“Begin at the end” and so this book does. It begins in a remote hotel on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. Owned by a wealthy New Yorker, the reader has no idea that this guy is heading a Ponzi scheme. Revolving around a girl, Vincent, who lived here and then was sent to Vancouver to live with her aunt, the reader is introduced to several people who were ruined by investing their money. When the NY financier asked Vincent to come live with him as his wife, she does and her life changes dramatically. She can see how the rich live and the freedom it gives her. She’s a trophy wife without the benefit of marriage. But everything shatters when the corruption is revealed. Well-developed characters as well as descriptions of the settings make this a worthwhile novel.

I loved the sense of place and spectrality in this book that hinges around the financial crisis of 2008. While I wouldn't consider it a ghost story in the strictest sense, it had elements of one, and the way the character's lives come into contact with each other, sometimes in unexpected ways was really enjoyable to explore.

I anticipated that the book would take place more around the Glass Hotel from the way the blurb read, yet, while the hotel features as a location in very little of the actual story, it does take on the position of almost its own characterization, and provides a sort of anchor that appears throughout the story. There were some surprises that I didn't see coming and one moment where I actually gasped.

Engaging, with characters that were enjoyable to follow throughout the twists and turns and different decades the book covered.

The Glass Hotel is a riveting read that will take you all over the world! There are many different characters that are all connected. This book is hard to describe but it is worth the read!

A million stars! This is my favorite read of the year so far. Very excited to share this with my library customers.

I loved Mandel’s debut, Station Eleven, so I was looking forward to The Glass Hotel. This is the tale of a fictionalized Bernie Madoff, Jonathan Alkaitis, who has built a life bilking the wealthy out of their savings, and involving a small group of employees in the long running scheme. As Alkaitis’ story unfolds, the reader gets to know his youthful lover, Vincent, who poses as his wife, her brother Paul, several of the investors who have considered Alkaitis to be a friend, and some of the employees of his firm, who react differently when the scheme unravels, staying to face the music or just plain disappearing, and of course Alkaitis.

The time sequence is a bit confusing as it shifts back and forth. But the characters are complex and interesting, and the author is adept at showing how easy it is for people to be overcome by greed and look the other way if there is a fortune to be made, as well as how many people don’t acknowledge that if something looks too good to be true, it probably isn’t. Overall, I enjoyed this book, and found the author’s writing to be lyrical and atmospheric. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced e-copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

I saw Emily St. John Mandel at an author’s event a couple of years ago. She was talking about writing this book, and of course Station Eleven! I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book and I’m so happy I had a chance to read it earlier this year!

The book takes place primarily in and around 2008, with the collapse of a Ponzi scheme amidst the US economic downturn. The story weaves many lives together going back in forth from different point of views, place, and time. One of the main characters was Vincent, a bartender in the remote hotel. She and her brother Pau both work there and the book tells the complicated relationship between the two siblings. I was unsure of what was happening for most of the book, but I enjoy Mandel’s writing so much, I just went along for the ride. If you enjoyed Station Eleven’s structure and writing, then I recommend this book. It’s a book that will make you wonder what is real and what is important. Perfect for a buddy read or book club because there is so much to discuss!

Let me start by saying I loved the first book I read by this author, “Station Eleven.” It was beautiful, captivating, and all around amazing; you can tell the author has true writing talent. “The Glass Hotel” follows a similar style with lyrical writing, multiple story-lines, and a large cast of characters with rotating POVs. It can be overwhelming at first, but it’ll all make sense in the end. I enjoyed how each character and story-line was revealed to be connected in some way. However…the long meandering walk through all the characters lives and past events was just so slow and it sadly ended up disappointing me. I just felt bored and wasn’t interested in the plot or the characters. I might pick this one up another time and try it again, but this was overall a miss for me. Thank you to NetGalley for my free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

I was granted an e-ARC of The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel by the publisher on NetGalley to provide a fair and honest review.

Emily St. John Mandel’s novel is a fictional story that spans decades as we follow a series of characters trying to live their best life. At the center of all of them is the hotel featured in the title, but the moral of the story is one of redemption and second chances. We see our characters dealing with issues around drugs, relationships, and financial issues. In this review, I won’t be going any deeper into the plot; I will only convey my feelings about the book. Although, I will discuss the writing and the structure of the plot.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I did not love it. The best thing about the book was St. John Mandel’s writing. I spent the first quarter of the narrative trying to figure out exactly where the story was going. Who are the characters that matter, and what role do the people we are meeting play in the bigger picture. Around ~a third of the way in, our characters begin to piece together. Although, there is still a mystery as to what the issue of the story is all about. Not much later, that too begins to be revealed, and it becomes a bigger look at the implications.

Up to this point, I was engaged and intrigued at the possibilities that awaited us. Although, intricate story telling can only take you so far. When it finally comes together, it all left me feeling wanting. It was like, this is it? This is what everything lead to? It all felt so mundane and trivial. That is to say, the plot just isn’t compelling. The writing made the story more compelling, but that doesn’t save a boring plot.

The character work is great. The way she tells the story is by focusing on each character and letting the plot form around them. That is, we follow them at different points in there life, in a not entirely linear fashion, and it is on the reader to piece together the bigger picture. The act of discovery is exciting. What’s more, it produces well written characters, and even as the mediocre plot came to an end, the character endings were still satisfying. That doesn’t stop there being a disconnect between interesting character stories and a cohesive and compelling story at large.

I go a bit more in depth in my Vlog (post at the top), so you can watch that if you would like more details. Although, that is mostly repeating what I have said here, and the spoilers are mostly contained to a couple minutes. As I said at the start, I enjoyed reading this. I still can’t say it was worth it though. My enjoyment of parts was outweighed by my being bored by the overarching narrative. 3.5/5 stars.

Rating Break Down
Writing Style: 8/10, Plot: 6/10, Characters: 9/10, Ending: 10/10, Engagement: 8/10, Enjoyment: 7/10, Comprehension: 8/10, Pacing: 8/10, Desire to Reread: 0/10, Special: 3/10, Calculated Rating: 3.49/5, Final Rating: 3.5/5
Note, each rating is weighted based on personal importance to calculate a final score that is rounded to the nearest half.

(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.

I’m one of the few people who has not read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. So I was eager to read The Glass Hotel when given an advanced reading copy by NetGalley.
At the heart of the book is a Bernie Madoff like Ponzi scheme and the man behind the mask Jonathan Alkaitis. He owns a grand hotel in remote BC which represents the dream of easy wealth which draws people to the unrealistic returns of his fund.
The life trajectory that should never have been is a common thread among the characters. From Vincent who embarks on a false marriage with a man thirty years her senior, to the entire Ponzi scheme which would have been taken down early had the SEC followed through on their investigation.
Just as the glass hotels blurs into its natural surroundings so does reality and the “other life” for its cast of characters.

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.