The Glass Hotel

A slow and meandering exploration of an assortment of characters' lives falling between awkward, delusional and detestable. Meandering also, unfortunately, in the worst way. Unlike Station Eleven, which used its early shifting view-points to introduce a broad range character perspectives and juxtaposed social dynamics for a relatively early narrative subversion such a thing never occurs here.

And where Station Eleven continued to ever narrow towards its ultimate strands of storytelling, reigning in its scope to keep up tension, no such attempt is made here. As a book it feels less tight, more mundane - which may indeed be the intention and part of the appeal for some.

That being said, the actual word-smithing of St. John Mandel I find continuously evocative and occasionally bleakly poetic. While I personally feel like the prose here tries to punch above its weight for poignant observations it also, at times, manages to evoke an undercurrent of rage against systematic issues over solely individual choices which is appreciated.

Ultimately, having also read Station Eleven without any prior knowledge on content or context, I would hesitate to recommend this book over it, though I recognize my strong impression of the former may have colored my expectations here.

NB The audiobook read by Dylan Moore is a treat, perhaps my preferred way of experiencing the book.

I gave up on this once but decided to finish it because of supposed easter eggs that connected this to Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility. It turns out there were common elements, but they seemed more like recycled incidental characters and situations than some kind of connective thread. we get a quick peek at the author of the Station Eleven graphic novel, working on it, maybe.

I think Mandel is a very good writer; her descriptions are compelling and she creates characters that have the potential to become interesting. but they don't. She tries to give minor events dramatic significance that doesn't really play but the central event of the story falls flat. Pages and pages are devoted to bland, amoral mediocrities while the few sympathetic characters get a few short passages. oh, and ghosts ()?