The Pink Hotel

by Anna Stothard

A seventeen-year-old London girl flies to Los Angeles for the funeral of her mother Lily, from whom she had been separated in her childhood. After stealing a suitcase of letters, clothes and photographs from her mum's bedroom at the top of a hotel on Venice Beach, the girl spends her summer travelling around Los Angeles returning love letters and photographs to the men who had known her mother. As she discovers more about Mandy's past and tries to re-enact her life, she comes to question the foundations of her own personality.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Family, Young Adult, Mystery, The United States Of America

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2011

About the author

Anna Stothard was born in London and studied English Literature at Oxford University before completing a Screenwriting MFA at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. She is the author of five acclaimed novels, which have been translated into multiple languages and published around the world. Her writing often explores themes of identity, belonging, and obsession. Anna now lives and writes by the sea on the west coast of Guernsey.

Reviews

[lucy black · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's like:

Weetzie Bat grown up
A Sophia Cuppola film
The smell of asphalt drying in the sun
Gum
Sitting and waiting in a sticky cafe
Sleeping on a strange mattress on the floor
Desperatley Seeking Susan
Rat girl

it's really good

[Kara · Rating 2 out of 5]

So here's the thing. I could write a really captivating review about how what I wanted from this book was so different from what I got, etc. etc. But at the end of the day it just boils down to this: the main character/narrator wasn't just unlikeable, she was unknowable.

An unnamed MC (I really hate that, btw) goes to LA for the funeral of the mother she never knew, who abandoned her when she was about three. She ends up staying in LA to track down some of the people that knew her, old coworkers, ex-bfs, that kind of thing.

But what is so disappointing is that she doesn't seem to have a reason for wanting to know these things. It seems like she's motivated more by nosiness than by a need for closure or closeness or anything you'd expect. I could extrapolate and posit that perhaps it was vindictive, as though her mother was hiding for her and she is determined to find out what her life is like anyway, which is plausible, but is nothing more than a guess since the story gives us nothing to go off of.

In addition to being nameless, the MC is flat. She seems to have no emotions whatsoever about her mothers death, which makes you wonder through the whole book why she is bothering. She doesnt seem invested in learning anything useful, and doesnt seem to have any use for the information she does get. For such an emotional premise, it's delivered with such a flat and detached narrative that it's impossible to feel anything about the story; if the MC doesn't seem to care, why should I?

To be sure, it is very well written. But that alone can't save it.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

[Lucy Gold · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never been to LA, but this book left me with such a strong and haunting picture of the city: the reader comes away with not just the sights of Venice Beach, but the taste of it, the smell of it, burnt into mind.

The Pink Hotel is quite a strange and heady mix of a story, echoing perfectly the heady strangeness of its setting. There’s a fairy tale quality to the protagonist’s narration (she meets The Giant and the Red Haired Man), but this sweetness builds up into something unexpected; this is an adult’s tale with all the wickedness of perception (“You were chatting me up?” “Don’t pat yourself on the back, I have an awful taste in women.”), weary knowledge, and pertinent questioning that entails.

Our narrator has run away from home on the Finchley Road in London, to LA, to find out about her unknown, now dead, mother, Lily. She sneaks straight into Lily’s wake at the Pink Hotel and collects together a suitcase of the dead woman’s stuff, while the funeral-guests drink and party. Using these physical clues she hunts down those who had real contact with Lily - friends, ex-lovers, employers. She puts on her mother’s clothes, stalks out characters from photos and letters in seedy bars, and starts a relationship with one, all the while fielding calls from an angry father at home and hiding from the Red Haired Man who wants the suitcase back.

If we were going to describe this book in the same way that LA film execs apparently describe the films they want to make, then The Pink Hotel is Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, meets a Sophia Coppola movie, with a Hitchcock twist, in the modern novel form! It’s certainly not chick lit. But if it does get characterized in lazy bookshops as such, perhaps it won’t be such a bad thing, and in a way it would be doing the genre a favour. Because it’s about time we had some chick lit that is this literary, well-written, intelligent and haunting.

[Zarina · Rating 2 out of 5]

A 17 year-old British girl runs away to the US after hearing that the mother she did not have any contact with, Lily, has passed away. Once in LA she tries to discover who her mother was and along the way she meets a wide array of colourful people.

