A surreal novel about a woman coming to terms with her husband's death as she visits Havana, Cuba - when she sees him standing in front of a museum, the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur. Fascinating, but definitely needs another read through to piece it all together.

I’m all for weird and abstract in a novel as long as said weird and abstract content actually forms a coherent narrative with a point.

Sadly, that was not the case with The Third Hotel.

van den Berg writes beautifully and certainly knows her way around the language, which helps make the meandering, amorphous plot a little more bearable.

But the story itself—though promising at various disparate moments early in the book—wanders, trips over itself, and can’t find its way to any kind of coherent conclusion or message.

It isn’t just that the ending was vague, obtuse, and inconclusive. The bigger problem is that the book fails to convey any message at all. Who is Clare, really? Who knows. We get a lot of background information on her, but very little true character development. And what was she searching for? Again, who knows. Did she find it? Who knows.

Obtuseness in fiction is fine unless it exists for its own sake and fails to produce any kind of message or semi-linear content.

Also bothering me: This book seems to borrow a LOT, conceptually, from Marisha Pessl’s Night Film. Yikes.

To that end, if you want to read a really good book about the blurring of fantasy and reality as it relates to Horror films, go get yourself a copy of Night Film instead.

can’t remember where I came across this, but I know it was touted as being a psychological thriller. It was either implied, or I inferred, that it was in the Gillian Flynn/Paula Hawkins mold. It turns out it wasn’t, at all. It’s almost all “psychological” and very little “thriller.”

Clare is in Havana, attending a horror film festival that her husband Richard, a scholar on the subject of horror films, was supposed to attend. Alas, Richard was killed by a hit and run driver near their home in upstate New York five weeks previously. So when Clare sees Richard standing on a Havana street, she’s shocked and confused. She begins to follow “Richard” (or is it Richard?) around town, spying on him and musing about her past: her marriage, her childhood (she grew up in a rinky-dink tourist hotel in Florida that her parents managed) and her aged father’s Alzheimer’s.

I like to think I can handle ambiguity. I’ll admit I don’t always *like* it; there are certainly people who probably like it more than I do. But if I read the paragraph above and was told that The Third Hotel was sort of a dreamy meditation on grief and the nature of reality (which it is), I’d probably be quite intrigued. But I didn’t like it, at all. I didn’t like it in part because I was expecting something different (that’s my fault). I didn’t like it because the degree of ambiguity made the exercise in reading it feel pointless – *nothing* is ever made clear (sorry, that’s probably a spoiler). Is it Richard or is it not? Maybe Clare’s not even in Havana. Maybe Richard doesn’t actually exist? Or maybe he’s a ghost? Who knows.

The story didn’t need to be wrapped up in a tidy package – I could have handled some loose ends. But this book is nothing but loose ends. Further, it’s written in a style that felt self-consciously literary to me. That’s probably a very subjective judgment. Early on Clare describes being in a hotel room. She travels often for work, criss-crossing the Midwest as a rep for an elevator company (that job itself felt pretentious and literary to me – fraught with some symbolic significance I couldn’t quite grasp). In this particular room Clare opens the nightstand drawer and finds a fingernail: “Her first impulse was to pick up the nail and swallow it..” My reaction to that was 1) ew and 2) bullshit and 3) ew, again. I mean, it was one of those little details that might work for someone but just struck me as false. Clare struck me as false; a collection of traits rather than an actual person. Her marriage to Richard seemed filled with ennui, but it’s a literary ennui, with no particular cause and thus no apparent motivation for the characters to work on it. I initially gave The Third Hotel a C, figuring that my dislike of it was at least partly my fault. But even if that’s the case, I think I’m going with a D. It’s a more accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of this novel. The story follows a recently widowed woman who travels to Cuba for a film festival; while she's there, she thinks she sees her dead husband. I usually like weird stories (especially ones that have a magical realism flair), but this novel left me completely cold. I'm okay with stories that don't have a clear-cut plot, but this novel goes back and forth in time in a way that felt confusing to me. I couldn't quite catch onto any clear themes either, so I didn't feel attached to the main character or to what was happening to her. I feel like the story would have been better served if the weirdness of Van Den Berg's writing was allowed to flourish instead of being stifled by confusing elements.

