Reviews

Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor

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booknooknorth's review against another edition

4.0

This book is a solid debut novel. It was a clear love letter to the "Night Circus". Both books do things well that I feel the other didn't do.

What this book did well was spin a narrative of enchantment but it has something more sinister underneath the magic behind the hotel. Unlike Night, it feels like more happened in this book rather than a century of slow burn. And the important part for me, there was a depth to this world Taylor built.

What this failed at was introducing so much tiny mysteries in between that the reader feel it's fluff rather than mystery. Night did a right balance of it while adding familiar themes while gradually introducing other mysteries. For example, when looking at different artefacts, it was a seemingly list of random object themes we witnessed before, skulls, vials, feathers.

One other thing that weirded out is in the beginning of the book, Taylor remarked over everyone's skin color over random background characters, which, I get for a few people, but the reiterating who EVERY person's color is felt a bit forced. Keep it natural, mention it every now and then, but not making a big deal. It takes skill and it's challenging, but it can be done.

A note for myself, I don't know if the book went into depth of this of how artefacts existed, but i never understood why the resource was finite

Still for a debut novel, this was solid and believable world and happy I purchased this book at full price. Keep it up, girl!

ggreywaren's review against another edition

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4.0

3,5✨️

stella_angelica's review against another edition

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2.0

Some books are just painfully YA in a bad way. Flat characters that you've read a million times before. Not very well written. I wish I could love this book because the premise sounds so good but I was just bored

macaron_jester's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

alyxbeau's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

I really wanted to like this book more than I did, but I didn't actually like any of the characters so I therefore wasn't invested. It started off with Caraval vibes and I think it would probably feel similar the whole way through if and only if you connected to the characters. We don't really get to see any character development, things just happen and they react- rinse and repeat. I think it was a cool idea executed in a way which was boring to me.

I do not personally reccomend this book but I could see it being popular with others. I didn't dislike it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to purchase or read this again.

shmadsie's review against another edition

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3.0

The plot of this was really cool - I liked the villains and the locations, especially Champilliers, and that a sibling bond drove so much of this - but the chemistry between our two protagonists wasn't there for me. At all. It just felt too boilerplate for me, like they were acting out the (very familiar) steps of a YA romance without feeling them so that became a frustration that had to be trudged through.