Received as a free book from Scene of the Crime. Will be reading soon and will leave complete review and update rating if needed.

I was so excited to be sent this ARC copy of Behind The Door. I, too, watched the Netflix documentary, though I do not remember the manager in question or any conclusions I drew about her.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I found the contest of what life at the Cecil hotel added a lot to the conversation regarding this hotel and what happened to it. However, on the other, I went into this thinking I would find compassionate and sensitively told stories about many of the people who called Cecil their home. I think this was what the author intended. She frequently stated she cared about the people in the Cecil hotel. There were times when that came through in the story, and then there were times when it completely missed the mark. Sometimes, she explained things in ways that felt like they were meant to do nothing more than scandalize. There were times that I felt like she included very personal information about the people who stayed that was not necessary==such as included a medical diagnosis that was not necessary. As a medical provider who takes medical privacy seriously, that bothered me.

I also felt that the way the story was told was disorganized and I was never quite sure where I was in the timeline. She would hop from one story to the next.

I can see what the author meant to do with this. Sometimes she succeeded, but overall, I felt like there was a lot of compassion and sensitivity lacking in this book. It do believe it gave a more honest, humane image of the Cecil that I think is necessary for the conversations being had about it, and for that, I am glad I read it.

Like most people, I was drawn into the Cecil Hotel from the Elisa Lam story. That + American Horror Story Hotel created an air of mystery and terror. Behind the Door from Amy Price is the truth behind the notorious hotel.

Amy was hired as a temporary designer for the hotel however, before long, she was the manager. While she did join the hotel AFTER some of the more notorious guests, Amy was there for the Lam incident and spend a large part of the book devoted to the awful story.

BUT more or perhaps most importantly, Amy spend more of the socio-economic reasons behind the hotel and it's guests. There's politics, there's drugs, there's murder. There's more to the Cecil than it's mysteries.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I was drawn to Behind the Door because I had been interested in Amy Price's interview segments in the Netflix docuseries on the Cecil Hotel. I have felt that her interviews had been unfavorably edited, which stemmed from my larger disappointment that the Netflix series didn't deliver the larger history of the infamous hotel which it had advertised. I'd been burned once by Netflix's focus on sensationalism and conspiracy, so I was a bit cautious when I started this book. I was pleased to read that, from the outset, Price wanted to correct the less-than-favorable edit she'd received from Netflix and offer the more comprehensive story she thought they'd wanted to tell. I was pleased to see that this was not another bait-and-switch deep dive into the death of Elissa Lam, a focus which made the Netflix documentary particularly upsetting since the Lam family has repeatedly asked that people stop reporting on the case, as the events and subsequent misinformation are consistent sources of pain. Instead, the Lam case is reported as a noteworthy event towards the end of Price's storied decade working at the Cecil Hotel.

Behind the Door describes Amy Price's decade working at LA's Cecil Hotel, initially as an interior designer, but ultimately sticking around in various operations capacities, including general manager. She describes her history with the hotel, including many anecdotes of the colorful characters she met among the hotel's tenants, and the challenges to keep the hotel running amidst the seedy atmosphere near LA's Skid Row. She lends a largely humane eye to the hotel's residents, who experience all sorts of systemic failures, including economic precarity and the accompanying vulnerabilities and violences. While Amy jumps around from story to story, making the timeline a little difficult to follow and a bit disjointed of a read, I still enjoyed it. I especially appreciated the corrective story that I'd originally hoped for when I first watched Price on Netflix in 2021.

I’ve watched every documentary and TV show surrounding The Cecil Hotel….including the paranormal ones. To have the opportunity to read a first hand account from someone who worked in the building for as long as Amy Price has is awesome! Such a great book, and taught me quite a bit I didn’t already know. True story accounts such as this make for a great read! I loved it!

Behind the Door: The Dark Truths and Untold Stories of the Cecil Hotel is an intriguing look into the infamous Cecil Hotel. The hotel itself has a dark and twisted history, and it's always been of great interest to me. The author does a great job of describing the hotel's dark history, and I was engaged throughout drawn in by mystery and the history.

"Behind the door" is a journey of Prices experiences while at the Cecil Hotel. I'm not sure what I was expecting from this, but with all the information on the Cecil Hotel and it's dark past- it wasn't this book.

Hmm I was looking forward to this but within the first few pages I knew it wasn’t going to enjoy it. The content is not really the issue, it’s interesting enough, but the writing style is not ideal. It’s kind of hard to get through and at times it seems like the author has more care for the actual hotel and its history than people who were murdered within it? Left a bit of an odd taste in my mouth.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m interested in a lot of the true crime and mystery genres so I’m familiar with the Cecil Hotel as well as the Netflix series.