This was my first experience with Laura’s writing, and I’m a diehard fan. I’m actually reading her new collection, I Hold a Wolf by the Ears, and now I’m fully immersed in her style. With thanks to The Third Hotel, I’ll be blazing through her entire canon soon enough.

I tried starting this book several times before finally giving up! I read about 100 pages of this book and I just could not connect with the story or the protagonist, so I ditched it part way through.

I didn't love or hate this book. It was a bit weird, and not in a good way. It was very confusing, and hard to get into. This seems to be one of those that most people either love or hate, but I find myself falling neutral on this one. It took me forever to finish because I kept putting it down, and then forcing myself to pick it back up.

Thank you #NetGalley for a review copy of #TheThirdHotel

If Hitchcock were a French indie director and wrote a book, it might look like this. Weird, uncomfortable, unanswered and unanswerable, delicious, tense, and surreal. Another smash from van den Berg, though I always suspected it would be.

What a bizarre languorous “ghost” story. It cares neither to inform or entertain. The most selfish novel I’ve read in quite some time. Some sentences were constructed beautifully but meant nothing towards the greater story. Although brief (and nearly every review mentions its brevity, likely because were it any longer it would be likely be called out for being completely inaccessible) I picked up and put this down dozens of times, forcing myself to get through it in order to properly evaluate it to review for NetGalley/the publisher. I really wanted to like it. Alas there weren’t nearly enough concrete points and very little believability. The first 20-30 pages could have been a decent short story, the rest proved so unnecessary. Oh, and major pet peeve: no quotation marks.

The description of this book reminded me of one of my favorites, "Night Film," by Marisha Pessl. Horror movies, disappeared people, general confusion, stories designed to mess with your brain. But when I finished it, I still had little idea what was going on. I need a spoiler review to settle this matter for me! I did like how it was written, how out-there it was and the setting (which I haven't read much about), and I'm cool with some open ended elements in novels. BUT this book taught me I need at least some answers or I leave unsatisfied.

This book is totally amazing!! I was hooked by Lauren's writing style immediately. I have never read a book written like this and I think it was a risk -- but I'm so happy she took that risk!! If you are tired of the same old thriller novel, try this one -- it will blow you away!!

It’s with some relief that I reached the end of this novel. Both intriguing and exasperating, it tested my powers of endurance, especially at the point when the heroine goes to the airport and doesn’t catch the plane home. Would the wandering round Havana, the desultory descriptions
and randomness of it all ever end? Thankfully, the second half of the book picked up, still descriptive and dreamy, but more interesting in its waywardness. Nevertheless this is a book for some people and not others. If you like the suggestive, the allusive, the maybe/maybe not, this one’s for you.

I love weird, unsettling fiction, but it didn't work for me here - the weird of this book never transcended plain old 'odd'. I felt like I was watching events through a strobe light - or like a Saturday Night Live parody of a bad experimental acting troup - each time the lights go on, they are doing something that's supposed to be meaningful but is just posturing. I can appreciate that horror tropes and Richard's theories about them swirled around the story, but I wasn't engaged enough by the novel to put much effort into thinking about them. And there was a flatness and humorlessness to Claire that turned me off. Maybe humorlessness is the wrong word in a novel like this, but there needs to be some spark of wit here and there. I remember exactly one such moment - memorable because it was the only one. This is definitely a well-crafted novel and the rendering of Havana was excellent , so I did finish it, but by about the half way point I was just racing to the end.

This book is a big jumble of bizarre thoughts. While the writing was really beautiful, I have no idea what the book was even about.

After Clare’s husband is killed, she travels to Cuba for a film festival they’d been planning to attend together. While there, she seems to become less and less coherent, and by the end of the book I wasn’t at all sure of what was supposed to be real.

