The Glass Hotel in The Roundtable

Nov 06, 2019 Henk rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

An interconnected tale of people drifting between the late capitalistic lands of money and shadows
”Small world”
“The smallness of the world never ceases to amaze me.”

Money and (a)morality
It wasn’t that she was about to lose everything, it was that she’d already lost everything and just didn’t know it yet.
Emily St. John Mandel weaves an interconnected tale around Vincent (a girl) and Paul, half siblings growing up on a remote island in the vicinity of Vancouver.
Both experience trauma, Vincent due ...more

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May 17, 2020 Nadine in California rated it really liked it

I chose this novel somewhat dutifully - the description sounded like a soap opera, but I did love Station Eleven and wanted to give the author another try. By the end of the first page I knew that this was no mere melodrama and I was in the hands of a master. St. John Mandel weaves a non-linear story with characters who seem to meander in and out of each others lives, sometimes without even knowing it. The whole atmosphere of the book was tantalizingly hazy to me, characters and events unfolded ...more

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May 27, 2021 Heather(Gibby) rated it really liked it

Shelves: canadian-author, giller-prize

I listened to this in audio, and struggled a little bit with the jumping around in time time and knowing the sequence of some events.

There are a lot of characters woven into this story which snakes in and out of many different plot lines.

Overall I liked the novel, almost as much for the mood it evokes than the actual story itself.

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Sep 18, 2021 Petra rated it really liked it

Great story! When I finished, I immediately went back to reread the first chapter.

I'm not usually a fan of financial stories but it worked well in this instance. There are many circles in this story....circles that ripple out, affecting other circles, throwing them out of symmetry.
In another sense, this is a story of people's choices and the repercussions. There's guilt, sorrow, remorse and more. This seems a story of how one manages the fallout of these choices we make.

I found this an engagi ...more

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Jul 13, 2020 Sera rated it liked it

Shelves: own, literary-fiction

3.5 stars

Solid read about about multiple characters who are impacted by a Ponzi scheme. Reminds me of Bernie Madoff with less drama regarding his family. I really enjoy reading this author's books so I was hoping for more here.

All in all, a good read, but I didn't find it spectacular. ...more

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Oct 16, 2020 Meghan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library, american, audiobook, audio-book, women

I don’t really have much to say. It was fine. Mandel has a writing style that takes a while to find the rhythm but once found is pleasant to read. I didn’t particularly care for the jumping around in time. I didn’t find it confusing, just more of an annoying interruption. Just when you were getting into this particular part of the story, she moved you somewhere else that didn’t flow seamlessly into each other. And the characters I found interesting were often plagued with other characters who we ...more

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