I loved Lavery’s writing on The Hairpin and The Toast, and was not disappointed! A fun take on places like The Barbizon. Would recommend.

Thank you NetGalley, Harpervia and Daniel M. Lavery for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Women’s Hotel.
The setting of this historical novel is written quite descriptively. There is a lot of information about the rooms of the hotel, clothing, food and small details that are not quite important to the plot but give you a good picture and set the atmosphere. The timeframe jumps around, the characters are interesting but rather flat without much background knowledge and there are only snippets of a plot. I would be hooked for awhile but then characters change and I would lose interest. There was too much telling without emotion so I felt I was observing from a distance instead of becoming part of the story. This style of writing is just not for me. There are some humorous moments and bizarre situations but it did not flow evenly. It felt like many short stories strung together. This had potential but I was a bit disappointed.

Had such high hopes for this but it was just incredibly boring. Writing was beautiful but the story gave me nothing.

Like many reviewers here, I found this very dry and a bit of a slog. It was very hard to finish and I would have not finished if my NetGalley stats didn't depend on it. I can appreciate the author's writing talent but this story was not for me. The author's note at the beginning was the only thing that I found interesting and it made me excited to read the book, as did the book's blurb, but this just wasn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperVia for this ARC

DNF @ 140 pages

Partial Review:

The prose in this book is like gravy, it's too thick and greasy to drink. It really needs something to break up all the meatiness. I didn't have the jaws to chew my way completely through this one. And I no longer have the vision I need to skim!

So I quit. For me, it wasn't an enjoyable read. My reading notes provide all the explanation, I've shared them below. You might love this one. It's definitely unique and writes about an interesting cultural phenomenon at an interesting time in history.

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. It's no wonder all our grandmothers were thin. These women were legal nonpersons, who could expect insufficient services even though they paid for a room, and were mostly relegated to thievery to keep food in their stomachs.

2. This book really handles suicide with nuance and respect. No plot devices here!

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. The narrative voice is too distracted with the details of the setting to get going with an actual story.

2. The style of the writing is not friendly. The syntax is unnecessarily complicated and the diction, unnecessarily verbose. Instead she murmured something tactful and nodded vaguely, and then after trading a few less keenly felt remarks about the weather, which was fine and seasonable, and the sermon, which had to do with whether Paul’s taking-up of Eutychus in Acts should properly be considered a resurrection from the dead, in the manner of Lazarus and Tabitha and the daughter of Jairus, or whether it should be considered instead a revival and therefore merely a simple healing miracle, like that of the beggar at the Gate Beautiful), Altheah drifted away. p59 All one sentence. Sentences this long are most often runons and frequently require chunking. This one would have benefited from chunking, as would many of the sentences in this book.

3. This is a book designed like a string of scenes or scene clusters. Each time I was reading a scene, I was blatantly aware of the development of some aspect of the story, but only and always in parts. Each scene focuses on furthering just one part. Contained. Little beads. Beads because the primary content of the scenes don't build on previous scenes. One character will develope in one scene, another in another scene, another provides some plot progression. These disparate parts just don't meet up very often, but they're all running at the same speed toward... something.

4. I suppose the plot is designed to mimic wandering the halls of a hotel and knocking on the doors, asking for stories. Maybe? But honestly, it's setting driven to the point of being distracting. It's a shame because setting driven novels can be completely brilliant. For example, try most of Jack London's work, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, or Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy. I did not like the treatment here, but you might!

5. DNF @ 141 pages. The couldn't flip by fast enough.

Rating: DNF @ 141 pages
Recommend? No
Finished: Sep 21 '24
Format: Digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
💜 dense prose
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 family stories, family drama
👭🏽 women's friendship under stress
💇‍♀️ women's coming of age
🕰 historical fiction

Thank you to the author Daniel M. Lavery, publishers Harper Collins, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of WOMEN'S HOTEL. All views are mine.

"From the New York Times bestselling author and advice columnist, a poignant and funny debut novel about the residents of a women's hotel in 1960s New York City.

The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There's Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There's Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there's Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.

The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they'd better make the most of it while it lasts.

