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A review by tsenko2
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
3.0
It’s an interesting quandary when you find yourself unimpressed with a bestseller that is receiving rave reviews. I will have to give Emily St. John Mandel credit for this little nugget:
“One of our signature flaws as a species: we will risk almost anything to avoid looking stupid.”
I’m going to take that risk anyway and go against popular opinion by stating that I found this book to be a mess. It jumps back and forth in time and from character to character. That can work if there’s a thread that ultimately binds it all together, but I never found a thread here that was strong enough. Yes, Vincent directly or indirectly touches on all of their lives but not always in any crucial way. For example, you would expect Vincent’s relationships with her brother and Alkeitis to be significant, yet she goes many years without contact with her brother and the description of her ties to Alkeitis is emphatically shallow.
Some characters are introduced (Annika) and then tossed aside. Other characters receive far more time than they warrant (Olivia). However, one of the reasons I describe this book as a mess is that there are too many characters swirling around. It’s as if a bunch of short stories were cobbled together. The main, unifying theme is missing. On one hand, it’s nice not to be preached at but on the other I find myself asking what is the point of this book?
Swindlers, murderers, liars and fools: they all receive punishment of some sort, whether it be direct (jail) or indirect (poverty) but that’s not presented as cause and effect which is, indeed, lifelike and yet again raises the question of what is the point? Another quote:
“But does a person have to be either admirable or awful? Does life have to be so binary? Two things can be true at the same time”
Potentially an intriguing theme to explore, but the book just rambles on around it, throwing vignettes at us without developing depth. Characters act or react in inexplicable ways and we’re given only cursory insight into their motives. Again I feel this is a result of too many characters, too many incidents, in too short a book to handle it all.
However, if you read the book, pay attention to the chapter headings. Their circular form and repetitive elements give the book structure and clean up some of the mess. For example, use of the chapter heading “The Office Chorus “ explains the switch in POV - but doesn’t make it less discordant.
It’s not a terrible book and it’s a pretty fast read. I’m going to use that hated phrase, however, of it not living up to its potential.
“One of our signature flaws as a species: we will risk almost anything to avoid looking stupid.”
I’m going to take that risk anyway and go against popular opinion by stating that I found this book to be a mess. It jumps back and forth in time and from character to character. That can work if there’s a thread that ultimately binds it all together, but I never found a thread here that was strong enough. Yes, Vincent directly or indirectly touches on all of their lives but not always in any crucial way. For example, you would expect Vincent’s relationships with her brother and Alkeitis to be significant, yet she goes many years without contact with her brother and the description of her ties to Alkeitis is emphatically shallow.
Some characters are introduced (Annika) and then tossed aside. Other characters receive far more time than they warrant (Olivia). However, one of the reasons I describe this book as a mess is that there are too many characters swirling around. It’s as if a bunch of short stories were cobbled together. The main, unifying theme is missing. On one hand, it’s nice not to be preached at but on the other I find myself asking what is the point of this book?
Swindlers, murderers, liars and fools: they all receive punishment of some sort, whether it be direct (jail) or indirect (poverty) but that’s not presented as cause and effect which is, indeed, lifelike and yet again raises the question of what is the point? Another quote:
“But does a person have to be either admirable or awful? Does life have to be so binary? Two things can be true at the same time”
Potentially an intriguing theme to explore, but the book just rambles on around it, throwing vignettes at us without developing depth. Characters act or react in inexplicable ways and we’re given only cursory insight into their motives. Again I feel this is a result of too many characters, too many incidents, in too short a book to handle it all.
However, if you read the book, pay attention to the chapter headings. Their circular form and repetitive elements give the book structure and clean up some of the mess. For example, use of the chapter heading “The Office Chorus “ explains the switch in POV - but doesn’t make it less discordant.
It’s not a terrible book and it’s a pretty fast read. I’m going to use that hated phrase, however, of it not living up to its potential.