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Family + odd connections; reality versus alternative “what-if” timelines. This is a wild ride of a ghost story! Someday, I want to sit on a beach 🏖️ or on a boat 🛥️ and have Station 11 + this + Sea of Tranquility & FIGURE OUT HOW THESE CONNECT 😂 I really enjoyed following Vincent and her peripheral orbits. #Apr2025 Book30

“… a sensation like recognizing a familiar face in an old photograph: in a sea of faces that mean nothing, one comes into focus. You.”

Take a nap or start a book off my shelves? Copper votes, “Nap”. I will read a few pages and see what happens.

This was a reread for me, since I wanted to find out if I liked this book more the second time around. After fours years, I still had the same disconnected feeling while reading, still couldn't get into the story. The only thing that changes is that my understanding for the crash 2008 and the aftermath is deeper and I understood better what it meant for all those people affected by it.

I read three (3) novels for May #AuthorAMonth and I will say that I experienced a constant/the same situation in these 3 novels. Maybe is this author‘s writing style that is not completely for me. The premise is interesting, you want to keep reading, know more about characters but then during that plot development, I don‘t know what happened that I lost interest and found some parts boring. But then, you have an interesting ending.⬇️

I really didn't see the point of this book. I mean maybe I liked the Vincent character, but there was a lot of other stuff going on. Anyone like this? I would welcome other perspectives. I think Station Eleven was so much better.
#AuthorAMonth
@Soubhiville

Starting this since I finished Station Eleven & learned that there are connections with that book, this book, and Sea of Tranquility. I must say I‘m not enjoying the audiobook narrator - she doesn‘t do mens‘ voices well. Oh well…
#AuthorAMonth

I really liked this although I can barely tell you why. It's just well written. And once it gets going it flows quite well.

My book club at work picked this off a short list of suggestions. It's almost like I planned this. And then the senior director of our business unit signed up. Yikes. I gave my library copy to my intern because there's extra time. Hopefully she won't lose it. 😂

#AuthorAMonth @Soubhiville

#DoubleSpin @TheAromaofBooks

When this book first came out I skipped it because I had no desire to read about a Ponzi scheme. Thanks to #authoramonth I decided to give it a try and I really liked it. Yes,there is a Ponzi scheme in these pages but also so much more as we meet several brilliantly rendered characters, whose lives cross each other‘s sometimes briefly and sometimes not. I was ensnared by the weaving of their stories and enjoyed every moment of it.

Definitely do not feed those little a-holes.

While this is still my least favorite of the Station Eleven “trilogy,” I enjoyed much more the second time around. #AuthorAMonth

Vincent works at a remote island hotel in her British Columbian hometown. When the hotel‘s owner visits, she sees an opportunity to leave and be his trophy wife. But he is a Madoff-based Ponzi schemer and his misdeeds have ripple affects throughout the lives of these characters.

Today's book buddy is about to set off on the train.

Loved this novel. I dont know why I waited so long to read this it. Mandel is so "readable." I love how she weaves different story lines together. The ending is beautiful. Highly recommend. 4 ?

I don‘t even want to try to explain this plot, because it‘s barely about the plot, it is about the characters. It starts with Paul (as a young addict) & his sister, & a man she gets involved with & the 2008 financial crisis & the people branched out &intertwined with them. It was really good.

I loved the themes of choice and opportunity, memory, guilt and accountability. How do our choices impact others, and what is the cost to ourselves?

Picking up an older one from my tbr.

#tbr

Finally finished this one! I had to keep putting it on hold at the library. It had ebbs and flows for me, but I love the way everything was tied up at the end.

Finally going to finish this! 🙌📖 Thank God for summer 😎

It took me three tries to finish this book, and I‘m so glad I did. Her books have so many pieces, but the come together beautifully. Now I want to go back and re-read Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility. #backlistreadathon a little late

How can it almost be May!! Here is my list for #bookspin #doublespin #bookbingo. Not pictured are my audio selections: When We Were Sisters, Once Upon A Wardrobe, The Rabbit Hutch, and Into The Silence. I had reading "ADD" in April, starting several books at a time. I hope to be more focused in May

Super excited to have found this in a charity shop:)

I absolutely loved this meandering story! I didn't expect the entire central story to even show up but I really loved the way the characters were woven together. I love that the landscape and locations are their own characters but end up being the only likable characters in the book! Just beautiful!

I love the way Emily St. John Mandel sees people as a whole. Her writing is so rich.

🌟🌟If I didn‘t love this woman‘s exceptionally haunting writing style, I may not have finished this. The writing itself was more intriguing than the story and this from someone who looooooves her books.

The author has such an incredible talent for writing interconnecting stories of strangers, and of unfolding the consequences of small and higher events in those characters' lives. Even though overall there wasn't a whole lot of action in the book, I could not stop reading. I was never bored, and the continuous shift in point of view sped up the pace of my reading even further. I also enjoyed the small presence of the "ghosts" and "other space".

I‘ve read a couple other of her novels. Finally time to check out this.

#bookhaul. Obviously I didn‘t need any more books at home. But here we are…

I've botched this up... I read Evelyn Hugo in May, not April 😬 #12booksof2022

Which was my favourite book in April? Despite 4-starring several, looking back on them today I feel annoyed with all of them.