It rarely happens I dislike a main character as much as I did in the case of The Pink Hotel, what an annoying, bland and disconnected girl! And so many of her actions and the storylines didn't add up. For instance on one page a character tells her she "looks about 10 years-old" yet she has sex or gets involved with mostly all the main characters within moments of meeting them and they don't seem to question her age.

I also do not understand how the father let his troubled teenage girl by herself for months, in a foreign country where she doesn't know anyone. Yes, she didn't leave him contact details but had he contacted the authorities or those close to Lily it wouldn't have been hard to find her. Surely it wouldn't even have been legal for her to just skip her flight back home and stay in the US for as long as she did without the proper visa? (she even worked, though she got paid cash in hand so I suppose that wasn't on the record).

What annoyed me most of all about this novel was that it was over the top gritty just for the sake of it. It was too much and only resulted in the story becoming ridiculous.

[Celine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely and deeply affecting. It made me feel both everything I used to as a young adult, and grateful I’d never have to be one again.

[Bookread2day · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young 17 year old girl sets of from London and flys to LA for her mothers Lily's funeral. Lily has not had anything to do with her daughter's upbringing. While the young 17 year old girl is in LA she finds out things about her mothers past.

[Frank Atlas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully written story about grief, the struggle between the naivety of being 17 and on the cusp of adulthood the push for maturity. Incredibly atmospheric, melancholic, enthralling, this book is so rich and vivid I felt like I was living within the pages. Following an unnamed MC as she visits LA for her mother’s funeral(one who abandoned her as a child) and her quest to learn about her unknown mother’s life, in an attempt to better understand this almost mythic figure she’s know about but never fully understood. The MC was so fantastically written with moments of her trying to fit within the mold of an adult and others where she is so fiercely childlike. You truly do feel for her as she tries to navigate her grief, Los Angeles, and her own identity primarily on her own. I really enjoyed how this story was told, because we are finding out these details along with our MC which added to the immersion of this book and the ability to really put yourself into our MC’s shoes. Each character in The Pink Hotel, in their own way, was entirely fascinating, deeply flawed, but portrayed in such a way that was so human it was difficult not to feel for them. Meeting these characters that were connected to Lily we got to explore the varying ways in which people can be affected by an individuals time in their lives. and the ways in which people show/deal with grief. Along with a cast of colorful character the city of Los Angeles in a way is a character in this book. The descriptions of city life, buildings, the atmosphere, you truly felt the grime, dust, dirt, and heat of the city. Truly a book that is a work of art, pulling you into the pages immediately and at times it is the naive wonderment of youth and at others it is pushing you to the ground and scraping your knees on the asphalt.

[laleliest · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die 17-jährige Protagonistin setzt sich von jetzt auf gleich in den Flieger von London nach Los Angeles. Der Grund: ihre Mutter Lily, an die sie so gut wie keine Erinnerungen hat, ist gestorben und irgendwas in ihr denkt, sie könnte noch Hinweise über ihr Leben herausfinden. Während der Totenwache im Pink Hotel, das Lily leitete, lässt unsere Protagonistin einen Koffer mitgehen, welcher sie noch in Schwierigkeiten bringen soll.

Zu Beginn des Buches dachte ich, ich lese ein kleines Roadmovie oder es geht vielleicht um das Klammern an Erinnerungen an jemanden, den man gar nicht kannte. Stattdessen bekam ich eine Art Milieustudie über das „wahre“ LA, die Abgründe und einen (fast) richtigen Krimi. Die Protagonistin empfand ich dabei als sehr naiv, unvorsichtig und egoistisch, was aber total zu der Story gepasst hat. Die Atmosphäre hatte in meinen Augen auch die ganze Zeit etwas leicht bedrohliches, was das Lesen noch aufregender gestaltet hat. Generell war der Schreibstil sehr leicht und auch vulgär, in die Sicht einer ausreißerischen 17-Jährigen konnte man sich gut und schnell hereinversetzen. Obwohl mir das Buch an sich sehr gut gefallen hat, gab es ein paar fragwürdige Momente, die mir erst am Ende klar geworden sind und die in der Geschichte wenig bis gar kein Raum bekommen haben, was mich aber sehr interessiert hätte. Insgesamt kann ich das Buch sehr empfehlen. Wer nach einer spannenden, vielleicht auch etwas abgef*ckten Story mit einigen Tabu Themen sucht, die in der Tiefe viel verstrickter ist, als man erwartet, wird mit „Pink Hotel“ auf jeden Fall fündig werden!

