Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Station Eleven is a hard act to follow, a stunning post-apocalyptic novel (being turned into a series) that stands on my shelf as arguably one of the best books of the decade. The staying power of art, music, and performance and the nuanced exploration of memories are just some of the story’s refined themes. “Survival is insufficient” is a standout line, however banal on the surface. The story explores the aftermath of a flu epidemic that killed off most of the population. In The Glass Hotel (also being made into a series), a Ponzi scheme is the juncture of catastrophe--financial death instead of death by disease. There’s a bit of meta- in this new novel, as there’s a line referring to that flu pandemic (that hasn’t yet come) and even a minor character from SE that becomes a major character here. And both books begin at an end. “Begin at the end” are the first words of The Glass Hotel. But as St. John Mandel demonstrates, time is fluid, and the author once again nimbly links her characters’ lives and fates. Some find purpose after disaster, and others distinctly deteriorate. Still others navigate a borderless future and welcome the “sense of being outside of time and space.” The most compelling character is Vincent, a young woman that became the trophy girlfriend of the Ponzi schemer, posing as his wife. There’s nothing fragile about Vincent, who is inextricably hewn to her half-brother, Paul, whom she rarely sees. Their coiled fate is subtly and powerfully drawn with a gradual and contextual force. She’s affected by the death of her mother, but Paul is ruined by the “idea” of Vincent. “I’ve only ever hated Vincent’s incredible good fortune at being Vincent instead of being me…” He envies her natural creativity and strength of survival, which he eternally strives for and fails, even when he is successful. His core is hollow. While SE is set in the near future, Hotel takes place in the past. St. John Mandel consistently pens lucid, haunting and moody prose. Both novels tackle crisis; our personal ghosts; borders; memory, and the nature of time. I’m not going to rehash the plot; I’m more interested in the similarities and differences of both books, like bookends with completely different stories. The author purposely linked the two herself, which adds to my fascination. SE is exuberant and optimistic, eclipsing collapse with creativity. GH is stark, lean, angular, shadowy but just as keen. More profiteering than propheteering. Eclipsing creativity with collapse. But there’s doomed beauty in GH, glittering like faint stars after a storm. There’s paradoxically a sense of walls between people and places, and yet a conflux of connections and lands distant to each other—NYC, British Columbia, and the Toronto faraway Hotel Caiette, inaccessible except by boat. Both books are elegant, mosaic-like, but GH’s complexity is often latent or distant. The schemer, Jonathan Alkaitis, summons a “counterlife” to survive. Vincent’s counterlife is admirable—she takes on various roles like skin, and she isn’t a thief like Paul or Jonathan. My only complaint was that, unlike the warmth of SE, The Ghost Hotel felt remote, whereas Station Eleven was spirited. The characters in Hotel were predominantly unknown to me, even when they became familiar. Perhaps St. John Mandel wanted them to be unknowable. I spent much of the book trying to reach out emotionally to the story and its people, but I kept sliding backwards into the gully of murk. Although I assigned this one 4 stars instead of the 5 I gave to SE, it didn’t disappoint. The Glass Hotel just didn’t embrace me the same way. I did enjoy choosing my favorite characters, though. Vincent, her anti-hero blend of shrugs and grace, and Walter, the loner who feels at home at the isolated hotel. None of the characters came across as archetypes, which is genius! Sorry about my lengthy review, nobody likes a long review. I’m enchanted with Emily St. John Mandel’s haunting style of writing, her brilliant themes, and her clarity of prose. If you are already a fan of her writing, it’s a no-brainer--get thee to a bookstore. If you’ve never read her work, read both these novels--I think of them as a whole, these bookends. But SE is 2/3 and GH is a necessary 1/3 bond to the latter, there’s a connective tissue. Her work will echo in my heart for years to come.