So I'm going to break the rules and say my April pick is The Glass Hotel, even though I read it in May too.

Try and stop me 😋

This was a mesmerising tour of the persons affected when a Ponzi scheme collapsed. And there was a glass hotel.

I started reading this in 2020 shortly after it was published, but I didn‘t get far before it had to go back to the library. When I read Sea of Tranquility this summer, I thought I missed a few bits of context. In any event, I did knock off a few of the “unfinished” books on my Kindle this year, one way or another. But I also added more! Not to mention physical books that are languishing. Obviously, I‘m okay with this, so I‘m not gonna worry!

My bookclub is working it‘s way through all of Mandel‘s loose trilogy - Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel, and Sea of Tranquility. This was a reread for me, but I love Mandel‘s writing so much that it was a pleasure! I‘m excited to see what Sea of Tranquility has to offer!

#BestMidYear22 Day 13: When an anticipated title is released I find that this is often motivation to catch up on a previous release that I missed. Such was the case with Mandel's latest & judging from the flurry of reviews on Litsy for The Glass Hotel in March & April, I wasn't alone. This was a one sitting read for me & I actually enjoyed it more than Station Eleven. Mandel's melancholy prose & intricate narrative portrays flawed & complex👇

I don't think I ever would have picked up a book about the fallout of a giant Ponzi Scheme if not for the fact that I had loved Station Eleven so much. Turns out Emily St. John Mandel's writing style just really works for me because I was completely sucked in.

Sneaking in a page here and there between mediating arguments between the kids... 🙄🙄🙄 On the plus side, I'm loving this book!

Good Lord that was beautiful.

Emily St. John Mandel gives zero shits about the rules of literature. She just does what she does, paints vivid worlds, dances from vignette to vignette and lets it all play out.

Station Eleven took me quite a while to read, whereas I breezed through this spellbound.

Usually I hate it when a plot wanders haphazardly, but this was such a gorgeously written and captivating read that all is forgiven.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars

Thanks for the tags @Yuki_Onna @JenReadsAlot @BrittanyReads 💕💕💕

#thoughtfulthursday @MoonWitch94

I'm hoping to finish The Glass Hotel which is a physical book 😊 It's heading for a 4 stars, although I'm thinking I perhaps should have given Station Eleven 4 stars too because they're about on a par.

I don't mark my books, but I have been known occasionally to dogear select quotes so I can come back to them later. Don't hurt me!!! 😅😅

"Begin at the end: plummeting down the side of the ship in the storm's wild darkness, breath gone with the shock of falling, my camera flying away through the rain -"

#firstlinefridays

"It wasn't the romance of the century, but it didn't have to be; if you genuinely enjoy someone's company, she'd been thinking lately, if you enjoy your life with them and don't mind sleeping with them, isn't that enough? Do you have to actually be in love for a relationship to be real, whatever REAL means, so long as there's respect and something like friendship?"

(Vincent is a lot more pragmatic than I am when it comes to "love" ?)

"What I'm suggesting," Caroline said softly, "is that the lens can function as a shield between you and the world, when the world's just a little too much to bear. If you can't stand to look at the world directly, maybe it's possible to look at it through the viewfinder..."

@squirrelbrain @Caroline2 Was there anyone else buddy reading The Glass Hotel?? I'm about to get started but I can't remember who else was reading along 😅

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView

1) I'm going to say The Glass Hotel & Sea of Tranquility because I need to get better at my buddy reading / book clubbage ☺
My heart is in the realm of the elderlings though. Once I start a Robin Hobb book everything else takes a back seat!

2) Not really - although "general café ambience" can be nice ? Also, you know what I really hate in the background? Whatever Dad is watching on telly ?

Tags below ⬇️⬇️

I read this in advance of our #gladstonerds #bookclub read of Sea of Tranquility. It was a good pick, but nothing like as good as Station Eleven.

When it first came out I read reviews that said the Ponzi scheme storyline was rather impenetrable but I didn‘t find that at all. It was more the characters; they were all unlikeable, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but there was no real back story to make you care about them.

This is a #BlameItOnLitsy read & I completely enjoyed it.
~
I didn‘t enjoy having my tire stabbed six times resulting in a blow out on the way home from work on Friday. However, I‘m a pro with flats & had a donut on in less than 10 minutes. I was at the part where Johnathon calls Vincent into his work, so of course I kept listening.

A story about a Bernie Madoff type character and the affect he has on the lives of Vincent and her brother Paul….both just trying to “get by” and live their lives. Excellent book. So much to think about.

Well, it turned out that my Litsy chums were correct on how spectacular this is. I recall when The Glass Hotel was released that it had received somewhat mixed reviews. This along with reading that it was about a Ponzi scheme, which seemed somewhat boring, led to it lingering on my TBR for the past 2 years since its release. Ostensibly The Glass Hotel is about Jonathan Alkaitis, a wealthy investment manager, at the middle of said Ponzi scheme.

Me finishing the tagged book 😭💙

Miranda had left the meeting ahead of him and was sitting some distance away on an industrial sofa, writing something on her legal pad. No, not writing, sketching...