I’ve been waiting for this book to come out, I absolutely couldn’t contain my excitement to read St. John Mandel’s next novel, given how much I loved Station Eleven (a pandemic story by the way which you should read if you haven’t).

But…unfortunately my expectations were too high. I liked The Glass Hotel but I didn’t love The Glass Hotel. I think I just set my heart on something that wasn’t realistic…a novel as good or better than Station Eleven.

The Glass Hotel takes the reader through a series of events (a few too many coincidences in my opinion) that bring together small town girl Vincent (a bar tender in rural Canada) with millionaire Jonathan (a New York financier) in an unlikely relationship. Their lives and those of the people who swirl around them will all be devastated when the Ponzi scheme Jonathan is running collapses.

The web that Jonathan has created through his years of lies and deceit will not only take him down, but all those he has touched and lied to for decades…including his own family and Vincent.

In the end Jonathan begins to lose hold of reality, Vincent faces an icy fate and lives are torn apart and ruined by greed.

****Four stars for The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandle

Read last week’s review of The Splendid and the Vile

My current read Middlemarch by George Eliot