Great Story but I wish the narrator didn’t attempt accents

I loved this story, the writing was cohesive and intriguing and the the story was really gripping HOWEVER I wish that I’d read it with my own eyes instead of my ears as I found the narrators voice very grating and unemotional and she tried some bizarre accents such as québécois and Newcastle.. I found it hard to listen to such bad accents and it really spoiled the integrity of the book for me because it was comically like Dick Van Dyke awful.

7 people found this helpful

Intriguing but eventually underwhelming

From the cover blurb, this isn’t the sort of book I would normally read but I was intrigued as a result of the author’s previous novel - Station Eleven - which I enjoyed for its simplicity and prescience. I was immediately drawn into The Glass Hotel - the simple yet elegant style of writing and intriguing central character: a young woman named Vincent, a social misfit albeit a beautiful one who tries to minimise risk in her life but ends up inadvertently at the central of it. However, I found the first half of the novel more engaging than the second as it moved away from Vincent and towards her much older husband who is the architect of a Ponzi scheme, a shipping merchant, and Vincent’s drug addict brother. I found these characters to be much less interesting, pathetic sorry-for-themselves types. This shift in focus had the effect of disengaging me from the story overall and no longer interested in Vincent’s fate.

6 people found this helpful

ZIG ZAG STORY WITH PLENTY OF CONTENT.....YET

A story covering many topics and proceeding down quite a few avenues

with all stories coming to a rather pointless end. nothing gained
I expected more catharsis toward the end but just more twist and turn writing.

I had to double back many a time because the timeline was obscure.

all in all not a bad story. JRVP recommendation..

5 people found this helpful

Clueless

I enjoyed Station Eleven by the same author, though it was a tad too sentimental for my taste, it was overall an original and interesting story about life after global collapse and its gentleness was a refreshing change from the manic mad max type of novel.
So I pounced on Glass Hotel with eagerness. Well I hardly feel able to write any sort of review since most of my listening time was spent in a fog of confusion having very little idea at all of what the story actually is about. The hotel itself sounds wonderful but barely gets mentioned and there just is scene after scene of cocktail bars and luxury flats and an army of characters none of whom I attached to and couldn’t tell apart anyway. The message scratched on the glass which is made much of held zero interest and made zero sense. An interesting brother who the story starts with is pushed to the background and the sister is as blank and unbelievable as a white wall and less interesting than watching paint dry.
Its eventual revealed that the jet set life styles are funded by a Ponzi scheme, and the story gets more interesting around the collapse of this but don’t even ask me what the outcome is as although I listened to it only a few days ago, I have literally no memory of most of this book, or how it ended.
So with apologies to the author, but a truly awful monotone narration of a story almost devoid of a coherent narrative thread gets a scant two stars from me.

3 people found this helpful

Great book - couldn't stop listening

A great story, beautifully written.

The references to shipping and the imagining of a terrible flu made me wonder if the characters in this book exist in the same universe as those in Station 11?????

1 person found this helpful

Ethereal and dreamy depiction of a ponzi fraud

I picked this book at random knowing nothing about it or the author and I am glad that I did. I never thought I would use the words dreamy and ethereal to describe a book that is about financial fraud but these are the first words that sprang to mind when I was listening. It is all a bit of an enigma how the various characters in this story fit together and it is best not to think about it too much and let it all wash over you as it all become apparent in the end. And it is really satisfying when it does.
We hear about inexplicable riches and wealth inside the bubble of the lifestyle reserved for business magnates and moguls and the inevitable crash when it all comes tumbling down. Riches and luxury can be surreal to those who experience this type of life for the first time (not that I would know) and we hear Vincent ruminate on her unlikely life as if she is in a trance for much of the book. Thankfully not much time is wasted explaining how Ponzi schemes work and how they are found out but there is enough here to give the reader / listener the gist of how those involved get away with it. Emily St. John Mandel is clearly a talented writer and I really enjoyed this. I will now seek out some of her earlier works, including the well reviewed Station Eleven.

1 person found this helpful

Great story let down slightly by dodgy accents

Great story & the US actor has a nice voice but can’t do any of the accents relevant to the story from Canadian to British & Australian. It’s a shame they didn’t use a Canadian actor.

what can I call it? ethereal?

I need to know more about the back story. I've read all her books, I think, and the connection is obvious but what are they really about? I have loved all her books but feel like a bystander not understanding what I am witnessing.

Good story, terrible narration

The story was good, though not as interesting in terms of narrative as Station Eleven. It’s the counter-life story of what happens to some of the peripheral Station Eleven characters of the Georgia Flu hadn’t taken hold. But it’s hard to judge the story really because of the awful narration. It may be less annoying to North Americans, but for anyone else it’s grating. She didn’t go as far as actual vocal fry, but it sounded like she was always on the tip of it. And the accents!!! At one point I was trying to figure if the character was Irish or French….. turns out he was supposed to be from Newcastle… England. Just, bad.

it's OK

I really enjoyed Station's Eleven but I felt that not much happened in this book. I kept expecting a big reveal but... .. I found I didn't really care what happened to the characters none of them are likeable. They're all out for what they can get.