror book club page for this book (check it out - its great but beware of spoilers!)! I loved the fact that the dating scenes read like a sketch from Made In Chelsea....all dating each other and swapping around who they fancied which again was great fun to read.
All in all I enjoyed the re-read of this book many years after the first time around. It really is a great addition to the Point Horror Series and one of the top ranking in the re-reads so far.
Nightmare Hall: The Silent Scream is book one in the Nightmare Hall series written by Diane Hoh. This series was unique amongst the off-shoots of point horror as all the books in the Nightmare Hall Series were written by Diane Hoh.
The story for book one of Nightmare Hall is basically a whodunit story based in a fictional university called Salem University. A group of students, Jess, Ian, Jon, Cath, Linda and Milo who are starting at the university cannot afford to stay on campus so decide to take up digs at Nightingale Hall with old Mrs Coates to be their house mother and Trucker the handy man, but they soon find out that people have nicknamed the house on the hillside Nightmare Hall due to recent events that have taken place there.
The scene and atmosphere of the hall are set up nicely in the prologue at the beginning of the book which gives a chilling back story about a young girl called Giselle McKendrick who committed suicide in her bedroom at Nightingale Hall the bedroom that in present day Jess occupies. For a point horror book I found this prologue quite disturbingly terrifying. Even though the prologue is short it has the dramatic chilling impact it needs to set the story off nicely.
The story is told from Jess's point of view. Jess is definitely a better example of a point horror character than some point horror characters I have re-read recently. She is smart, witty and loves pizza (who doesn't?)! The other students are all different. You have Jon, the ladies man, Linda, the athlete, Ian, the nice guy, Milo, the geek, Trucker, the handy handy man and Cath who is just Cath but does provide some laughs. When the house mother of Nightingale Hall has a somewhat sporadic accident the new students at Nightingale Hall are determined to be grown up and look after themselves and have a good time whilst doing it. But thanks to some strange goings on, including a ghostly photograph, things going missing, noises in the night, getting locked in the cellar and a strange worm encounter that would put I'm A Celebrity Get Me out of Here! to shame there is defiantly something awry in Nightingale Hall. Jess soon starts to think that maybe Giselle's death was not a suicide...maybe someone was responsible for her death and is now trying to cover their tracks and kill her in the process!
I have to admit I don't really remember this book from the first time around in the 90's. I obviously had it and read it as it was in my collection upon digging the books out of the shed, but I remembered nothing whatsoever about it. As far as point horrors go I thought this was pretty good. I found the reveal in the end a bit guessable, but enjoyed the whole whodunit premise and loved all the spooky, terrifying stumbling blocks Jess and her friends had to contend with and overcome.
There were some rather dated dialogue and some great 90's references in the book. For example, Jon dreams of Kim Basinger and orange laces that everyone seemed to have on their trainers (I'm sure these are back in fashion actually?!). So this gave the book quite a retro feel and did make me laugh on a more than a few occasions adding some comedic value to what, as a young reader years ago would never have picked up on. There were also some big shocking fashion no no's. At one point Cath choses to where a pale blue cloud dress (!?) to the Fall Ball....the imagination runs wild with that one and James Dawson has put a lovely picture he found of a pale blue cloud dress on his point horror book club page for this book (check it out - its great but beware of spoilers!)! I loved the fact that the dating scenes read like a sketch from Made In Chelsea....all dating each other and swapping around who they fancied which again was great fun to read.
All in all I enjoyed the re-read of this book many years after the first time around. It really is a great addition to the Point Horror Series and one of the top ranking in the re-reads so far.
December 27, 2020
The Silent Scream (Nightmare Hall, #1) by Diane Hoh opens with six students arriving at Nightingale Hall dubbed Nightmare Hall, which is their off campus dorm at Salem University. After the students learn the deep, dark secret that another student committed suicide in the dorm, odd things begin happening.
Diane Hoh was a very popular author in the 1990's with a slew of books to her name. It seems as though she simply vanished into thin air as I haven't heard of any new books written by her. I'll have to look into what happened to her and why she hasn't continued writing, or if she has continued writing, why I haven't heard of those books.
In my attempt to reread my way through my childhood, I picked up The Silent Scream (Nightmare Hall, #1) by Diane Hoh. Since this wasn't a book that I reread a ton as a kid, I really didn't remember too much about the book with a couple of exceptions, and those parts that I did remember, I only remembered when I started reading those sections. So, it was like reading the book for the first time again, and it gave me all the feels and didn't disappoint.
