January Book Club: Day Four by Sarah Lotz
“For three sun-filled days, The Beautiful Dreamer seems to deliver all that its brochure promised—a tropical cruise filled with relaxation and fun in the sun. Until Day Four. Without warning, the ship stops dead. With no way to call for help, passengers and crew are stranded in the Gulf of Mexico. At first, all aboard are certain that rescue teams will come looking for them soon. But as supplies run low, the toilets stop working and a virus plagues the ship. When a woman is discovered dead in her cabin, the passengers begin to realize there’s a murderer on board . . . and maybe something worse.” –Day Four by Sarah Lotz
I’m not even sure how to classify this book. It’s horror. It’s supernatural. It’s mystery. It’s science fiction. That being said, Day Four by Sarah Lotz—book two of the Three series—has something for everyone. If you follow this blog or the Bibliotherapy social media accounts, then you will have read my numerous posts raving about the first book in this series, The Three. I can happily say that the sequel did not disappoint. It was creepy, confusing, and it convinced me to never get on a cruise ship ever again. If you have read Day Four before or as part of the Bibliotherapy Monthly Book Club, then let’s start a discussion.
Something I loved about the first book that was included in this installment—albeit sparingly—was the structure. Day Four opened with a copy of the brochure from Foveros, the company that owns and operates the cruise ship. The book also includes blog posts, news articles, tweets, and interview transcripts. It is also broken up into chapters, which follow a different characters perspective. What did you think of the structure? Personally, I enjoyed the book-within-a-book format of the first book more, as well as the inclusion of chatroom archives, transcripts, and news articles. I will admit, I am not sure how that structure could be used in Day Four, given that it is such a different story. I did find the news articles and interview transcripts at the end to be the most intriguing part. There were multiple similarities between the two books beyond structure, including the presence of a crazy religious/spiritual person and the cult surrounding them, the overall tone of supernatural influence, religious undertones, and the presence of a silent and mysterious authority. As I’ve said on social media, the best way I can describe the novels in this series is a found-footage film in written form.
Let’s do a character run-down:
Maggie: A.K.A., The Witch’s Assistant. Maggie is a personal assistant to Celine del Ray, an infamous medium who gained notoriety when she claimed Bobby Small and his mother Lori survived Black Thursday, the events of the first book. Maggie has a questionable past, which you alludes to multiple times, which has forced to her work for Celine, despite her skepticism.
Gary Johannson: A.K.A. The Condemned Man. Gary is a serial rapist who enjoys drugging women’s drinks and assaulted them. He has avoided prosecution thus far, because his victims have very few memories of the assault. He begins to lose his confidence and sanity when a young woman on the cruise, Kelly, chokes on her own vomit while he attempts to assault her.
Althea: A.K.A. The Devil’s Handmaiden. Althea is a member of the housekeeping staff on the crew, who provides—in my opinion—the best insights throughout the whole book. She crosses paths with every character multiple times, finds the body of the dead woman, and works closely with Celine. She is also definitely a Slytherin.
Helen and Elise: A.K.A. The Suicide Sisters. Helen and Elise are both older, widowed women who have come on the cruise to end their lives. The night the ship broke down, they were planning on taking sleeping pills and jumping overboard.
Jesse: A.K.A. The Angel of Mercy. Jesse is the only doctor on board. He and his two nurses must deal with the crew members injured in the fire that caused the breakdown, and treat the patients who have come down with a mysterious virus. He nurses a drug addiction, and he begin working as a cruise doctor after one of his previous patients died due to a misdiagnosis.
Devi: A.K.A. The Keeper of Secrets. Devi is the eyes and ears of the ship. When he reviews the tapes after Kelly’s death, he sees the man who followed her into her stateroom. When his superiors make no effort to find this man and attempt to blame alcohol poisoning for Kelly’s death, Devi attempts to pursue the case as more problems arise on the ship.
Xavier: Xavier is a blogger who came on the ship to confront and expose the medium Celine del Ray. He was quite bothered by her claims of Bobby and Lori Small’s survival, believing she was exploiting a grieving family. Throughout the novel, we read the blog posts he writes about the events onboard. He’s also incredibly unprofessional. Something that confused me were his claims that Bobby Small was dead. He was one of the children who followed in the first book—the question of whether or not that was actually Bobby and not some demon or alien not withstanding.