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I finished this book in 2 days, and found it a good read, it left me kind of empty. It wasn't one of those books that I put down and thought, "that was fantastic" or the desire to tell all my friends they need to read it. I had read a review on Salon.com of how fantastic the book was, with a huge twist ending. Um, while I was surprised, it certainly wasn't a jaw dropper or anything that shocked me.

The writing is really great. Anna Stothard's storytelling is so descriptive that it really does paint the story. You can visualize every detail because she does such a fantastic job of writing and describing the scene. The main character was just a little lackluster to me. In fact, we don't even know her name! Usually I get a sense of attachment to the main character or narrator, but I didn't feel anything towards this young girl.

All in all, I can't say I would recommend this book. Great writing, just ok story.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am both moved and changed.

Here’s what I could do : I could write a long, rambling, maybe even slightly captivating recollection of this book, wax poetic about how it sparked a complicated reminder of my own reckless youth. I could try to express the skill it takes to craft a main character so rich in imagination and peculiarly, yet who remains almost unknowable at her core because, really, she doesn’t even know herself.

[see synopsis]

But that’s not it. That’s not what sticks with you in the end.

Let me try again.

This book tastes like the hint of copper in your dry mouth as you habitually bite your lip, somehow both for comfort while searching for the right words to say and out of resignation, stopping you from saying anything at all. It tastes like stale cigarette smoke from the neighborhood locals as you walk past, listlessly hoping just one of them will recognize the aimlessness radiating from you and say, “Hey, kid. The path is that way.” It tastes like the burn of liquor you refuse to acquire a taste for, a warm meal after days of dry food, salt water and sand in your mouth.

This novel feels like your first real heartache — not the one from the towering man with unique clothing who made sense at the time, or the beautiful girl with a smattering of freckles that lay across her nose — I mean the heartache only someone of your own genetic material can inflict, lingering and unresolved. It feels like the pride of skinning your knees on pavement but standing up to brush yourself off, laughing at the reminder as it slowly scabs over. It feels like sitting on public transportation thoughtfully staring out the window at nothing in particular only to not remembering a moment of it once you arrive at your destination.

Do you get where this is going? Can you understand what I’m trying to say? How could I possibly use words to describe this overlooked gem when it takes more intimate senses to fully grasp?

I suppose I just mean, this was something special.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the title and the cover, this novel is not 'pink and fluffy' chick lit, it is an intelligent, emotional and very cleverly written story about a young British girl's experience in America. It's about finding out about yourself and where you come from and facing up to life and discovering just who you are.

Lily left her daughter many years ago, just ran away and was never heard from again. When her daughter hears that Lily has died, she steals money from her Dad and books a ticket to America. Lily and her husband ran the Pink Hotel and this is where the story starts.
Anna Stothard's descriptions are almost like a painting - the reader finds themselves slap bang in the middle of the America that is rarely shown in film or novels. The beautiful sounding Pink Hotel is actually a shabby wreck of a place inhabited by shabby, down-at-heel characters. Drunks, addicts and criminals included, and it is into this world that this fairly naive young British girl finds herself thrust into.
It is clear that Lily was loved but she also had her faults and her daughter is determined to track down the men that were important in Lily's life. By doing this, she finds out a great deal about herself, about men and about her Mother.
The Pink Hotel is at times quite disturbing - Lily's morals were questionable and her daughter's are quite loose too.
I really this read, it's a journey for both the lead character and the reader. The sense of place, the descriptions of events and the characters are beautifully written. The story moves on at quite a pace and there were times that I wanted to know more, but this never spoilt the story as there were always new events to fill the gaps.

[Melissa (Semi Hiatus Until After the Holidays) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I didn't like the main character, who doesn't have a name. Can I just tell authors that I hate this premise? Why not give a name, so we can connect better with her? If none of the characters had a name I could understand, but the mom does (and she's not even alive).
The premise is intriguing, but I just kept getting caught up on how much I didn't like the daughter.