Diane Hoh did a great job on throwing suspicion on several different characters throughout the book on who the "bad guy" was. Being an adult, I thought I knew who it was from the get go, but when the author put out the other clues, I did doubt myself a bit and let myself be led astray. The great thing about this book is that everything was resolved by the end of the book.
The Silent Scream was a compelling read and fast paced. It could easily be read in two or three hours, even by the target audience. With that being said, every time I sat down to read, I was really tired and only got fifty or so pages read at a time, and it took me a few days to finish. I gave it five out of five stars, and even though it was written in the 1990's, kids today would enjoy this book and the series.
If you enjoyed The Silent Scream (Nightmare Hall, #1) by Diane Hoh, then you would enjoy Trick or Treat by Richie Tankersly Cusick.
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Diane Hoh was a very popular author in the 1990's with a slew of books to her name. It seems as though she simply vanished into thin air as I haven't heard of any new books written by her. I'll have to look into what happened to her and why she hasn't continued writing, or if she has continued writing, why I haven't heard of those books.
In my attempt to reread my way through my childhood, I picked up The Silent Scream (Nightmare Hall, #1) by Diane Hoh. Since this wasn't a book that I reread a ton as a kid, I really didn't remember too much about the book with a couple of exceptions, and those parts that I did remember, I only remembered when I started reading those sections. So, it was like reading the book for the first time again, and it gave me all the feels and didn't disappoint.
Diane Hoh did a great job on throwing suspicion on several different characters throughout the book on who the "bad guy" was. Being an adult, I thought I knew who it was from the get go, but when the author put out the other clues, I did doubt myself a bit and let myself be led astray. The great thing about this book is that everything was resolved by the end of the book.
The Silent Scream was a compelling read and fast paced. It could easily be read in two or three hours, even by the target audience. With that being said, every time I sat down to read, I was really tired and only got fifty or so pages read at a time, and it took me a few days to finish. I gave it five out of five stars, and even though it was written in the 1990's, kids today would enjoy this book and the series.
If you enjoyed The Silent Scream (Nightmare Hall, #1) by Diane Hoh, then you would enjoy Trick or Treat by Richie Tankersly Cusick.
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July 13, 2012
I went crazy and raided the clearance section at Half Price. Having bought over half the series, I was praying that this series wouldn't be completely horrible. Yeah, it was only like 50 cents a book, but it would still suck if I wasted money I could have spent on other books. Nothing will ever beat how much I love Fear Street books, but I feel like this series wouldn't be too bad of a substitute. I can't give much opinion on the series as a whole because I haven't read any of the others yet, but I wasn't disappointed. This book wasn't poop your pants scary. There was a definite creep factor and there were several instances where I sat up in my seat like 'What the hell?!! That's freaky!'. The photo booth scene and the time Jess woke up in the middle of the night were the best parts for me. I have a feeling that I would have found this book scarier if I'd read it back when I was younger.
Part of me was apprehensive about how much I would like this book. I've read reviews on several sites saying how predictable they are and I was kind of bummed. The best part of these 90's horror books are on trying to guess who the crazy is. I will give props to the author because I felt the complete opposite. Normally, I'm pretty good at guessing, but this time I had no clue. Sure, I could say that I had suspected the culprit from the beginning, but that wouldn't be fair because I suspected everyone in the dorm at one time. I honestly kept waffling around the roommates and coming up with wild theories about who it was. Jess sort of annoyed me towards the end because she could have easily figured out who the killer was. All she had to do was . If she had just done that, none of the crappy stuff by the creek would have happened.
Part of me was apprehensive about how much I would like this book. I've read reviews on several sites saying how predictable they are and I was kind of bummed. The best part of these 90's horror books are on trying to guess who the crazy is. I will give props to the author because I felt the complete opposite. Normally, I'm pretty good at guessing, but this time I had no clue. Sure, I could say that I had suspected the culprit from the beginning, but that wouldn't be fair because I suspected everyone in the dorm at one time. I honestly kept waffling around the roommates and coming up with wild theories about who it was. Jess sort of annoyed me towards the end because she could have easily figured out who the killer was. All she had to do was . If she had just done that, none of the crappy stuff by the creek would have happened.
