(The COVID-19 preparation I've been doing has made me forget some of this, so I'll try to be as short and to-the-point as possible. Sorry...)

When I picked up Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, I was not wholly convinced that I hadn't read that story before somewhere else. I'm a sucker for a plague story (joke's on me now, I guess), and I think the strongest part of that book was the scenes taking place in the Before. Loved those. While the Now was interesting, it didn't hold my attention like the Before.

But The Glass Hotel held my attention.

It was surreal and weird and mysterious, and I love all of that in fiction. Sometimes it takes an element of magic to show just how relevant a book is to our current times, and this book delivers. Human connection, with others, with our past, and with our present, is always an element that gets me invested. I mentioned Station Eleven because after The Glass Hotel, I think I'm going to have to go back and reread with a new lens. I may just change my mind about it.

We're purchasing it for our library, and I'm pretty hyped to be able to recommend it to our patrons. Once we reopen.

This book was so, so good. It was beautifully written. I could see all of this in my head as I read. She did such a wonderful job switching between all the characters. This was a book that swept me up in its world and made me forget it was a book.

I loved Station’s Eleven and was ecstatic when I heard the author, Emily St. John Mandel, had a new book on the way. The Glass Hotel opens with a woman falling over the edge of a container ship off the coast of Mauritania. We don’t know who she is or why she’s fallen. We do know that she sees her long lost brother, Paul.

The story then flashes back to Paul’s youth and his visit to see his half-sister, Vincent, whose mother drowned a few years earlier. Eventually, the two end up working at Hotel Caiette, a stunning 5-star glass hotel on a remote island in British Columbia. Vincent is a bartender, and Paul is a groundskeeper on the evening a strange message is etched on the windowed wall from the outside – “Why don’t you swallow broken glass.” The message shakes everyone to their core and it’s here that relationships begin and fates are etched in stone.

I had mixed feelings about the book. Mandel’s writing is complex and clever. She draws on lives of people and the ghosts who haunt them. She allows them to wonder “what if.” The story flows from British Columbia to Manhatten to the worldwide shipping industry, but seemed a bit choppy to me. I found myself not particularly caring much about the shipping magnate who lost his fortune in a Ponzi scheme reminiscent of Bernie Madoff. It just went on too long. I did enjoy Vincent who seemed to struggle with the ghosts of her past as much as her present. I normally enjoy character studies like this, but at times it just seemed too convoluted. I really wanted to know more about Vincent and Paul and not the other characters who seemed, to me, more peripheral.

It does take time to acclimate to the style and changing timelines, but I would still recommend this to any Mandel fan. Just be sure to go in knowing this is nothing like Station Eleven’s dystopian scenario and was not as hopeful either.

This book was beautifully drawn and slightly mystifying at times. Changing points of view, time lines and even realities kept the reader guessing and added to the atmosphere of the novel. Very enjoyable read, highly recommended.

The Glass Hotel was a excellent read. Many layers of depth revealed a few intertwined plots.
The world was explored form the richest to the poorest. The characters were well written and the plot was very engaging. My first experience with this author was very positive and I would definitely recommend this book

I was blown away by this book. I couldn't put it down and will be thinking about it for a long while.

I loved Station Eleven and I loved this too! It was different and I'm still not sure what to write or say about it. I am going to come back to the review, but I know it's a book I will keep thinking about.

4.75/5

I must be one of the few people who hasn’t read Station Eleven by this author, but it’s definitely on my list now after reading this!

This was just a wonderfully character driven interwoven story with a lingering haunting melody. I absolutely adored it!

This would be fantastic as a book club pick because there are just so many layers to unpack and so many themes that would be fantastic to discuss with a group of people.

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me a copy of this title for review.

I absolutely loved Station Eleven which is why I was very eager to read this book. The author's writing style is very engaging and she has an interesting way of pulling all of the characters together. I didn't love this as much as Station Eleven. This one had a more literary feel with ghosts thrown in for good measure. The book shifts points of view between many characters and revolves around a Ponzi Scheme which ends up impacting them in various ways. The character of Vincent (unique name for a female character) was by far the most interesting. The book did have some intriguing themes like how someone can know something and not know something at the same time. This is a reflection on greed and how much people are willing to turn a blind eye to for personal gain. I had a little trouble connecting with the first half of the book and found the latter half much easier to navigate. This is more a "butterfly effect" type book than one that has a concise plot. I think whether one enjoys this book or not will come down to personal preference. The author writes beautifully so if you are someone that doesn't mind a more fragmented story as opposed to a plot driven one I would give it a go. Thank you NetGalley for the review copy.

