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Women's Hotel #1
Women's Hotel
From the New York Times bestselling author and advice columnist, a poignant and funny debut novel about the residents of a women’s hotel in 1960s New York City.
The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.
The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.
As trenchant as the novels of Dawn Powell and Rona Jaffe and as immersive as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry, Women’s Hotel is a modern classic—and it is very, very funny.
The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.
The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.
As trenchant as the novels of Dawn Powell and Rona Jaffe and as immersive as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry, Women’s Hotel is a modern classic—and it is very, very funny.
265 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 15, 2024
2710 people are currently reading
20654 people want to read
About the author
Daniel M. Lavery
20 books963 followersAlso see Mallory Ortberg and Daniel Mallory Ortberg.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 733 reviews
November 21, 2024
This is a very polyphonic, densely written novel about women living in, well, a women’s hotel. The long sentences and exacting details pull you into the Biedermier and makes you want to never leave.
January 24, 2025
grand budapest hotel vibes
in visual only.
because this has moments of great writing, but not a lot of other stuff.
it's occasionally sly and clear, but the characters aren't particularly memorable or full, there's not much in the way of plot, and i didn't feel much while reading it (including basic connection to the story or what would happen to the figures in it).
bottom line: that average rating! there's just not a lot to like here.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
in visual only.
because this has moments of great writing, but not a lot of other stuff.
it's occasionally sly and clear, but the characters aren't particularly memorable or full, there's not much in the way of plot, and i didn't feel much while reading it (including basic connection to the story or what would happen to the figures in it).
bottom line: that average rating! there's just not a lot to like here.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
November 2, 2024
“Women’s Hotel” by Daniel Lavery is a clever period piece highlighting the midcentury social construct of female boarding-room institutions. Lavery names his women’s hotel “The Beidermeier”. I pictured Ann Sothern (Private Secretary), Barbara Hale (Perry Mason), and Barbara Feldon (Get Smart) as the type of woman who would use a Women’s Hotel. Remember the sitcom “Bosom Buddies” which starred Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari, Donna Dixon and Holland Taylor? Hanks and Scolari pose as women to stay in a women’s apartment building. The female spirit shined through in “Bosom Buddies”. Lavery’s Beidermeier exemplifies the working-girl ethos.
The reason to read this is Lavery’s beautiful prose. The story is told in a passive voice; not much goes on, it’s Lavery’s observations that steal the show. There really isn’t a plot, per se, this is more of a collection of character studies of the mid-century working woman. One woman has a bout with alcoholism, one has sticky fingers (theft). Mrs. Mossler is the housemother who frets over finances and keeping the girl’s morality in line.
I listened to the audio, narrated by Mara Wilson. It’s 8 hours and 41 minutes in length. I am going to put a hold at the library for a book format on this one. I want to read it. It’s a wonderful audio in that I could easily picture the women and their machinations.
The reason to read this is Lavery’s beautiful prose. The story is told in a passive voice; not much goes on, it’s Lavery’s observations that steal the show. There really isn’t a plot, per se, this is more of a collection of character studies of the mid-century working woman. One woman has a bout with alcoholism, one has sticky fingers (theft). Mrs. Mossler is the housemother who frets over finances and keeping the girl’s morality in line.
I listened to the audio, narrated by Mara Wilson. It’s 8 hours and 41 minutes in length. I am going to put a hold at the library for a book format on this one. I want to read it. It’s a wonderful audio in that I could easily picture the women and their machinations.
did-not-finish
September 30, 2024DNF @ 140 pages
Partial Review:
The prose in this book is like gravy, it's too thick and greasy to drink. It really needs something to break up all the meatiness. I didn't have the jaws to chew my way completely through this one. And I no longer have the vision I need to skim!
So I quit. For me, it wasn't an enjoyable read. My reading notes provide all the explanation, I've shared them below. You might love this one. It's definitely unique and explores an interesting cultural phenomenon at an interesting time in history.
Reading Notes
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. It's no wonder all our grandmothers were thin. These women were legal nonpersons, who could expect insufficient services even though they paid for a room, and were mostly relegated to thievery to keep food in their stomachs.
