Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Twitter
  3. Follow us on Instagram
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • About CBR
    • Getting Started
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • Leaderboard
    • The CBR Team
    • Recent Comments
    • CBR Interviews
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • How You Can Donate
    • Book Sale
    • CBR Merchandise
    • Supporters and Friends of CBR
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Follow Us

Open Registration for CBR13 ends Jan. 31! Sign Up Today!

> FAQ Home
> Genre: Fiction > Begin at the end

Begin at the end

The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel

May 27, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The newest novel by Emily St John Mandel finds us at a hotel on a small Canadian island where several characters initially interact. We begin with Paul who has run away from college after accidentally passing along bad E. He takes a job at the hotel where his sister works, and he gets involved in an act of curious vandalism that gets him fired. His sister Vincent meets the rich owner of the hotel and begins what she understands as a transactional relationship with him, a millionaire investment fund manager whose wife has died recently.

The novel then jumps around a few different time periods and narrators as we see the investment fund slowly revealed to be a Ponzi scheme.

The novel is primarily focused on the ideas of culpability and responsibility (but not particularly redemption, which is a relief). And while the writing is often quite good, I often found the novel to be a mess. The two biggest issues that came up for me is that I found some unfortunate or maybe confusing contradictions in the characterizations and tone that I couldn’t fully wrap my head around. I wasn’t clear on some character motivation, and there’s a few scene where choices and feelings being expressed seemed almost inexplicable to me. In addition, there’s a few moments where I felt I was being somewhat condescended to via the narration, especially regarding the financial world the novel often inhabits. The narration felt artificial too, as in the narration had clearly looked up all we were being told about the world and was likely accurate, but it didn’t really seem like it came from any real place of knowledge about that world. There’s a point where a character says “Of course, I know what a Ponzi scheme is, because I’m not a fucking idiot” and I felt very connected to the character in that moment because there was plenty of time where I felt the novel was treating me like one.

(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Glass-Hotel-Emily-John-Mandel-ebook/dp/B07RL58ZDG/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+glass+hotel&qid=1590593798&sr=8-1)

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel

vel veeter's CBR12 Review No:299 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

About vel veeter

CBR13 participantCBR12 participantCBR11 participantCBR10 participantCBR  9CBR 8

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/69444656-vel-veeter View vel veeter's reviews»

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Recent Comments

  • msvreadsbooks on The Last Resort – Meh.Thanks, all! I'm excited to get started on this journey and to read more reviews from my fellow Cannonballers (is that what we're called?).
  • msvreadsbooks on The Last Resort – Meh.Then this book is for you! Haha. It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
  • andtheIToldYouSos on Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.ONE OF US ONE OF US
  • andtheIToldYouSos on Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.I let the art come my way through the Tor instagram...if I sought it out, I'd never stop!
  • Sandra Hennessey on Book Club Discussion: The Glass HotelPerhaps you should stop reading her novels. Station 11 is the outlier— her other novels are much more like this one. I love her writing...
See More Recent Comments »

Want to Help Out?

CBR has a great crew of volunteers, and we're always looking for more people to help out. If you have a specialty or are willing to learn, drop MsWas a line.

  • How You Can Donate
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in