Interesting. The characters were interesting enough to keep the story going. The story wants to talk about different situations or times of one’s life as countries in their own right with cultures and norms. The country of the dead parents, the country of the obscenely rich, the country of criminals, etc. kind of like we are just visitors or temporary visa holders of whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

Story of financial investment firm caught after decades of fraud (a Ponzi scheme), impact on lives. St. John Mandel uses a style of writing where each character becomes the main one when it is told from their perspective, which takes some getting used to. I enjoyed the references to music and art ("Eakin the Thinker"). When the musician, Paul was on stage with his sister's home movies playing silently in the background I got a strange sensation I had already read this and wondered if the scene had been repeated in another of has stories? A little disappointed this was not a science fiction story, having already read Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquillity, but still well written and well researched story. ( )

4.5⭐️

I fell in love with Emily St .John Mandel’s writing style while reading Station Eleven and was certainly not disappointed with The Glass Hotel!
From a woman going overboard a ship in inclement weather to a cryptic message left on a glass wall in Hotel Caiette and the collapse of a Ponzi scheme headed by Jonathon Alkaitis and how his dishonesty,greed and corruption impacts the lives of everyone associated with him - directly and indirectly - The Glass Hotel uses a non linear narrative that jumps between numerous timelines and introduces us to the different characters of this novel. Each of these characters - some with troubled pasts, some living in complicated realities and each with their own struggles have stories that intersect at some point - some connections significant , some fleeting but the circumstances and consequences of their interactions are what make this novel so intense . A little difficult to get into on account of the disjointed narrative and a bit confusing initially , I found myself going back a few times to get a grip on the storyline but once I got comfortable with the pacing , I could not wait to see how the story unfolded. With its immensely flawed cast of characters and a strong storyline , elements of alternate realities and ghostly apparitions , The Glass Hotel is a bold and complex novel with dark tones and atmospheric settings. This is the kind of novel you either like or don’t like with not much middle ground for the reader. I look forward to reading more of this author’s work ! ( )

Been up since 6am reading this and it was exceptionally good - I think I may have preferred it to Station Eleven, which I unabashedly loved. It's unbearably beautiful and unbearably sad, dealing as it does with boundaries - the worlds of the rich and the poor and insecure, the living and the dead, reality and dreams, the imprisoned and the free.

I don't want to say too much without spoiling it, but at its heart it's a mystery - what happened to Vincent? The answer to that question is a huge story of crisis, despair, and international billion dollar fraud that criss-crosses back and forth along different timelines and from the perspective of a host of well-drawn characters. The subject matter is something that I would never normally be interested in, as the romance of high finance has always left me cold, but everything is told from a heartbreakingly human perspective - despite the fact that in many ways this is a ghost story.

Can't recommend it enough. ( )

The Glass Hotel is an intricately plotted novel loaded with characters, plot lines and time changes that make for a frustrating read. Yes, Emily St. John Mandel has the writing chops to handle this type of novel but are we ready to subject ourselves to another story about a Ponzi scheme? Living and dead characters haunt the book. Trying to make the hotel a character only partially works. So, I can’t recommend it unless you were a big fan of her last book Station Eleven. ( )