I enjoyed Amy’s story about her time working in the Cecil. She did a great job at describing the individuals in a manner that, while not flattering, was not disrespectful. I think with the people and situations she lived through in those 10 years, it would’ve been easier to paint them in a different, darker manner.

I also thought her touch of including some of the notes from the front desk staff was great and really helped tell the story and portray just how eccentric the tenants could be.

Through her story, it’s very easy to feel her love and connection to the Cecil. That’s what really keeps you hooked.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3

I've been searching for a book on the Cecil Hotel for a while, and when I saw Behind the Door: The Dark Truths and Untold Stories of the Cecil Hotel, I thought finally! Unfortunately, this book is not what the title lead me to believe. Instead of the dark truths of the Cecil Hotel, I found myself reading an autobiography of Amy Price. Yes, the Cecil is used as a backdrop and there are some fascinating stories of the residents, but these were not the main theme of the book.
There were many times when I almost gave up reading the book, but continued on while hoping that we would get to some of the dark past and present of the hotel itself. I would say my favorite part was the appendix titled The Front Desk Archives as it gave a more in-depth look at some of the people who lived there. At times, the stories themselves were hard to follow as it jumped around a lot. However, this could be fixed in the final edits.
If you're looking for a book that is wholly about the Cecil Hotel and its history, this book would not be for you. If you're looking for a book that gives some history of the early 2000's until its closure as a hotel, give it a try.
I'd like to thank William Morrow and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, William Morrow Books, and Amy Price for an ARC of Behind The Door.

This true crime story is truly unique and extremely creepy. I've read many books about fictional hotels that are haunted, and this is the first one I've read about a real hotel that is full of death, strange coincidences, and other oddities. I absolutely LOVED that a true crime book gave me real life Overlook Hotel vibes (The Shining by Stephen King).

The book-to-screen aspect is also a feature I enjoy about this book. Pairing a book with a documentary is one of my favorite aspects of reading true crime books.

Despite what worked well in this book, there are serious issues with the writing and style. The writing is so juvenile, disorganized, and general that I am surprised it made it this far in the publication process. These stylistic concerns and issues actually made it challenging to read the book.

Here are my main concerns:

Over-generalized adjectives: There are several statements where the style is diminished because of the author's use of over-generalized adjectives such as "huge." Writers who earn a publication should be held to higher standards; language such as "we had a huge amount of work to do" seem unacceptable. While this book is obviously not fiction, the author should still work to paint a picture in readers' minds. The lack of descriptive details and word choices dulled the story.

Colloquial language: When the writer uses "basically" as we do in lax and lazy conversations, there's a problem. This adverb was not used in quotation marks; the author used it within the body text of the book. I felt embarrassed for her.

Disorganization: Some of the paragraphs in this book are unusually long, and the author jumps from one main idea to the next without proper transition. It made for a confusing reading experience.

A 3-star rating is a stretch. I hope this goes through another round of edits before released to the general public. The writing is attuned to the freshmen composition essays I read on a weekly basis.

When I first requested this book, I had only vague memories of the Netflix docuseries and even vaguer memories of Amy Price, the general manager of the Cecil Hotel who was interviewed in the series. I looked up a picture of her and remembered her a little bit better, but many of those memories weren't necessarily positive, as she was often portrayed on the show as indifferent and delusional at best and kinda sketchy at worst.

This book, I think fleshes her out quite a bit. I think one of the main reasons that she came off as odd (if she did) in the show was that it was hard to understand why a "normal" person who wasn't obviously desperate or completely out of other options would want to be involved at all with the Cecil. The early biographical portions of the book, both pre-Cecil and shortly after she started working there, at least shed light on why someone would be willing to take on and stay with what, at least to outside observers, was a total dead end.

The stories of the day to day operations of the Cecil should also explain (if such an explanation was necessary, and I'm not sure it was) the perceived inaction by hotel staff when Elisa Lam started behaving erratically. Such behavior was not especially unusual or uncommon from guests and residents, and help often did not arrive when they called. Once the accidental death determination was official, it never really was fair to hold the hotel responsible, even in the court of public opinion.

Many of the Cecil's more infamous stories predate Price, so if you're looking for Night Stalker stories this really isn't the book for you. Its probably something closer to an autobiography from a niche famous "celebrity" but I definitely found it be a really fun and easy read.

I want to thank NetGalley and William Morrow for my ARC copy of this book.

Wow I could not make it through 20 pages - this writing style is HORRIBLE. I thought it would be more historical and informative but the author really discusses her journey to LA etc in the first few chapters in such a middle school writing style I could not get through this. It was not worth my time

I saw the Netflix docuseries in 2021 and I was anxious to read more about the Cecil Hotel and this book fit the bill! Thank you Amy Price for sharing your story and for truly taking an interest in all the people who stayed/lived at the Cecil...especially for understanding that "everyone has a story." Your work at the Cecil should be an inspiration to everyone. Thanks for the ACR.

