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
    • Event Calendar
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • The CBR Team
    • Leaderboard
    • 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
> FAQ Home
> Genre: Fiction > “I think many a trouble begins with love, and it’s important to remember that when life feels like the shit scraped off Death’s boot sole.”

“I think many a trouble begins with love, and it’s important to remember that when life feels like the shit scraped off Death’s boot sole.”

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

April 6, 2021 by narfna Leave a Comment

I feel like only Lyndsay Faye could not only make me actually sit through reading a story about the mafia, but enjoy it. (Thankfully, the mafia portions are really only about 1/3 of the novel.) I just, I really hate stories about organized crime. I don’t know why.

Really, this story isn’t about the mafia. It’s about Alice “Nobody” James, who is on the run from the mafia, yes, but is taken in by the residents of the Paragon Hotel in Portland, Oregon when a porter on her cross country train recognizes that she is seriously wounded and brings her to the doctor who owns the hotel. The other thing about this hotel is that it is entirely owned and populated by Black people, which would have been a big deal in any city, but especially so in Portland, the Whitest City in America, in the early 1920s. I am not from Portland, so I had no idea about its history, but I don’t think I’m alone in this. Apparently, Oregon was just super racist but didn’t want to admit it, and made it a law that Black people weren’t allowed to live there (a law that stayed on the books well into the twentieth century), but, no really, they weren’t racist! They just didn’t want trouble that came with all that racial tension! Just better to keep out the cause, right? Ugh. (Yeah, sure, guys, and the KKK is really just a charitable organization.)

Alice inserts herself pretty successfully into life at the hotel, making friends, and sussing out intrigue. When a little boy who lives at the hotel goes missing on the heels of vandalism and threats from the cops and the KKK, some of the intrigue in the hotel and surrounding it takes on a new flavor. This is also taking place during Prohibition, and post WWI, so those are both significant concerns for the characters.

I really ended up loving all the characters in this one, though I liked the flashback sections set in NY less than I liked the present day setting in Oregon. This might have been a five star read if Alice’s backstory had been more to my personal tastes. I will admit, though, the novel wouldn’t have been the same without it. Alice is an interesting POV character because she is constantly, consciously, remaking herself into someone new to fit whatever situations she’s in, and the result is that she herself is never quite sure who she really is. It also could have been disastrous having the lone white female character be some sort of white savior for the rest of the characters, who are mostly Black. But it doesn’t work out like that, and I came away from the book feeling like Faye had nothing but respect and love for her characters, even the ones with questionable morality.

Definitely recommend this one.

Filed Under: Fiction, Mystery Tagged With: historical fiction, LGBTQIA, Lyndsay Faye, mystery, narfna, prohibition, The Paragon Hotel

narfna's CBR13 Review No:29 · Genres: Fiction, Mystery · Tags: historical fiction, LGBTQIA, Lyndsay Faye, mystery, narfna, prohibition, The Paragon Hotel ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

About narfna

CBR13 participantCBR13 CommentsCBR12 participantCBR11 participantCBR10 participantCBR  9CBR 8CBR 7CBR 6CBR 5CBR 4

Good evening, everyone. I'm Leslie Monster, and this is Nightline. View narfna'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

  • dsbs42 on Immense beauty and infinite kindnessJust read this book, and I love your review.
  • Singsonggirl on Ye Olde ChildrearingCrap, I can't find it on the TV station's website anymore. But it was made by Austrian TV and was in German anyway. One of...
  • Singsonggirl on Perfume – Patrick Suskind (1985)Aaahhh, this is one of my all-time favourite books! I read the ending as a culmination of all the olfactory and sensory impressions? Like it...
  • narfna on Re-reading Mistborn, Era One – Part I: The Final EmpireA re-read would probably be your best bet if you want to continue because Sanderson is the king of bringing back details and making them...
  • wicherwill on Re-reading Mistborn, Era One – Part I: The Final EmpireMy brother suggested this book, and only recently told me / did I realize there were others as well. I don't remember enough of this...
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
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in