Beautiful. That's the word that came to mind as I read the last page of The Glass Hotel.
Emily St. John Mandel weaves together stories in such a way that keeps my interest while diving deep into each character.
The story plays out in such a satisfying way, with one-liners that hint at deeper meanings or yet-to-be-discovered futures.
There are ships, hotels, billionaires, tiny villages, addicts, and half-siblings. Each, so fascinating.
It's so hard for me to describe and pin down what exactly it is about Mandel's book... It's lovely writing, it's a well-woven story, it feels familiar even as I read it the first time.
I highly recommended it

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.

I received a complimentary E-ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. I loved Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, and when I look back on my reads from the past decade, it may be one of my top selections. That book is a dystopian literary sci-fi novel, which finds its main strength in the way it ties disparate, fully developed characters together, in a beautiful way that seems to describe humanity's interconnectedness like I haven't seen done before. The Glass Hotel is a very different novel but its strengths are in the same places: taking far-flung characters from different spaces, making them so real, and linking them with interconnected threads. This is done expertly and by the time I was 25% into this book, I was very involved with all of the characters.

However, this may not be a book for everyone. When reading books with many points of view, readers often hate one or the other. I didn't find that to be the case for me, although I definitely saw the siblings, Vincent and Paul, as the characters I wanted to return to, and was a little impatient to get to the ending, when I was hoping we'd return to them. Much of the middle of the book is a loose adaptation of the Bernie Madoff scandal, in which one of our characters, Jonathan Alkaitis, has been running a Ponzi scheme for years, taking millions of dollars from wealthy investors. The way St. John Mandel makes even this series of events interesting really does show her level of talent as a writer- I am not someone who would normally read about finance voluntarily.

In short, I'd say this is really experimental literary fiction. For a certain type of reader, who can enjoy the slow character development and non-plot, there is a lot to enjoy here. I loved it.

Emily St John Mandel retains the characteristics of "Station Eleven" that made it so successful: immersive, eerie setting, flawed protagonists, distrust of the other. In "The Glass Hotel," a cast of characters is bound together through shared mistakes and desires setting off a series of events that leads to a cataclysmic finale. While the characters were certainly interesting, I found the plot to be lacking just a bit. It felt circuitous and aimless at times. However, once I accepted this, I was able to kick back and just enjoy the show unfolding. Overall, a curious novel with mystical qualities that masterfully wove together a complex set of characters and story arcs.

I love this book. The characters are complex and the settings are vivid. I love her stark contrast from the kingdom of money and the shadows. So much is going on but the author ties it up so all of the storylines are linked and impact each other. I highly recommend this incredible book.

Loved Station Eleven so I was really looking forward to this book. It did not disappoint. Great writing and unique characters held my attention and I am ready to go back and read some of her earlier novels.

Constructed in a similar fashion to Station Eleven, her previous book, this takes place in the real world with some "other world" experiences thrown in. Though the major plot concerns a Ponzi scheme and the characters involved/affected by it, I feel like personal morality is at the heart of the novel. Even though it skips around a bit in time, the author succeeds in not confusing the reader. In fact, she is able to bring the story to a close in a most satisfying way.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing for the ARC to read and review.

This book is difficult to describe and I confess I had a hard time getting into it, but I'm very happy that I stuck with it. Everything rolls back around in this book and in a believable way. Concepts of trust/betrayal, dread/freedom run strong throughout. The lies we tell ourselves, how we internally justify the unjustifiable. The character development is very strong. There are few likeable characters here, but many of them are strangely relatable - evidence of this author's skill.

Haunting is too obvious a word to describe Mandel's latest mesmerizing novel, yet I can't find one that's more appropriate. I think everyone has experienced a fleeting ghost from their past, an old abusive flame, an old woman they wished they'd been kinder to, a peer who left an emotional scar, a friend that they wished they'd made. Was that them in the crowd? Perhaps they daydream imagining what that person is doing now. Perhaps an image flits around the edges of consciousness. Everyone is haunted. Leave it to Mandel to weave such hauntings into a poignant work of fiction. Separate stories of troubled families, charmingly corrupt businessmen, adrift artists, and world weary loners all intertwine as they pass through a luxurious hotel surrounded by wilderness. How will they be transformed through their meetings there? Whose ghosts will comfort? Whose ghosts will torment?

Back when I read Station Eleven, what most impressed me about Emily St. John Mandel was her ability to so realistically portray the interior lives of the book’s diverse group of characters—and to do so in a way that seemed realistic and true when considered against the backdrop of an imagined world-wide pandemic. In The Glass Hotel, she is no less successful though, this time, the thread that connects her characters is a Bernie Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme. In many ways, The Glass Hotel is a more contained book, but I found that I actually made my through it faster and became more attached to the characters. Each was flawed and their problems were of their own making, whether through outright malice or through their determination to make the easier rather than the right choice. But they did also remind me that, while we can’t always control what happens to us, we can always do and try to be better as exemplified by Vincent’s decision to go to sea and leave her past behind and Leon and Marie’s attempt to navigate an insecure future in a world with few opportunities for seniors without resources. The Glass Hotel isn’t a happy story, but it does seem to have something real and true to say about life in the early 21st century.

Follow multiple characters as they attempt to find their way in life and their place. Searching for meaning and dodging pitfalls keep the characters and the reader busy and engaged.

Emily St. John Mandel is a talented and lyrical writer, and I loved the journey this book took me on. It's a haunting and character driven story, and one that is very slow paced. If you are in the mood for a fast read, this is not the book for you. Her commentary on people, what it means to be rich or poor, self serving, greedy, cruel, and whether any ends can justify wealth gained through illicit means. This book got me thinking quite a bit. For people who are expecting another Station Eleven, this is a very different book (though there are nods to Station Eleven in it!) but the writing style is similar.

A haunting and beautifully written look at the way people compromise their moral values to achieve a perceived better life.