Undoubtedly there will be some readers who will not like the changing perspectives, times, and settings of The Glass Hotel, but I am not one of them. I loved this book. In a recent interview the author said that she rewrote and revised the manuscript several times; her hard work certainly paid off. Emily St. John Mandel writes wonderfully well, making every element of the book, from characters, to plot, to themes, to settings, interlock seamlessly. Undergirding the main story - based on Bernie Madoff's Ponzi-scheme investment scheme - The Glass Hotel centers on themes of greed and money as well as on actions that we take only to impress others. It is so rewarding to read a book of this high literary standard.

Emily St. John Mandel can turn a sentence. She evokes such passion in her characters. She drops you into several storylines, conversations, and locations, yet threads each time, character, and place with undeniable ease. What I loved about Station Eleven is here, too (subject matter aside).

Similar to the film The Big Short, Mandel manages to craft a beautiful and digestible piece that addresses the 2008 financial crisis and eventual recession. By choosing to focus on the characters involved and their individual storylines, Mandel makes you feel for these people and understand how they tick, why some did what they did, and how others reacted to the eventual implosion.

I'm simply amazed at how it all tied together. A fine follow-up.

WOAH! This book was absolutely incredible. The way Mandel is able to weave the lives of characters together is phenomenal. It is also so cool to see how a place can have such an affect on who you are. I loved this and it is a must for all library collections.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel is a tale about a Ponzi scheme and the alternate routes that we often imagine for ourselves. Jonathan Alkaitis is the brains behind the Ponzi scheme. Vincent is his pretend wife who attends events with him to give him an appearance of stability and trustworthiness. This story is told through many voices that all lead to a riveting tale. Read and enjoy!

It took a little while for this story to get moving and the various narrators felt a little disjointed at times but the author wove them all together in unexpected ways by the end and created an intriguing cast of characters.

I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Just like with Station Eleven, I got so much more out of this story by going into it blind. Since I knew nothing about it going in, I got to discover WITHIN THE STORY key elements that were likely in the dust jacket copy. If you haven't read about this book, DON'T. Just dive in and read it.

I loved Station Eleven and could not wait to read The Glass Hotel. It did not disappoint. Understated and beautifully written. I can't wait to recommend it to everyone I know.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel.

This was a highly anticipated read for me after reading Station Eleven a couple years ago. The Glass Hotel feels similar in writing style to her debut, so if you're familiar with her work, I think you will enjoy this as well. Both narratives skip forwards and backwards in time, involve a large cast of characters, and center around a large catastrophe. (Also - if you haven't read Station Eleven, it involved a flu epidemic and seems very timely to read now!)

Vincent is a bartender at the 5 star Hotel Caiette, located on Vancouver Island, where a message has been written on the glass wall of the lobby, 'Why don't you swallow broken glass'. Leon Prevant, a shipping executive, needs a drink after seeing this message, and the intended target missed it completely, the owner of the hotel and investment manager, Jonathan Alkaitis. Vincent and Jonathan, meet this night and she becomes his trophy wife in a world of wealth and riches.

The story begins and ends with Vincent's disappearance from the Neptune Cumberland and woven in between are the stories of the lives from those that lived in this world of greed, corruption, opulence, regrets, and guilt. The characters and lives are connected as the narrative goes back and forth in time. A large part of the story is a financial element - so if this isn't your thing, you may want to skip this. It is a story of immense wealth, involving the financial collapse and an international Ponzi scheme. Mandel follows the perpetrators and the victims with their interwoven lives and you can see the humanity of the characters from all sides involved. This is a very atmospheric read and I could imagine each of the main locations in extraordinary detail.

This publishes March 24. Thank you to @librofm and @netgalley for my advanced copy.

Not Station Eleven but then, what is? I did like this book, but the multiple characters and erratic time line was confusing at times. We see the same events from multiple points of view. The central Ponzi scheme was painful to read and the outcome inevitable. Should you read this book? I am not sorry that I spent time with these characters, but this is a very different sort of book.

Mandel's writing shines in this new work, where her ethereal prose lends itself to the sense of unreality throughout the novel.

There is not exactly character development, but this almost feels purposeful, with the characters becoming more and more ghost-like, lost inside their thoughts, choices, and what-ifs.

Shifting viewpoints and times let us know the worst of what happens early on, so there's little surprise in any particular plot point. But similar to the lack of character development, this feels purposeful. Mandel focuses on the characters choices, exploring the idea of Phillip Roth's "Counterlife" in a haunting manner, leaving the characters only with the choices they've made, surrounded by the ghosts of other possibilities.

Mandel's prose reads like poetry, and draws the reader along on this introspective, almost lethargic, journey. For readers looking for a well written exploration of human choices and consequences.

This haunting novel drew me in from the first sentence. Loosely based off Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the book floats back and forth in time between a luxurious remote hotel on Vancouver island and the finance world of New York City and from 1999 to 2029. The character development was phenomenal and I enjoyed this one much more than Station Eleven.