Thanks for allowing me to review this book. I, like many others, have always been interested in the stories of the Cecil Hotel. I was elated to get to read this book, and I am glad the author did touch on the common stories of the hotel, and set the record straight about the whole Elisa Lam situation. I was happy to learn about the lives of the other tenants as well. This hotel certainly brought in it's fair share of an eclectic group of people! I really enjoyed reading this novel and recommend it for anyone who are also interested in the stories of the Cecil!

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Overall, this was a good read. I think it really captured the heart break and terror that tore through a small and unexpecting town. However, I did find it to be redundant the further I got into it and I wondered how many times the bridge needed to be described, it felt like filler to make the book longer. Although the book is filled with much information that has been public for a while, I did think that having first hand accounts from family members really helped in making the case more real. Too often true crime is consumed in a way that can take away from the fact that the victims are people and the survivors are people, and murders are not for entertainment and gossip amongst friends. I appreciate that the family was listened too and spoken up for.

When I watched one of the several documentaries on the Cecil, I thought "wow, one of these people should write a book" and so they did!

I'm always interested in the Cecil as I love Art Deco and creepy hotels. I first became aware of the Cecil during American Horror Story: Hotel. I looked it up after I saw it was inspiration for the show.

I then saw all the crazy things that had taken place there, most known being the missing young woman and the fact that infamous serial killers have probably laid their heads on those crusty pillows.

I can never learn enough about it and wish it still had its original.. flavor. Yeah, let's go with that. Cecil is a mood.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review!

I can't even begin to express how much I enjoyed this book. If you're looking for details on the Elisa Lam case and a book full of information on it, this is not it. Amy Price did an amazing job sharing her joys and experiences of working at one of the most intriguing hotels in the country. I felt like I was listening to a close friend talk about how much she adored her job and loved working there and just her love for people of all scenarios. I especially loved her closeness to the hotel itself and the stories it held with all of its tenants over the years. Although she does touch briefly on the Elisa Lam part and the Netflix special, it was more or less to show how it had affected her and her coworkers' lives and the hotel itself, as well as Elisa's own family. Her stories are heartfelt, some sad, some comical, but all in all I'm glad she shared her side and shed new light on what most construe as a "dark and eerie place."

Highly readable memoir of Amy Price's time managing the notorious Cecil Hotel on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. In recent years, the hotel's notoriety primarily stemmed from being the location where Canadian student Elisa Lam disappeared and was eventually discovered dead in the rooftop water tank. Video of Elisa seemingly hiding from someone in the elevator shortly before her death went viral and sparked thousands of amateur online sleuths. But long before Lam, the hotel had a creepy and tragic history. Serial killer Richard Ramirez supposedly stayed there for awhile in the 70s (there's no proof of this). But the sad history mostly stems from the wide variety of poor, mentally ill, and addicts who lived there cheaply as long-term tenants—the kinds of people society tries to ignore and to whom no help is given. For years, often Price was their only link between their filthy one-room apartments and the outside world.

The most shocking story is of the "woman behind the door" who lived in an apartment with a strange man and did nothing but lie in bed under cockroach infested sheets. Despite more than one person reporting her missing and claiming the man was holding her hostage, Price can't get anyone—not the LAPD, not adult protective services, not the fire dept, to see if this woman is alright. (The man also kidnaps a dog and at least an animal agency finally gets the dog out.)

The shameful stories of the mentally ill tenants are bad enough but what is truly shocking is the extreme apathy of the government. In short, no one cares about these people. No one cares if they live or die. No one cares if they break laws. No one cares if they take up the courts with frivolous lawsuits. If you're an avid watcher of crime shows like Law & Order and think cops are essentially good, kind, and hardworking, I urge you to read this book. (It also jibes with any experience I've had with the NYPD—just complete and utter apathy.)

If you're a fan of creepy hotels, this is a must read, however, if you're an Elisa Lam aficionado, be warned the book isn't about that at all. Stick to the YouTube sleuths.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Amy Price, and the publisher for an ARC of Behind the Door in exchange for an honest review.

I received early access to Behind the Door: The Dark Truths and Untold Stories of the Cecil Hotel for in exchange of a review through NetGalley. As a true crime fan I was already familiar with the Elisa Lam story and had seen the Netflix documentary. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as the author took you through the Cecil's history, she discusses stories of the residents that she had come to known during her 10 year tenure working at the hotel. She touches on the Elisa Lam story but that is not the core focus of this book. She wants people to understand the Cecil's history and shine light on the positive side of the hotel instead of its notorious criminal history.