The Third Hotel is Magical Realism at its best. Ms. van den Berg combines the story with elements of psychological suspense, and upon completion, I wasn't wholly convinced I could retell the story. What a mind bending experience. I dont think The Third Hotel will be to everyone's taste. If you like the non-linear story, unreliable narrator, more than hints of paranormal, and unanswered questions..... read and reread The Third Hotel. I am sure that this novel will end up as many a book discussion selection due in part to my own need to seek out other readers to discuss, debate and share the experience. Well done Ms. van den Berg, I look forward to more of your work.

“The foundation of horror is a dislocation of reality, a dislocation designed to reveal the reality that has been there all along, and such dislocations happen all the time. “

That was according to the fictional Yuniel Mata, director of Revolución Zombi , the first horror movie ever made in Cuba.

And this was to apply to recently widowed Clare, who “had allowed her reality to become so dislocated…”

She decided to travel to Cuba to attend the annual Festival of New Latin American Cinema in place of her husband Richard, a film studies professor who specialized in the horror genre. Richard had been secretive the last year of his life, so she wanted to do the same in her own way. She proceeded to delve into different identities in Havana, a city where no one knew her.

The problem was that her dislocated reality surfaced when she checked into “The Third Hotel”, where she thought saw Richard and continually stalked him or someone like him . “She believed that if she and Richard kept following their private plans together, in parallel, these separate plans might align, merge into one.” Richard would respond that the grieving are deranged.

This story is not just about an unstable, grief-stricken widow, though. The Third Hotel takes us on a surreal fling through Havana with a multitude of fascinating characters and situations, from the professor holding class with no students to the ostrich that escaped from the zoo. The vivid, colorful prose adds to the experience.

I also relished the jaunt through the horror genre, and how the director is able to manipulate the viewer into a state of terror.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed The Third Hotel, it isn’t for everyone. I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what was real or fantasy. I guess that’s up for discussion and this is the perfect book for that.

Laura van den Berg's The Third Hotel can only be described as a mix between a new form of magical realism and domestic noir. A woman who goes on a memory-filled trip to Cuba in order to attend a popular film festival is shocked to the core when she sees her husband walking along a Havana street. But her husband has been dead for years...
Van den Berg's prose is a gift, a beautiful merger of poetry and image-filled prose that takes the reader by the hand through a journey in which the ending is a completely unexpected surprise.

I found this book to be rather confusing and not something I followed easily. Perhaps it was just not for me.

Beautifully descriptive prose of what I imagine Cuba to be, interweaves with what felt like a fever dream, from the perspective of a grieving widow. The book, The Third Hotel, is a glimpse of Van den Berg’s ability to write, however, it’s a little vague how the story all wraps up.
Clare, the main character, spots her dead husband on the Havana streets. She stalks him, he disappears into the alleys. She watches him buy mangos and then he fades from view. As her husband was a professor of horror films (really…there is such a thing), the horror, mystery and intrigue enter into the way the story is written. The book is not written as horror, but her attendance at a horror film festival is the backdrop, making it feel off kilter. This is the book that will have you flipping back into the chapters you just read to make certain you aren’t losing what you thought you read. The writer takes us on train rides and walks in search of the husband and answers for the main character.
During the reading of this novel, I wanted more. After completing the novel, I wanted even more. Van den Berg did not leave the reader with any answers. If you read novels that have clean endings, this one will not be satisfying to you. If you like novels that take you on a journey to help you come to your own conclusions, this might be a good fit. I was confused much of the time, even though the writing was excellent. For me, this was a three star read, but for others, I’m guessing it will be the best book they read this year.

Thank you to the publisher and #NetGalley for a pre-publication ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I think this will be a big hit! Cuba is hot right now and the pacing is quick for the most part. A few parts dragged but the descriptions of Cuba and the characters saved it and kept me interested. I also liked the musings about horror and why it is so popular.