I received an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review

What a fun, weird little book. A very literary journey inside a woman’s interior, the mundane setting is a foil for the depth of the narrative. Definitely eating your cultural vegetables but a pleasure none the less

This is so different from The Lesser Bohemians. Although I haven't read A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, her second novel's minute London world was colored by a youthful and naive teenage narrator who was depressingly precocious and a little bit of a simper. Strange Hotel's narrator is older, wiser, and still depressed - my kind of girl. It's an exercise in self-aware self-indulgence. I have no doubt in my mind McBride knows her writing is presumptuous, frustrating, at times tedious, and guilty of finding itself fascinating. You have to love writing and the English language to enjoy this novel. But what is writing, after all? Is it only to please? It was easy for me to fall into the I; at the same time, I was frequently jarred out of my trance by the lack of urgency that colors our stream of continuous thoughts. It's an interesting work, and McBride's readers know who they are.

Strange Hotel follows an unnamed Irish woman of middle age on a few of her numerous stays in hotels. Her nights are dominated by drinking, meaningless sex and endless thinking. Her mind is a constant treadmill of forced apathy, or as she calls it "calm and composure" and self-flagellation for not being able to maintain said apathy.

The book reads as a stream of consciousness and perhaps the author is a bit too successful at this as I found my mind constantly drifting into my own thoughts while reading it. I had to force myself to be very active in my reading to actually absorb what was on the page and often had to re-read sections only after realizing I hadn't been focussing. This was only exacerbated by the author's use of language, which while very intentional was also so dense. For a book with so few words, boy, did it feel like there were a lot of words.

I appreciate what the author was trying to do, and in that regard I do think she is successful. This is a thoughtful, ponderous and slow novel. It's also hazy, melancholy and laborious. I think there are some who would adore this book I just wasn't one of them.

I've been excited about this book since I first heard about it, and it did not disappoint. The characters sucked you into the story and the story kept you turning pages as fast as you could. I devoured it in a day. I loved it.

So short! Can’t say I found myself wanting more, though. I think this quote explains the conceit of the book while also capturing its tone:

Day.
Unspectacular and only again. Blind spinning on its roller. Another curtain undrawn. Irrefutably another night spent in a similar room to the one for which she has paid. Handsomely. Again.

All the travel was somewhat reminiscent of Vendela Vida’s wonderful The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty. I could have used more of the travel, actually - moments like the one she has looking out the window in Prague. The endless interior monologue felt convincing, but I have my own interior monologue of regret and memory and shame and loss and intention-setting at midlife, so reading another was somewhat tiresome.

I really dislike giving bad reviews so I try to take in account everything that goes into writing a book that being said this book just was not for me. It was extremely confusing following all the different hotels I actually was unable to finish the book.

Strange Hotel by author Eimear McBride is an okay novel with a good foundation for a novel. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This hypnotizing short novel is rendered in an enigmatic stream-of-consciousness, full of self-doubt and attempts at rationalizing situations and behaviors, gloomy, regretful and claustrophobic. The protagonist is a middle-aged woman who drifts through hotels in Avignon, France, Prague, Oslo, Auckland, and Austin - we never fully learn what she is doing in these cities except attempting to forget a man she once loved and who is probably the father of her child (god knows where this child is). The woman indulges in alcohol and casual sex, but it's never anything but a half-hearted distraction and unsuccessful self-medication.

The narrative technique is exceptionally well done, it conveys all the confusion and desperation of a protagonist who feels trapped in her own life, unable to break free of her behavioral patterns and depression. McBride makes a rather daring move by deciding to fully omit crucial information, thus creating a feeling of uncertainty and disorientation on the side of the reader, an unsettling fog. And of course, this is also frustrating: The narrator can't make sense of her own existence, and so can't we.

The stream-of-consciousness that goes back, forth and then in circles in not unlike the writing in Milkman, and the overall vibe of loss and pain is reminiscent of another woman-travels-and-drinks-because-she-lost-a-man-novel: The Third Hotel. Overall, the writing is impressive, but the book is too long for what it is, and it's also not a satisfying reading experience, although intentionally so.

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

"A nameless woman enters a hotel room. She’s been here once before. In the years since, the room hasn’t changed, but she has."

A quick read but it was just strange. The story itself made no sense, why did she travel from hotel to hotel? From city to city? And - I detested having to muddle through sentences that were awkwardly put together.

1☆