December 22, 2008
The first book in Diane Hoh's mid-nineties paranormal young adult series featuring the haunts of hijinks of Salem University focuses on Jessica Vogt, a college freshman with a roommate from hell...literally. When strange things start happening at her off-campus dorm--Nightingale Hall, a secluded brick house that shares the series' ominous monicker--Jessica learns her room is the one in which former student Giselle McKendrick hanged herself. But was Giselle's death really a suicide, as the campus officials claimed?
I don't know about you, but I've got chills.
Okay, not really. But when I was eleven, and my best friend Shawna loaned me this book to read, I did.
Of course, back then I was more apt to overlook such annoyances as the glittery prose used to describe the protagonist, her shiny hair, and her navy-blue eyes, or the ellipses...that plague...almost every...paragraph..
(What was the deal with the early nineties that everything had to be all neon and spandex and adjectives every other word? Seriously.)
Bottom line: I was happy to see how well this story had held up over time. Is there better YA fiction out there today? You bet. But there's still something very special about Hoh's work.
I don't know about you, but I've got chills.
Okay, not really. But when I was eleven, and my best friend Shawna loaned me this book to read, I did.
Of course, back then I was more apt to overlook such annoyances as the glittery prose used to describe the protagonist, her shiny hair, and her navy-blue eyes, or the ellipses...that plague...almost every...paragraph..
(What was the deal with the early nineties that everything had to be all neon and spandex and adjectives every other word? Seriously.)
Bottom line: I was happy to see how well this story had held up over time. Is there better YA fiction out there today? You bet. But there's still something very special about Hoh's work.
July 9, 2017
I owned a book from this series as a kid and enjoyed it. From what I faintly remember of that books is very different from this one. It was good but not much different from the other horror books of the 90's.
April 1, 2021
I don't know how I missed this series when it was first written, but I did. I am catching up on it now. Diane Hoh was a great writer. This book was pretty good and it kept me guessing. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
December 16, 2016
An easy but enjoyable read. A classic ghost story with a resolved ending. How will nightmare hall continue is the big question.
February 12, 2023
Exceeded my expectations. Great descriptions, fast moving plot, not super predictable!
March 26, 2026
I have never read any of the Nightmare Hall books so I have deiced to read through some of these this year and see how I feel about them.
Jess Vogt shows up at her run-down, beat-up, old-ass, off-campus dorm overlooking Salem University, ready to start college. Instead, she walks into a Nightingale Hall and well, feels weird the second she steps inside. Her room is the worst than the rest of the place. It’s always cold and there’s some sort of draft. Then she learns about the last girl to stay in her room. A girl by the name Giselle. She was pretty, popular, and, according to everyone else in the on campus, until she killed herself. She supposedly hung herself right in Jess's new room. Strange things start happening around the dorm. Doors slam when no one’s near them. Mirrors crack and explode for no reason. Rooms get broken into, homework gets stolen, swimsuits cut to pieces. It doesn’t feel random, it feels like someone is messing with Jess and the other residents. And then Jess starts finding things. Small details that don’t line up with the story she was told on campus. Pieces of a story someone wants to keep untold. The more she digs, the less she believes Giselle killed herself. Until the point Jess is one hundred percent convinced someone killed Giselle. The problem is, Jess doesn’t know who to trust in the dorm. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more it feels like whoever killed Giselle isn’t finished.
So, again, this is my first time reading a Nightmare Hall book, and I will say it captured my attention with a fun little mystery. I really enjoyed reading this and flew through it. I will say, I did pick out the killer pretty early on, I can understand why people would lean towards one character but IMO there was a lot of signs pointing to the killer. Which is fine because not only did I have fun reading it, I felt good about myself for being right. I have already began book two, because this one was so much fun. Should I do a blog post series for these books?
Nah...
Jess Vogt shows up at her run-down, beat-up, old-ass, off-campus dorm overlooking Salem University, ready to start college. Instead, she walks into a Nightingale Hall and well, feels weird the second she steps inside. Her room is the worst than the rest of the place. It’s always cold and there’s some sort of draft. Then she learns about the last girl to stay in her room. A girl by the name Giselle. She was pretty, popular, and, according to everyone else in the on campus, until she killed herself. She supposedly hung herself right in Jess's new room. Strange things start happening around the dorm. Doors slam when no one’s near them. Mirrors crack and explode for no reason. Rooms get broken into, homework gets stolen, swimsuits cut to pieces. It doesn’t feel random, it feels like someone is messing with Jess and the other residents. And then Jess starts finding things. Small details that don’t line up with the story she was told on campus. Pieces of a story someone wants to keep untold. The more she digs, the less she believes Giselle killed herself. Until the point Jess is one hundred percent convinced someone killed Giselle. The problem is, Jess doesn’t know who to trust in the dorm. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more it feels like whoever killed Giselle isn’t finished.