2. This book really handles suicide with nuance and respect. No plot devices here!
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. The narrative voice is too distracted with the details of the setting to get going with an actual story.
2. The style of the writing is not friendly. The syntax is unnecessarily complicated and the diction, unnecessarily verbose. Instead she murmured something tactful and nodded vaguely, and then after trading a few less keenly felt remarks about the weather, which was fine and seasonable, and the sermon, which had to do with whether Paul’s taking-up of Eutychus in Acts should properly be considered a resurrection from the dead, in the manner of Lazarus and Tabitha and the daughter of Jairus, or whether it should be considered instead a revival and therefore merely a simple healing miracle, like that of the beggar at the Gate Beautiful), Altheah drifted away. p59 All one sentence. Sentences this long are most often runons and frequently require chunking. This one would have benefited from chunking, as would many of the sentences in this book.
3. This is a book designed like a string of scenes or scene clusters. Each time I was reading a scene, I was blatantly aware of the development of some aspect of the story, but only and always in parts. Each scene focuses on furthering just one part. Contained. Little beads. Beads because the primary content of the scenes don't build on previous scenes. One character will develope in one scene, another in another scene, another provides some plot progression. These disparate parts just don't meet up very often, but they're all running at the same speed toward... something.
4. I suppose the plot is designed to mimic wandering the halls of a hotel and knocking on the doors, asking for stories. Maybe? But honestly, it's setting driven to the point of being distracting. It's a shame because setting driven novels can be completely brilliant. For example, try most of Jack London's work, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, or Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy. I did not like the treatment here, but you might!
5. DNF @ 141 pages. They couldn't flip by fast enough.
Rating: DNF @ 141 pages
Recommend? No
Finished: Sep 21 '24
Format: Digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
💜 dense prose
👨👩👧👦 family stories, family drama
👭🏽 women's friendship under stress
💇♀️ women's coming of age
🕰 historical fiction
Thank you to the author, Daniel M. Lavery, publishers Harper Collins, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of WOMEN'S HOTEL. All views are mine.
Partial Review:
The prose in this book is like gravy, it's too thick and greasy to drink. It really needs something to break up all the meatiness. I didn't have the jaws to chew my way completely through this one. And I no longer have the vision I need to skim!
So I quit. For me, it wasn't an enjoyable read. My reading notes provide all the explanation, I've shared them below. You might love this one. It's definitely unique and explores an interesting cultural phenomenon at an interesting time in history.
Reading Notes
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. It's no wonder all our grandmothers were thin. These women were legal nonpersons, who could expect insufficient services even though they paid for a room, and were mostly relegated to thievery to keep food in their stomachs.
2. This book really handles suicide with nuance and respect. No plot devices here!
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. The narrative voice is too distracted with the details of the setting to get going with an actual story.
2. The style of the writing is not friendly. The syntax is unnecessarily complicated and the diction, unnecessarily verbose. Instead she murmured something tactful and nodded vaguely, and then after trading a few less keenly felt remarks about the weather, which was fine and seasonable, and the sermon, which had to do with whether Paul’s taking-up of Eutychus in Acts should properly be considered a resurrection from the dead, in the manner of Lazarus and Tabitha and the daughter of Jairus, or whether it should be considered instead a revival and therefore merely a simple healing miracle, like that of the beggar at the Gate Beautiful), Altheah drifted away. p59 All one sentence. Sentences this long are most often runons and frequently require chunking. This one would have benefited from chunking, as would many of the sentences in this book.
3. This is a book designed like a string of scenes or scene clusters. Each time I was reading a scene, I was blatantly aware of the development of some aspect of the story, but only and always in parts. Each scene focuses on furthering just one part. Contained. Little beads. Beads because the primary content of the scenes don't build on previous scenes. One character will develope in one scene, another in another scene, another provides some plot progression. These disparate parts just don't meet up very often, but they're all running at the same speed toward... something.
4. I suppose the plot is designed to mimic wandering the halls of a hotel and knocking on the doors, asking for stories. Maybe? But honestly, it's setting driven to the point of being distracting. It's a shame because setting driven novels can be completely brilliant. For example, try most of Jack London's work, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, or Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy. I did not like the treatment here, but you might!