Though we do not follow her perspective, it is also important to discuss Celine. This woman is something else. She in on The Beautiful Dreamer to give a few performances, accessible only to Friends of Celine, a group of vacationers who paid extra to cruise with her. She claims to have the ability to converse with the dead thanks to her “spirit guides” Archie, Lizzie Bean, and Papa Noakes. Early in the book, Celine appears to suffer a stroke, but by the time she is seen by the doctor, Jesse, she seems perfectly healthy, but with a severe personality change. It becomes very apparent that something or someone possesses her. She immediately begins gathering people into one of the theatres, and the cult stuff begins! Just like in the first book! I’m a sucker for crazy cults and their nutty behavior.
There is also Damien, the cruise director. If you’ve ever been on a cruise, then you know that it is a cruise director’s job to be the most energetic, obnoxious person in the world, all for the sake of entertaining the guests. Throughout the book, he makes announcements over the PA system regarding their unfortunate situation, and I consistently got “higher power” vibes from him. The passengers always turned to Damien for answers, as if he were all-knowing and would single-handedly paddle the ship to port.
Let’s do a quick recap of the issues happening onboard. A fire starts in the engine room, injuring a couple of the engineers and disabling the ship. It stops and floats aimlessly about the Gulf of Mexico, without functioning Internet or radio. For a while, things are fine: the back-up generators are functioning, the bars are still open, and everyone is just chilling while they wait for help to arrive. Then, the virus starts spreading, the toilets stop working, and you can slowly see everyone losing their minds. I found this book to be a really interesting look into social psychology. You could see the societal structure collapsing as hostility rose and people resorted to primitive behavior. I also got vibes of a modern-day pirate story, as you could slowly see a mutiny developing.
This book was filled to the brim with conspiracy vibes, and they were present from the very beginning with the attempts to cover up Kelly’s murder. As the ship sits in the Gulf, there is no word from the captain, no sign of rescue, and no information from Foveros. Any questions about these topics are quickly dodged. Something in this installment not present in the first book was the presence of ghostly characters such as Celine’s spirit guides and the little boy running around on the lower levels. Their presence is never really addressed, nor is it abundantly clear, but they’re there, and they’re spooky. They seem to have complete control over the ship without ever really showing up much.
As the mini-society on the ship begins to collapse, I could not help but think of Lord of the Flies by William Golding. A social hierarchy is quickly formed, people become more primal and aggressive, and their behavior becomes downright scary. What instances stood out to you the most? I was very disturbed by Jaco and Lulia, two passengers who commandeered Helen and Elise’s room before a ghost chased them out. For a while, it was hard for me to accept that this amount of societal collapse could occur in this environment within three days, but then I thought back to my previous experiences on cruise ships. Reality seems warped and suspended in the middle of the ocean, so I would not be surprised that being stranded with little food, no AC, and bags full of poop would leads to collective insanity.
Eventually, as a storm threatens to sink the ship, the crew begins to abandon the ship. The passengers follow, but Celine tells those in the theatre with her that if they leave the ship, they will die. Very few remain after the evacuation, but miraculously, the engines are repaired. The Beautiful Dreamer sails back to Miami, only to find the city in ruins and the shore peppered with dead bodies. Only one lifeboat is found, deflated on the shore and wrapped around the body of Damien, the cruise director.
The book ends with a series of news articles covering the discovery of the ship. In all of these articles, it says that no survivors were found. Was I the only one bugging out for the last 50 pages and screaming “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON???” What do you mean “no survivors?” I thought the world ended while this damn ship was floating around? Where did everyone go?????????????? At one point, it was also said that the books from The Three that discussed Black Thursday were never written. I need answers.
Then, I get to the interview transcripts, which absolutely blew my mind. Maggie, Xavier, Helen, Devi, Althea, and Jesse were found, but their survival was kept a secret because of what they witnessed. What happened after the engines began working again is subject to theory, but here is my understanding of the events: Somehow, Celine directed the ship into an alternate reality where the world had ended. She gave the remaining passengers two choices. They could get on the smaller ferry attached to the ship and go with her to the cruise company’s private island and live happily ever after, or they can “go home”, meaning back to their normal lives. The characters listed above stay on the ship and float back to civilization, their survival is covered up, the lifeboats filled with the other passengers and crew were never found, and the world within this series gets even screwier. I’m pretty sure my brain short-circuited a little bit.
This book was nuts. My only complaint is, though they did provide great insight, I felt their were too many characters, especially in the background, which made it a bit hard to follow at times. However, it had everything I loved about the first book, and it left me confused, paranoid, and a bit jaded. What did you think of this book? Between the two books, which structure do you prefer? What are you theories about Celine, her spirit guides, and the alternate reality she guided the ship to? Was Xavier right to claim it was collective hypnosis? Please, comment you thoughts below, or on Instagram.