I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

[Mika · Rating 3 out of 5]

flat main character, took me 50 pages to actually develop an interest in this book
Overall okay, has some interesting moments

[sarah w · Rating 2 out of 5]

this had all the ingredients of a five-star or a new favorite but unfortunately just didn’t come together for me, idk

[Mika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mochte den LA vibe sehr gerne aber ansonsten wird es mir wohl nicht groß in Erinnerung bleiben, vor Allem weil ich mit den Charakteren bis zum Schluss nicht wirklich warm geworden bin.

[Jaime Boler · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Anna Stothard’s candidly unflinching, evocative, and razor-sharp debut novel The Pink Hotel, the female protagonist is interested in creation stories and myths. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Noah’s flood, and the Aztec legend of “Coatlique” fascinate the astute and precocious 17-year-old British girl. And there’s a reason for her curiosity: her mother, Lily, left when she was only three. The girl desperately wants to know her own creation story, and her dad has never been forthcoming about the tale.

Stothard does not give her protagonist a name. Since Stothard tells the tale from the girl’s first-person perspective, perhaps Stothard did not feel the need to name the main character. It is a rather curious move. Naming and identity are so closely intertwined; because the narrator has no name, I never connect with her, I do not feel like I ever truly know her. For me, she is unknown, unknowable, and rather unlikeable. That is not to say that Stothard does not do a good job of fleshing out this individual—she does. But not giving the novel’s main personality a name bothered me immensely.

Yet I appreciated the main character’s mindset. Yearning for one’s mother is a universal concept that everyone can understand. The Pink Hotel begins when the girl gets news that her mother, who lived in Los Angeles, has been killed in a motorcycle accident. Stothard’s main character does not think of the consequences; she is 17, after all, and frantic over the prospect that she will never know her mother now that she is dead.

As she explains, “Presumably most people can conjure an image of their mother from childhood, but my memories are either from photographs or they’re physical. I can’t imagine what she used to look like, but remember fragments of her holding my hand too tight in a supermarket, the texture of her legs when I grabbed them….” So she decides to travel to Los Angeles, where her mother owned “The Pink Hotel” in Venice Beach with her second husband.

For the young girl, her journey is really a pilgrimage. When she arrives at the hotel for her mother’s wake, she sneaks into her bedroom and steals a red suitcase. She stuffs it full of her mother’s clothes, letters, and pictures. The girl flees the hotel after encountering her mother’s current husband. With a stolen credit card and little money, the main character sets out finding the people her mother knew in hopes of learning more about the woman who left all those years ago.

In an effort to get closer to her mother, the protagonist seems to take on the role of her mother. “I’m not Lily” she says, while wearing her mother’s “tight black dress and her red stilettos.” “Are you as good at lying as you are at storytelling” a character asks her. And she is quite adept at telling falsehoods, but not to the reader, only to others. You would think this quality would endear her to the reader; alas, it does not.

The Pink Hotel is peopled by a quirky cast of characters. Some of my absolute favorites are the Armenian women she meets. “How did you come to America?” the girl asks one of them. “My twin sister and I,” the woman replies, “weren’t interested in marrying men named Noah, you know?”

Stothard chooses the perfect setting for her characters and for the story. In fact, it is setting that drives The Pink Hotel and its characters. The author perfectly captures the essence of Southern California to create an atmospheric tale that would not have worked anywhere else. With lines like “If the Atlantic was a foaming, snapping Rottweiler, the Pacific was a sleepy gecko in the sunlight,” Stothard grabs you and puts you in the middle of the story.

Sense of place is so important in The Pink Hotel. The setting is what saved this story for me when I did not connect to the narrator. Stothard writes, “Los Angeles isn’t built for the rain, and everyone panics. The air gets saturated with ambulance sirens as oil rises up through the suddenly soaked tarmac highways, causing crashes.” “The heatwave had finally ignited, and LA had a halo of fire over it.”
Descriptions such as these make The Pink Hotel compelling and worth reading.

[Goddess Of Blah · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I noticed about the book is that I couldn't remember the protagonist's name. Even though I've only just finished the book. I suspect its because her name is never mentioned in the book. However, I could be wrong. It just felt odd thinking of her as the teenage girl. She's not quite anonymous. But she is nameless. A drifter with a strangled identity.

GRITTY EDGY READ.


Occasionally, I do feel that that there is a reoccurring theme with young female authors, a sort of rite of passage that (a few unfortunately follow), before they mature into their writing... This "theme" appears to be an overriding ambition to manifest a jaded, worldly persona within their work which is depicted by casual sex, a hint of incest and the use of narcotics.


