Reviews of the glass hotel6/10/2023 (Ordinarily, I wouldn’t reveal that, since the book doesn’t do so until more than halfway through, but it’s given away on the jacket, probably as a way to make “Glass Hotel” seem like it has more momentum than it does.) Vincent Millay, as a wayward teenager and as a sort of trophy nonwife to a wheeler-dealer whose deals turn out to be part of a giant Ponzi scheme. Subsequent chapters acquaint us with Vincent, who’s named for Edna St. The central(ish) figure is Vincent, whom we meet as she falls off a ship into the ocean, plummeting to its floor. Mandel structures it non-chronologically, leaping back and forth over several decades in a way that’s similar to, but not as skillful as, Kate Atkinson’s “Life After Life.” Rather than intriguing us about how seemingly disparate events are connected, Mandel’s book frustrates us because, just when we’re beginning to warm to new characters in a new situation, she introduces a whole new set of characters in another new situation with another new narrator. It’s in construction, rather than storytelling, where “The Glass Hotel” falls short. Her follow-up, “The Glass Hotel,” is almost the exact opposite: a sometimes meandering novel that totally sticks the landing. John Mandel’s bestselling “Station Eleven” was a propulsive read that reeled us in with a series of thrilling set pieces on its way to a conclusion that struck me as anticlimactic.
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