My TL:DR Five Word Review : Could not put it down

To be honest, I requested a review copy of The Glass Hotel because I loved Station Eleven. I didn’t read the description and when I picked up the book I’d only read a couple of reviews and had very little idea what to expect, although I was becoming a little nervous because on the face of it the premise seemed a little outside of my comfort zone.  In fact, if somebody was to try and give me an idea of what The Glass Hotel was about I think it would probably come across really badly and I’d undoubtedly run a mile.  So, basically, I’m not going to talk about the plot at all because I think at best I would end up tying myself in knots and at worst maybe even discourage others from reading this because of my botched attempt at summarising the gist of the story.

Here’s a snippet from Goodreads :

‘From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, a captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts, and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it.’

So, I’m going to focus on other things here and it’s all going to be positive.

On the face of it a story spread over a couple of decades with a backdrop that examines the financial crisis of 2008 particularly centring on ponzi schemes couldn’t sound less appealing to me even if it tried.  And yet, here I find myself absolutely loving this book and wanting to wax lyrical about it. To be blunt, I simply can’t believe how much I enjoyed this story.  I feel like I’ve been mesmerized or hypnotised or some special magic has been worked.  I read this in one day, ignoring the everyday mundane banalities such as eating or chores and in fact staying up until the wee hours to finish it and even though I was shattered when I eventually crashed into bed I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

This book is complex.  It goes back and forth between people and times and yet it all comes together in perhaps one of the most satisfying ways I’ve ever encountered.  The characters are so well imagined that I feel like I know them and the strong emotions that this creates really contributes to the overall experience.

On top of this the writing is brilliant.  I take my hat off to the author for pulling together such a myriad of tales using what can reasonably be described as quite ‘dry’ material and yet managing to make this into a compelling tale filled with mystery, sadness and unexpected depth.

To be honest, I’m not going to say too much more because I feel like my review has taken on the semblance of a headless chicken running around hysterically.

In a nutshell I loved this book.  It’s a haunting story, beautifully written, that depicts people in many guises.  Like a pebble dropped into a pond it look at the ripples we cause through our actions, sometimes knowingly, sometimes whilst fiercely in denial and sometimes by pure chance. It’s not a heartwarming tale of love and laughter.  It’s not a tale of swords and sorcery.  But it’s a book that managed to overwhelm me in the most unexpected way and, because of that, I love it.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

Rating 5 of 5 stars