Overall, there are sufficient exceptional and intriguing aspects to the novel which make it worth reading. Such as the protagonists observations of her surroundings and of those whom she encounters which is quite refreshing. The prose isn't heavy or banal. The little details she includes in her description of LA, (an LA that isn't always portrayed in films) is fascinating to read. The Armenian community was particularly interesting to read about.


However, there were a few inconsistencies within the book such as
(a) Lily is mistaken to be either extremely young (10 years old by a woman called Julie), or looking old enough to liaise intimately with men much older than her, without them troubling themselves much with her age (as well as a certain male character remarking on what appears to be the appearance of premature aging (lines around her eyes))
(b) a few of the American characters appeared to have English characteristics at times, and
(c) the character of Richard, whose letters belied an image of a man who was nothing but a petty criminal. Perhaps that was the aim of the book - that banal proverb that "nothing is at it seems" or "don't judge a book by its cover"

I think the ending was rather vague - it finished abruptly as though though the author didn't know how to end it without it turning into a "happily forever" type of novel.

[The Bookish Wombat · Rating 2 out of 5]

A 17-year-old London girl flies to Los Angeles on the spur of the moment to attend the wake of the mother she never knew. Rather than going straight home afterwards, she tries to find out about her mother's life by tracking down the men she'd had relationships with.

I found it difficult to relate to this novel's main character, as we never find out what her name is, and she has such difficulty in relating to herself. So although the narrative is written in the first person and the reader is inside her head, I didn't feel I understood her or got any idea of what made her tick. She's looking for herself just as much as she's looking for her late mother in an effort to discover why she is like she is, but despite this interesting premise, I found I didn't really care what happened to her one way or the other - there seemed to me to be a gap at the heart of the novel as I wasn't really bothered about her.

I thought the LA backdrop to the book was well done, and felt that other characters were realistically drawn. However my lack of connection to the heroine was a problem and meant that I was reading it quite dispassionately as an exercise in character study, rather than being caught up in it and being desperate to know what happened next.

The book's cover is misleading as it makes it look like chick lit, which it isn't. It also has a strange rubbery texture to it that I found unpleasant.

So all in all, a well-written character study, just one that didn't engage my emotions.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oddly without any display of emotion.

[kate! · Rating 3 out of 5]

a little more mystery, a little less dream sequence jargon. i will say, i read this with images of Tarantino or Wes Anderson style directing going through my head. I did not hate it. Would I recommend it? Probably not but I personally did not hate it and I like that it is based in California. Um, I had to read the second half on my phone and I actually read it so fast that way wtf. Also, girl- you’re 17...stop sleeping with your moms exes

and if you know me you know i don’t really like tarantino or wes anderson so if that makes sense. i don’t like their stores really but the cinematography of this would be crazy. or maybe david robert mitchell...you know what i mean? the girls that get it...they know.


def david robert mitchell vibes here.

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thiiiiis has left me empty.

This to me is like my 22-year-old version of Looking For Alaska. It was heavy and it hurt in some ways in some parts. Lots of good quotes. However when I take away my younger self's romanticizing of the story I found our main character to be insufferable and weird and yet somehow heartfelt and empathetic. This story is weird. I am not sure if I can even explain how I liked and didn't like it at the same time. This story is weird and sweaty and, at the end of the day a little twisted.

I can't wait to see what I pick up on my eventual reread bc make no mistake... I will be revisiting this.

[Nancy Condon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book because it was on staff picks at the library. 17 year old narrator (never say name)goes from London to LA to her mothers wake , who abandoned her when she was 3yr old. at the pink hotel. Lily, 31, was a free spirit and left a suitcase with clues to who she was that the girl steals and then goes on a treasure hunt to discover who she was. Very lyrical and descriptive with a host of quirky characters- richard the husband, david the photographer, august the ex husband, the girls dad and stepmother. The ending has a surprising twist.

[Merel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never read a novel with a main character so uttlerly unlikeable, cringy and uninteresting. Almost impressive. My god even the final funky plottwists did not compensate for the mess of it all.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible writing. First-person POV--the narrator is a tough 17-year-old girl, abandoned by her mother, arriving in LA from London after her mother's death to learn something about her life. Stothard's descriptions of scene and setting, of smells and textures, are remarkable, creating a narrative voice distinct and intimate.

[Kinsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars is very generous for this book

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title implies a lightness of mood, perhaps even whimsy. Instead, author Anna Slothard has created a novel dense with unsettling imagery. We see walls of poached salmon (the suggestion of water leads to associations of washed-out) and a cheap blue table. It's a shabby hotel on Venice Beach, seen through the eyes of Lily's daughter. Lily owned the hotel with her current husband. The daughter is from several marriages past, and is floating like a ghost, seeing but unseen, through what turns out to be Lily's wake. Paradoxically, it is the remembrances of the deceased Lily – her scattered clothes, some photographs, even the lingering scent of her perfume, that feel most alive in this scene. The guests range from comatose drunkeness to coked out bliss.

Layered over these visual images are hints of tactile sensuality. First, Slothard makes us feel Lily's silken clothes. Later, she riffs on the color red – Lily's color. Red stiletto shoes converge with Lily's “army of incendiary lipsticks”; a blood-red sun suggests actual blood but depicted through its sticky feel, and raw smell on wet grass. Later, we experience Los Angeles through its smog, humidity, unrelenting heat, steam and sweat. The voluptuous flowers range from "waxy Bougainvillea" to Bird of Paradise with their "leaves shaped like knives."

Lily had this daughter at 14; left 3 years later; moved from England to the U.S.; re-married; left that husband 3 years later; and re-married again. At 32 she died in a motorcycle accident. Having never known Lily, her daughter has come to this wake partly out of curiosity, and partly looking for escape. She's almost 18, searching for an identity that both abandons the predictable unfocused boredom of working-class England and embraces the adventurous sexuality she imagines Lily must have possessed. It starts out as role-playing. She steals Lily's clothes, tosses them into an old suitcase, and starts seeking out Lily's past husbands and acquaintances. Then she starts to wear the clothes, becoming increasingly comfortable in that identity stolen from a dead woman; wondering if any of these people see anything of Lily in her. She stalks them. First, there's August, Lily's second husband. August, who works in a grungy downtown bar called The Dragon. Then, there's David, a photographer, who took pictures of Lily when she was dabbling in a modeling career. Finally, she finds herself pursued and threatened by Richard, Lily's third husband, who wants the suitcase with Lily's things back. What started out as an impulse has now become obsession. When she hears that Richard has been looking for her, she reflects: “...I was starting to lose any intention of giving the suitcase back. I didn't like the sound of Richard, and I liked the suitcase now. I liked the clothes. I liked reading the letters.” The implicit feel of danger draws out a personality she craves, a personality she imagines Lily might have had. After all, Augustus recalled about Lily: “...she liked pretending. Pretending was her hobby. Every day was theatrical, you know?” Later, he adds: “She was an adrenaline rush.”

Her attraction to David begins as a flirtation and grows into a relationship hemmed in by lies. She tells David that she got rid of the suitcase and the clothes. It's the apex of creepiness, because she actually continues to wear the clothes. Finally, she seeks out the spot in the road where it happened – where the fatal accident took place, as if that would somehow answer all of her questions about Lily.

This is an intriguing book. Lily's daughter's circumstances are so unique that unless you remember the confusion bridging adolescence and adulthood, it's difficult to feel connected to her. Although there is a plot, the progression is slow. Unlike the flow of first-person observation and introspection, much of the dialogue is designed mainly for functionality rather than color or characterization. All of this, however, is outweighed by the intensity and discipline of the metaphorical writing. This is the kind of book that grows over time.

