A review by remjunior
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

5.0

I found this story to be very moving and insightful at almost every turn. The day-to-day life of a former well-known and his house arrest to a hotel for the rest of his life during some of the greatest upheavals in Russian history...and yet, somehow the story never loses sight of the main characters and their existance in this world. This book was very easy to imagine in my head as some sort of Downton Abbey-esque production and I hope that comes to be at some point in the future. The story moves from year to year, often leaping a few at a time, following Count Rostov and his daily encounters with many characters in the hotel. He meets a young girl who becomes a lifelong friend, a famous movie actress who becomes a lover, a former Colonel of the Red Army who wants to study with the Count to learn the world, and on, and on, and on.

It is a remarkable book that was hard to put down and is written magnificently. The language is clear and the dialogue is often funny and clever.

Definitely at the top of my favorite books I've read this year.