Reviews

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

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bethmara's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A riff on the Bernie Madoff story and the consequences to the people who have been pulled into the circle of a Ponzi scheme.

Everyone is damaged and it's a deeply thoughtful story for each well-developed character.

I didn't love it but it was very unique storytelling which was compelling.

dragonflymorning's review against another edition

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4.0

Intriguing and haunting. The mystery and time fluctuations kept me pleasantly confused.

cnicastri's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Loveable characters? No

4.25

bbrassfield's review against another edition

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4.0

Beautifully written. A haunting little ghost story wrapped inside of a bit of a morality play but one with far more complexity than what players trotted out for medieval audiences. One of the best pieces of fiction that I have had the pleasure to read in the past five years.
What makes The Glass Hotel work so well is the way Mandel interweaves the narrative at different points in the character's lives, often coming back around to earlier events in ways that add depth to their unfolding stories.
At the core of the novel we have half siblings who don't have much in common or much of a relationship, at least until one Jonathan Alkaitis and the hotel he owns, The Glass Hotel in the title, is introduced and from here on the Glass Hotel serves as the character that holds everything together and gives the novel its moral center. Alkaitis is a fascinating Bernie Madoff type, running for a time at least a very successful Ponzi scheme. He meets Vincent, a pretty bartender at the hotel he owns that also happens to employ her half brother Paul, whom the novel begins its tale with. Throughout the story the hotel serves as a centerpiece even when the narrative takes us to far off places, which it often does.
In the novel, ghosts are pretty real, or so it appears to this reader, and Mandel hauntingly (ptp) depicts the ways they move in and out of the lives of Paul, Vincent and Jonathan. What I find most memorable about Mandel's novel is the frequent similarity of the ghosts to the living and how their existence isn't really all that different. Definitely a story to revisit in the future.