[QCrit] ONE STAR, Adult Horror Satire, 75,000 words, 1st attempt
ONE STAR is an 75,000-word horror satire that combines the beauty-and-wellness nightmare of Ling Ling Huang’s Natural Beauty with the privileged guests, smiling staff and steadily escalating social savagery of The White Lotus. It is about the strange modern bargain between people who believe paying for something entitles them to perfection and the businesses that would do almost anything for five stars.
Bridgette Edgar has written 312 online reviews, and she stands by every one of them.
The café that charged extra for oat milk deserved two stars. The Airbnb with someone else’s toenail in the shower was lucky to get one. And Serenity House, the luxury wellness retreat where Bridgette spent four miserable days drinking celery water and being encouraged to “sit with her hunger,” deserved every word of the review she posted on the train home.
One star. Beautiful location. Deeply unpleasant people. Save your money.
Six months later, Serenity House invites her back.
The weekend is free, travel is included and, most surprisingly, the apology doesn’t contain the words we’re sorry you feel that way. Bridgette accepts.
When she arrives, she finds eleven other guests, all of whom have previously stayed at Serenity House. All of whom hated it. All of whom said so online.
Management couldn’t be happier to see them.
Serenity House is launching a weekend devoted to customer feedback, and the staff have taken the guests’ criticism very seriously. A man who complained that the staff were invisible is ignored completely. A woman who wrote that her room lacked privacy discovers that hers now has glass walls. Bridgette, who complained about going hungry, receives an eight-course breakfast while everyone else gets herbal tea.
It is petty, expensive and, Bridgette has to admit, quite funny.
Then one of the guests disappears.
The next morning his phone and luggage are still in his room, but the staff insist he checked out early. His one-star review has disappeared too.
In its place is a new one.
Five stars. Life-changing. I left a different person.
By lunch, another guest is missing.
Bridgette came back to Serenity House expecting an apology and perhaps a free massage. Instead, she finds herself trapped at a retreat that appears determined to achieve a perfect rating by correcting the only thing standing in its way: its customers.
And Bridgette didn’t just give Serenity House one star.
She wrote 2,846 words explaining why.