RaveThe MissourianLike her last novel, The Glass Hotel shows off Mandel’s extraordinary talent for weaving a story that loops and swirls and reconnects with itself through the choices of the characters. The reader has the feeling that Mandel is an observer describing the actions of real, in-depth multidimensional characters, not a puppet-master determining the movements of cutouts she has created. The narrator’s voice, and through it the author’s, always seems genuinely curious and surprised by the story’s twists and turns ... Through it all, a surreal sense of anxious expectation mixes with a kind of comforting certainty that we are never alone, and our lives are never inconsequential ... perhaps because Mandel’s writing style is simple, straightforward, and engaging, I found myself captivated.