So, again, this is my first time reading a Nightmare Hall book, and I will say it captured my attention with a fun little mystery. I really enjoyed reading this and flew through it. I will say, I did pick out the killer pretty early on, I can understand why people would lean towards one character but IMO there was a lot of signs pointing to the killer. Which is fine because not only did I have fun reading it, I felt good about myself for being right. I have already began book two, because this one was so much fun. Should I do a blog post series for these books?
Nah...
March 12, 2022
After rearranging my horror/gothic book shelf, I surprised myself by finding a good few Goosebumps, Point Horror and other young adult horror books, and knew what I'd be reading next!
I really enjoyed going back to reading point horror, I don't think I've read one since I was a teenager, but boy did I enjoy it!
I've not read this point horror before, but this book had the familiarity of an old friend, which to me, is a comfort blanket when reading.
🎓
Six students move into an off campus dorm, to a house where a girl had died off apparent suicide the previous summer, but the story of her death is still fresh in many peoples minds, especially the word word "apparent"...
⚠️Spoiler Alert ⚠️
Giselle's murderer is still around, and he's determined to cover his tracks from last summer.
I was confident I knew who it was, even when all the evidence pointed to one of new students, I thought it was misdirection/red herrings, and it was... but I was still wrong 😂
🎓
I enjoyed reading this, and it brought back many happy memories of being a young teenager, reading late into the night, because I wouldn't be able to sleep out of fear, and also because I had to know what happened!
🎓
I'd recommend this book to anyone who already loves point horror books, or any other ya horror books.
🎓
I really enjoyed going back to reading point horror, I don't think I've read one since I was a teenager, but boy did I enjoy it!
I've not read this point horror before, but this book had the familiarity of an old friend, which to me, is a comfort blanket when reading.
🎓
Six students move into an off campus dorm, to a house where a girl had died off apparent suicide the previous summer, but the story of her death is still fresh in many peoples minds, especially the word word "apparent"...
⚠️Spoiler Alert ⚠️
Giselle's murderer is still around, and he's determined to cover his tracks from last summer.
I was confident I knew who it was, even when all the evidence pointed to one of new students, I thought it was misdirection/red herrings, and it was... but I was still wrong 😂
🎓
I enjoyed reading this, and it brought back many happy memories of being a young teenager, reading late into the night, because I wouldn't be able to sleep out of fear, and also because I had to know what happened!
🎓
I'd recommend this book to anyone who already loves point horror books, or any other ya horror books.
🎓
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 27, 2022
Not a bad first book in the Nightmare Hall series. Diane Hoh's writing style is descriptive, yet I feel she could have done more work in regards to describing the thrilling aspects of the story itself. They were short and quick, which I felt worked against the story a few times. That is, until the climax rolled around.
The characters weren't all that interesting, minus the main character. I felt they could've been explored some more, even just slightly, which reminds me of the way Stine writes his characters in the Fear Street series. As I continue to read and explore these YA novels from the late 80s - early 90s, I notice that the lack of character development in favor of plot seems to be prominent. As someone who tends to prefer plot, I can also see how this lack works in favor of the plot in anthological series, such as this one here.
I'm not sure if I want to read the other books in this series, but as I said, I do like her writing style and how she can creep me out, albeit quickly. If I do continue, it may just be the first 3 or 4 books. As I've noted in at least one review of Fear Street, Stine finds his footing a few books later. This may be the case with Nightmare Hall.
The characters weren't all that interesting, minus the main character. I felt they could've been explored some more, even just slightly, which reminds me of the way Stine writes his characters in the Fear Street series. As I continue to read and explore these YA novels from the late 80s - early 90s, I notice that the lack of character development in favor of plot seems to be prominent. As someone who tends to prefer plot, I can also see how this lack works in favor of the plot in anthological series, such as this one here.
I'm not sure if I want to read the other books in this series, but as I said, I do like her writing style and how she can creep me out, albeit quickly. If I do continue, it may just be the first 3 or 4 books. As I've noted in at least one review of Fear Street, Stine finds his footing a few books later. This may be the case with Nightmare Hall.
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