The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel’s previous novel, Station Eleven, is one of my all-time favorites and anyone who hasn’t read it should have it at the top of their to-read list (though, given the subject matter, if you haven’t read it, I’m not sure now is the right time).  The Glass Hotel is quite different from Station Eleven — the subject matter, setting, characters are all different. What remains the same, fortunately, is Mandel’s exceptional writing.  It was her writing that pulled me into this novel and kept me reading, despite the fact that I didn’t really like any of the characters.  It’s a testament to Mandel’s skill — her almost hypnotic prose — that I raced to the end of the novel, even though I wasn’t sure I really cared how it ended.

Based loosely on the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, The Glass Hotel follows a disparate cast of characters as they weave in and out of each others’ lives.  The main character is a young woman named Vincent who benefits from the scheme but also is caught up in the aftermath.  (I have to say, I found her name distracting and annoying.  I know that girls can have boys’ names and vice-versa, but even 100 pages in, I had to keep reminding myself that Vincent was not male.  This seemed like an odd choice.)

I think my favorite character in the novel was not a character at all, but the hotel itself.  Maybe it’s because I love Vancouver and could really visualize the place, but those were my favorite scenes.  Wish I could get beamed up to that hotel right now!

Overall, I really liked this book and gave it a high rating because it drew me in completely, and I was mesmerized by Mandel’s writing.  Still, it will not stay with me the way Station Eleven did and for that reason, it was a bit of a let-down.