[Gracie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die junge Frau ist 17 Jahre alt, als sie erfährt, dass ihre leibliche Mutter Lily, die vor 14 Jahren die Familie verlassen hat und nach Los Angeles abgehauen ist, bei einem Unfall ums Leben gekommen ist. Obwohl Lily ihr Baby 3 Jahre nach der Geburt einfach zurückgelassen hat, klaut das Mädchen nun die Kreditkarte ihres Vaters und macht sich spontan von London auf den Weg nach Kalifornien.
In Amerika angekommen, landet sie im „Pink Hotel“, einem schäbigen Hotel in Venice Beach, welches einst ihrer verstorbenen Mutter gehörte.
Als sie dort eintrifft, findet gerade die Trauerfeier für ihre Mutter statt, ein skurriles Treiben mit vielen Gästen, die offenbar alle durch Alkohol und Drogen weggetreten sind.
Sie schleicht sich in das Schlafzimmer ihrer Mutter und findet unter dem Bett einen roten Koffer, den sie rasch mit Kleidung, Fotos, billigem Schmuck und Zigaretten füllt und als Andenken an Lily mitnimmt.
Die junge Frau beschließt in einem nahegelegenen Hostel unterzukommen, doch am Weg dorthin lernt sie auf der Strandpromenade einen Mann namens David kennen, den sie Minuten zuvor bereits im Pink Hotel gesehen hat und sie erhofft sich von ihm Details über Lilys Leben zu erfahren.
Als sie schließlich in dem Koffer alte Liebesbriefe entdeckt, folgt sie den spärlichen Hinweisen und spürt nach und nach Lilys Ehemänner auf, um so der Vergangenheit ihrer Mutter auf die Spur zu kommen.
Außerdem fängt sie an Lilys Kleider zu tragen und schlüpft immer mehr in die Identität der toten Mutter.
Sie trifft auf August, Lilys zweiten Ehemann, der eine Bar namens „The Dragon“ führt und sie lernt Richard kennen, Lilys dritten Ehemann, der den roten Koffer unbedingt zurückhaben möchte und die junge Frau verfolgt und bedroht. David begleitet die 17Jährige während ihrer Identitätsfindung und nimmt schließlich eine immer wichtigere Rolle im Verlauf der Geschichte ein.

„Pink Hotel“ konnte mich bereits nach den erste paar Seiten richtig begeistern und mir war sofort klar, dass mich das Buch schnell in seinen Bann ziehen würde. Der besondere Schreibstil der Autorin, die einzigartige Atmosphäre und die interessanten und skurrilen Charaktere, ergaben eine wunderbare Mischung für diesen anspruchsvollen und tiefgründigen Roman.
Wir begleiten die Protagonistin bei ihrer Reise und können miterleben, wie sie während ihrer Recherche, Stück für Stück zu sich selbst findet. Ihr Wunsch „endlich anzukommen“, war für mich zu jeder Zeit spürbar und so wunderte es mich auch nicht, dass das Mädchen während der gesamten Geschichte namenlos blieb. Aufgewachsen bei ihrem Vater, war die 17Jährige oft einsam, aufmüpfig und flog zuletzt sogar von der Schule.
Obwohl mir die unterschiedlichen Charaktere nicht gerade sympathisch waren, wurden sie sehr interessant und authentisch beschrieben. Zwischen den Zeilen konnte man einige Informationen über Lilys ausgelassenes Leben entdecken und schnell war klar, dass ihr lockerer und furchtloser Lebensstil in ihrer Tochter weiterleben würde.

Neben den Einblicken in Lilys Vergangenheit, hat mir vor allem die Atmosphäre LA’s fernab der schillernden und glamourösen Kulisse Hollywoods besonders gut gefallen. Man taucht in eine faszinierende Szenerie aus amerikanischer Großstadt, Smog, Hitze und Drogen ein und die Autorin schafft es gekonnt, eine aufregende und melancholische Stimmung enstehen zu lassen.
Auch das Ende der Geschichte konnte mich noch einmal richtig begeistern, denn der Ausgang des Buches war für mich überraschend und absolut nicht vorhersehbar.
Eine große Leseempfehlung!

[Danielle Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Taken from a review on my blog, The Reader's Commute):

As readers, we learn along with the narrator about the character that was Lily. We learn that “her bedroom reeked of cigarette ash and stale perfume” on the very first page. However, this small detail is not enough for the narrator, a girl who relishes in ample sleep and physical pain. Like someone who incessantly presses a bruise, the narrator delves deeper into the world that was her mother’s. She wears Lily’s clothes (even her underwear), reads her love letters, and pays visits to acquaintances and old lovers. She doesn’t seem to really care that she’s upsetting the balance of this world, or causing hurt to Lily’s husband, Richard (a dangerous, red-haired man). The narrator in The Pink Hotel is relentless. She fights on the soccer field, she repeats words that have “musical qualities,” and she continuously hounds people for information on Lily.

Even after she falls in love and begins living with David, a photographer who once knew her mother, the narrator cannot let go of her obsession. She lies to David and says that she has disposed of Lily’s clothing, and humors him while wearing the clothing he has picked out for her (the cardigans and skirts that David buys her do not reflect her personality - or the personality she wants to have - as much as Lily’s leather jacket and silk fuchsia dress). Saddest of all: David does not know that his new lover is Lily’s daughter.