5. DNF @ 141 pages. They couldn't flip by fast enough.
Rating: DNF @ 141 pages
Recommend? No
Finished: Sep 21 '24
Format: Digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
💜 dense prose
👨👩👧👦 family stories, family drama
👭🏽 women's friendship under stress
💇♀️ women's coming of age
🕰 historical fiction
Thank you to the author, Daniel M. Lavery, publishers Harper Collins, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of WOMEN'S HOTEL. All views are mine.
November 17, 2025
I admit that I doubt if I am the proper audience for this novel. I acknowledge that I have never read anything by this author, so I really had no great expectations. However, based on the recap, I expected something a little different from what I got. This book was compared to Lessons in Chemistry, and I can wholeheartedly say that that is a bunch of bull poop.
This heavy-handed novel does not have me living these females' lives. I fully expected some true history based on real women's hotels with a lot of fiction mixed in. Instead, I got endless paragraphs of repetitive drivel that did nothing but ramble. There is nothing cohesive about this novel.
This heavy-handed novel does not have me living these females' lives. I fully expected some true history based on real women's hotels with a lot of fiction mixed in. Instead, I got endless paragraphs of repetitive drivel that did nothing but ramble. There is nothing cohesive about this novel.
August 31, 2024
Made it 35% of the way and had to stop; reading it was a chore rather than a pleasure. "Women's Hotel" is a book where you absolutely must love the narrative voice, because there's not much else going on—no plot, no character development—and I did not like this narrative voice one bit. I felt trapped with a garrulous woman who thinks she's much wittier than she is telling an endless, pointless story.
Thank you, HarperVia and NetGalley, for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you, HarperVia and NetGalley, for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
November 12, 2024
if daniel lavery has a million fans i'm one of them. if daniel lavery has one fan that's me. if daniel lavery has 0 fans i am no longer on this earth. if the world is against daniel lavery, i am against the world
a perfect little book, with the type of humor that glints & bites. i only wish it was 5x longer (and it could've been) so that every character received a longer study!
a perfect little book, with the type of humor that glints & bites. i only wish it was 5x longer (and it could've been) so that every character received a longer study!
October 28, 2024
DNF’d at 25%. Really awful. Inert, formal, boring. I lived the premise but hated the execution. Too many books, too little time
July 16, 2024
that daniel lavery is a talented writer isn't exactly breaking news, but it must be said. really great prose that i can only describe as "jaunty," like an amy sherman-palladino take on the bell jar, almost energizing to read. and, while it would be clear even to a reader unfamiliar with lavery that he's deeply familiar with the classics, and especially the classics of women's literature, i'm very pleased to read something of his that isn't fundamentally referential, and doubly pleased that it's so good. women's hotel isn't without its flaws -- it can be uneven at times, pinballing around the various hotel residents, their backstories and present exploits, without a clear central narrative or sense of progression. but these flaws were ones i was aware of, rather than bothered by. lavery could write a grocery list with enough cleverness and sensitivity that i would read it without complaint.
thnx netgalley i owe u my life etc etc
thnx netgalley i owe u my life etc etc
September 4, 2024
One might be tempted to approach Women’s Hotel by the New York Times bestselling author and advice columnist with a modicum of hope, given its purported depth and charm. Yet, as the veil lifts, one is met not with a grand opus but rather a work of such insipid mediocrity that it calls into question the discerning faculties of its most ardent supporters.
The novel ostensibly aims to depict the lives of a diverse set of women residing in a less-than-stellar analog of New York City's Barbizon Hotel. One might argue that this setting, teetering on the precipice of the romantic and the banal, offers a fertile ground for narrative exploration. Instead, what we are presented with is a parade of archetypes so painfully predictable they might have been lifted straight from the pages of a particularly uninspired soap opera. You'd be better off spending a year writing about Al Bundy and the American sitcom than this kind of novel.
The protagonist, Katherine, is a curious amalgamation of the mildly cynical and the trivially suggestible, neither of which serves to endear her to the reader. Lucianne, with her half-hearted resistance to societal norms, is as engaging as a particularly tedious dinner conversation. Kitty, Ruth, Pauline, and Stephen add little to the narrative tapestry beyond their superficial quirks. If one is seeking character development, one would be better served by examining the pattern on a particularly drab wallpaper.
