This book is distilled insanity. It's told from the more or less stream-of-consciousness points of view of five women whose lives intersect in a certain hotel: a dead teenager trying to remember her past, her sister working through her grief, a self-absorbed journalist, a bed-ridden invalid, and a barely coherent homeless woman. I wish I could explain the plot, but there really isn't one - just snapshots of life that happen to overlap a bit. That said, it was kind of a fun read in places. The ghost's manic descriptions were fun, the journalist's ignorance was amusing, and some of the writing style was novel. Plus, it was short enough that I never felt overtaxed by any one character - save the sister, whose entire chapter contained no punctuation. That was exhausting to read. ( )

Dreamy, mesmerising, but also, sadly, instantly forgettable. ( )

Hotel World tells the story of a young woman who starts working at a hotel chain and dies. She climbs into a dumb waiter, but it is old and snaps and she falls down the shaft being killed on impact. There was one witness, a boy who she worked with and got along well with. The girl had recently fallen in love for the first time and was shocked to find it was with another girl.

The tale is split into sections told by different people with connections to the hotel and the dead girl. The first narrator is the ghost of the girl herself. I loved the way she is portrayed as not really remembering who she was and being able to appear to her family. The second character is Else, a homeless lady who asks for change outside the hotel. She is offered a free night in the hotel by a receptionist (the third narrator). The fourth character is a guest at the hotel, a journalist who reviews the hotel. The next story is that of the dead girls sister and how it has affected her. The final story is the girl in the watch shop who had been the object of the dead girls love.

I loved this short novel. It read like a series of short stories that were interconnected. Somehow Ali is able to change her writing style so it really does feel like you are reading the thoughts of different people. I also warmed to all the characters, even the journalist and loved how little comments from one persons story had an affect on another characters. ( )

The 5 characters in this book are linked by one central event.
Each speak to the reader in a distinctive style - the voice of the teenager Clare comes across particularly well. There are so many threads linking the dead girl to so many people - I love the way the book was brought to a close and because - I think - of the way in which this was done, made me want to go back to the beginning and read it all over again! ( )

Like The Accidental, this is rather...experimental. There were some parts I liked less than others because of that, but I do love her prose and really enjoyed the story.

The section that I found difficult to read was the sister's. I get what she was trying to do and it did work really well in getting her (Claire? was that her name?) state of mind across, but it was hard to read for such a long period. I kept losing my place because there was nothing, no periods or anything to ground me. Also the ampersands grated and I didn't see a reason for those at all.

I loved that in the end it came back to the watch shop girl. I loved that she was crushing on Sara, too, and aww, keeping the watch and never knowing she was dead and hoping she'd come back and all awkwardly flirty and and and! Perfect ending. ( )