As trenchant as the novels of Dawn Powell and Rona Jaffe and as immersive as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry, Women's Hotel is a modern classic - and it is very, very funny."

I miss the bygone era where their were sanctuary hotels.

3 stars

The titular setting and the array of quirky characters make this a unique read, as does the author's characteristic voice, though some readers may find certain stylistic choices challenging.

Lavery's voice, both in writing of all genres and even in podcasting and other nonfictional spaces, is unmistakable. His command of the language leaves renowned experts in the field swooning, but it also makes his writing, at times, somewhat inaccessible to broader audiences. Sometimes, the language overtakes the plotting and character development here, and I wished for a different outcome. Additionally, since this is more of a character study, wherein the hotel becomes a backdrop for many individual stories, there isn't as much forward movement and apparent plotting as many readers may expect. For me, this was a read focused on observations versus actions.

I enjoy so much about this writer, and while this effort did not resonate with me in the same way that other works by Lavery have, I still enjoyed the glimpse into this world.

This book sounded so interesting and unique, but it ended up being extremely boring. There are too many characters, I couldn't keep them all straight. Also, I wasn't a fan of the writing style. It was very bland. I expected more but this book isn't for me.

I liked a lot about this, but it left me lacking in certain ways. I enjoyed the characters but never felt fully immersed in the story. I think there's a lot to enjoy here though and I'm certainly interested in reading more from this author.

It's not a good sign when you go from reading an author's note to the actual storytelling, and don't even notice a change. Perhaps if the author's personal voice is what you're here for, it might be up your alley. But I found the narrative voice rather disengaged from the actual subjects at the heart of the premise

Thank you HarperCollins and NetGalley for this ARC! Set in a women’s only hotel in 1960’s New York City. Was really looking forward to a great read but there was no cohesive story, more of vignettes of stories that seemed very heavy handed written with characters that are not that memorable or interesting. Attempts at humor was also lacking and uninteresting and made for a tedious read.

Women's Hotel was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The premise of a hotel exclusively for women was intriguing, and Lavery's writing is sharp and witty, with lines like, "The Women's Hotel was the kind of place where you could order a martini and a feminist manifesto, and no one would bat an eye." I enjoyed the exploration of female friendships and the diverse cast of characters.

However, the plot felt a bit meandering at times, and I struggled to connect with some of the characters on a deeper level. The ending felt rushed, leaving me wanting more closure. Overall, Women's Hotel is a thought-provoking read with clever prose, but it fell short of being a truly captivating experience.

This novel follows a women’s hotel in 1960s New York. I found it dry and difficult to follow the characters. I liked the concept and thought it was interesting to learn about something in history I didn’t know anything about.

This book sounding so interesting. Women living in a hotel while they found husbands and got jobs. I liked the history bits. I also enjoy learning about the characters but there was not much of a plot. I felt that the book dragged a bit but there were some fun moments too.

not trying to be mean but it was a chore to finish this book. it was a bit aimless in the way it jumped between characters/backstories that i was not be able to sink into any of the plots. some of the writing was good :). less gay than i expected :( ending was odd :/

thank you harpervia and netgalley for the free eArc in exchange for the honest review.

In his author’s note before Women’s Hotel, Daniel M. Lavery discusses his fascination with women’s hotels. Women’s only residential hotels offered women a place to stay while they developed careers or found spouses. Some of these hotels, like the Barbizon, was home to famous writers, models, artists, and executives before they made it big. They offered a safe place at a reasonable price, though men were often barred from the higher floors and some hotels required references for new tenants. Legal and economic changes spelled the end of women-only residential hotels by the 1970s. I can understand how these hotels and their revolving tenants would intrigue a writer.

The Biedermeier, our setting for much of Women’s Hotel, is not the Barbizon. Its tenants include writers and artists and secretaries and one former dancer but the Biedermeier seems to be home to women who are either maintaining their status or are on their way down. These are women who will attend church services or society meetings in order to pilfer the refreshments. Some of the women are elderly singles who lack family to care for them. Others have yet to find better jobs or a well-off husband to whisk them away from the Biedermeier. For all of the hotel’s privations, however, it’s a place that offers a lot of freedom for its tenants and a network that supports them through their troubles.

