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A review by booknooknorth
Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor
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!
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!