The scenes between the narrator and David are heartbreaking and obsessive. She loves him, yet hurts him without his knowledge. He is a recovering alcoholic who sees some semblance of goodness in this young girl, and he wants to turn his life around. Meanwhile, the narrator has this desperate desire to feel something; she makes frequent mentions of injuries suffered, the game of pressing pressure points to facilitate fainting, and masochistic dreams she’s had where she is tied to a laundry machine for hours. In a pivotal argument scene with David, the narrator feels a rush of excitement when she thinks that David is going to hit her. She is left disappointed, and she suffers silently.

Everyone in The Pink Hotel suffers silently. David grapples with alcoholism and a secret sadness; Julie, a bartender, pushes away her emotions with heroin; the narrator’s grandmother suffers from a stroke that takes away her ability to speak. Despite all of this silence, this novel speaks volumes. The prose is gorgeous, full of unexpected descriptions that left me thinking: this is so true.

While some readers may be put-off by an unnamed narrator, I felt that I was really able to identify the narrator of The Pink Hotel as an individual. Her feelings, her vivid dreams, and her actions made her stand out. Like Emily Vidal in The Adults, she seems wise beyond her years. Her thoughts are complicated, beautiful, and sad. I think she will sit with me for a long time, and I look forward to a reread of The Pink Hotel.

[Lyndsey O'Halloran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something quite strange about this book is that the protagonist never gets named. Maybe because it is told in the first person from the teenager’s perspective, who knows. Even though her name is never mentioned, she was a wonderful character to read about. Being left by her mother at the age of three had a massive impact on her life as she was left to be brought up by her father. She’s also not a girly girl at all and loves things such as football and getting into fights. The lack of a motherly figure in her life was so clear to see. Even though she never really knew her mother, I really liked that she still wanted to go to the funeral and to see what her mother was like.

For a girl her age, going all the way to LA on her own with no one there to greet her must have been quite a scary thing. Not only that, but it doesn’t seem as though any of her mother’s friends knew anything about her or that she even existed. Quickly, the book becomes a mystery novel as the daughter searches for information about her mother and to find out what her life was really liked. The mystery elements were written so well that it didn’t really come across as something to be solved. The daughter plods along throughout the book, going from one person to the next trying to find out certain things and carrying around a suitcase full of her dead mother’s belongings.

Anna Stothard brings in some amazing characters in The Pink Hotel. Lily led quite a strange and crazy life during her time and this meant knowing such a range of people. Although Lily is much younger than most of the people that Lily knew, she somehow manages to get in close with a few of them. I really liked the moments of the daughter getting to know the people in Lily’s life, even if they didn’t know anything about her. Characters include drunks, addicts and criminals who are all people so far from who the daughter is used to having to deal with. This brings out extreme changes in her character as she realises that she may be more like her mother.

The Pink Hotel is unlike any other book I have read. While the plot isn’t exciting in the traditional sense, I couldn’t stop reading. Stothard brings in a side of LA that is never really shown, she writes characters who you shouldn’t like but do and she also writes a very gripping story. If you’re looking for something a little different then this one would be worth a try.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I saw on the Waterstones Facebook page that they were looking for reviewers for this book I decided to apply for a copy to see what it was like as not one I had heard of before and probably not a book I would have picked myself.

The story begins with the young girl (we never do get to find out what her name is!) turning up in the middle of the wake for her mother, Lily, at the hotel she had run with her husband. She wanders around apparently unnoticed and then walks upto her mother's bedroom where she starts looking through her mother's possessions.

Whilst she was in the bathroom her mother's husband turns up and passes out in the bedroom, so she decides that she'd better leave but before she goes she fills a suitcase with some of Lily's things to take with her.

We then find out that Lily had left when she was just three years old and that she'd never known her so she doesn't know anything about her, she'd simply received a phone call from the hospital telling her that her mother had died. On the spur of the moment she decided to book a plane ticket to Los Angeles to see where her mother had lived.

Through the items in the suitcase she then spends the summer trying to piece together her mothers life to find out exactly who she was and whether they were anything alike.

I have to confess that this one did not really pull me in at all and I found myself skipping on to try and find something to get my teeth into but sadly it never happened.