The narrative drifts from character to character. There’s Lucianne, who can wind men around her finger but prefers to stay single in case a better future comes along. Pauline is one of my favorite Biedermeier residents. She’s a radical from a family of radicals who enjoys living on the margins. There are Kitty and Ruth, who lean too hard on the support of their fellow tenants. Their (for lack of a better word) antics spice things up. Most of the narrative follows Katherine, an alcoholic who found refuge at the Biedermeier. She works as an assistant to Mrs. Mossler, the head housekeeper/manager of the Biedermeier. While Mrs. Mossler worries about how to save costs and find new tenants to fill the hotel, Katherine is the person who resolves conflicts, runs the library, and generally keeps the whole operation spinning.

There isn’t much over-arching plot to Women’s Hotel, though there are many hints that the hotel isn’t going to be able to stay open for much longer without making a lot of changes. Instead, Lavery tells smaller stories about Katherine, Lucianne, and other residents. I was strongly reminded of Vicki Baum’s 1929 classic, Grand Hotel, as I read, though Lavery’s cast of characters is smaller and less Bohemian. The similarity comes from the way Lavery and Baum show us how everyone, no matter how seemingly insignificant, has a unique perspective and a story to tell.

What I liked most about this novel was its writing style. Women’s Hotel feels charmingly old-fashioned to me. (If it weren’t for reference to things like the Paris Peace Accords, I would’ve thought this book was set anywhere between 1930 and 1960. As far as I can tell, Women’s Hotel is set during the mid-1960s.) I loved Lavery’s rich vocabulary and beautifully constructed sentences. The snarky humor used to decribe the various residents and their scrapes had me laughing out loud more than once.

I would strongly recommend Women’s Hotel to readers who enjoy being a fly on the wall, watching the antics of a cast of characters in a place that doesn’t exist anymore.

I admit that I doubt if I am the proper audience for this novel. I acknowledge that I have never read anything by this author, so I really had no great expectations. However, based on the recap, I expected something a little different from what I got. This book was compared to Lessons in Chemistry, and I can wholeheartedly say that that is a bunch of bull poop.

This heavy-handed novel does not have me living these females' lives. I fully expected some true history based on real women's hotels with a lot of fiction mixed in. Instead, I got endless paragraphs of repetitive drivel that did nothing but ramble. There is nothing cohesive about this novel.

thanks to HarperVia and NetGalley for the ARC of this.

You know how Weird Al sometimes parodies specific songs, and other times creates a style parody, where he uses knowledge of a whole genre to generate a song that shows familiarity with an entire style of song rather than any given single start point? This is the style parody version of a Barbara Pym/Rona Jaffe young-career-women-on-the-go fifties/sixties novel done with exquisite precision and a clear love of the tropes of the genre.

Except that doesn't quite cover everything here - "parody" in particular is ill-fitting, since I don't think the book intends to make fun of the genre, instead gleefully rolling around in its tropes and hangups and absurdities. It's having a lot of fun, and there's a Wes Andersonian quality to the various criss-crossing plotlines/very precise character studies that was catnip for me. Lavery clearly likes this sort of literary voice, having employed it in his various websites and newsletters over the years, and his acuity with it makes the prose sparkle. As the story plays out, there's also some fun subversions of those tropes that helps this avoid feeling stale in 2024.

This is the sort of book where if it's your jam, you could absolutely shred through it in an afternoon (I meted it out over months because I was having such a delightful time and wanted to extend that as much as possible). That said, I think there's definitely some people who are going to absolutely bounce off of this one as Not Their Thing. This isn't a book where a lot _happens_, plot-wise; it's more of a year-in-the-life of its characters and the titular women's hotel where they all live as that starts to go out of fashion.

This book was hard to finish. I didn't feel like it had a plot. I loved reading and learning some interesting things about this moment in history. the writing is great, but the story just didn't seem to go anywhere.

I did not feel a connection to the characters in this book, and as it was not plot driven it fell a bit flat.