The novel's attempt at humor is anemic at best, with wit that is neither sharp enough to be memorable nor subtle enough to be effective. The reader is left to wade through a mire of tedious anecdotes and contrived situations, all under the guise of 'modern classic' status. The grand ambition to evoke the likes of Dawn Powell and Rona Jaffe is, quite frankly, laughable. It falls lamentably short of the incisive social commentary and rich character studies these authors so deftly managed.
Moreover, the novel's tone, purportedly akin to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry, instead evokes a disjointed mishmash of self-congratulatory quips and overblown sentimentality. If the intention was to produce something as immersive and charming as these comparisons suggest, it has wholly failed to deliver. Perhaps this entire novel needed a little more time to ferment in order to become the delicious dish it was meant to become.
While there are moments where the author’s skill shines through—albeit faintly—these are fleeting and insufficient to redeem the work as a whole. One can only hope that future literary endeavors might strive for a semblance of sophistication and coherence.
- An Academic Who Knows Better
The novel ostensibly aims to depict the lives of a diverse set of women residing in a less-than-stellar analog of New York City's Barbizon Hotel. One might argue that this setting, teetering on the precipice of the romantic and the banal, offers a fertile ground for narrative exploration. Instead, what we are presented with is a parade of archetypes so painfully predictable they might have been lifted straight from the pages of a particularly uninspired soap opera. You'd be better off spending a year writing about Al Bundy and the American sitcom than this kind of novel.
The protagonist, Katherine, is a curious amalgamation of the mildly cynical and the trivially suggestible, neither of which serves to endear her to the reader. Lucianne, with her half-hearted resistance to societal norms, is as engaging as a particularly tedious dinner conversation. Kitty, Ruth, Pauline, and Stephen add little to the narrative tapestry beyond their superficial quirks. If one is seeking character development, one would be better served by examining the pattern on a particularly drab wallpaper.
The novel's attempt at humor is anemic at best, with wit that is neither sharp enough to be memorable nor subtle enough to be effective. The reader is left to wade through a mire of tedious anecdotes and contrived situations, all under the guise of 'modern classic' status. The grand ambition to evoke the likes of Dawn Powell and Rona Jaffe is, quite frankly, laughable. It falls lamentably short of the incisive social commentary and rich character studies these authors so deftly managed.
Moreover, the novel's tone, purportedly akin to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry, instead evokes a disjointed mishmash of self-congratulatory quips and overblown sentimentality. If the intention was to produce something as immersive and charming as these comparisons suggest, it has wholly failed to deliver. Perhaps this entire novel needed a little more time to ferment in order to become the delicious dish it was meant to become.
While there are moments where the author’s skill shines through—albeit faintly—these are fleeting and insufficient to redeem the work as a whole. One can only hope that future literary endeavors might strive for a semblance of sophistication and coherence.
- An Academic Who Knows Better
November 2, 2024
The way this author writes felt so pretentious to me that I had no interest in any of these characters or the “storyline”
August 21, 2024
I rounded up because it was well written but I had to work hard to finish as it was dry and dragged a lot for me. I might have dnf if NetGalley hadn’t given it to me to review. This could just be my personal preference as others seem to love it. Thank you to the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.
December 1, 2024
So boring- no plot, list after list, stilted language, uninteresting characters. I skimmed a great deal hoping yo pick up something that would catch my attention. Too many good books to read- skip this one.
October 11, 2024
Sometimes you hear the phrase “no plot, all vibes” to describe a novel, but this one managed to feel more like “no plot, no vibes”, yet still somehow kept me reading. It’s been hard to really describe how I felt about it - I enjoyed the characters (at least, to the extent that we got to know them) and I enjoyed the concept of a group of young people all living together in hotel with a college dorm-type atmosphere, but the lack of a throughline and depth of the characters kept me constantly wanting more to grasp onto.
It’s hard to pin down what Women’s Hotel is really “about” since there’s not really a central plot, but it follows a small cast of characters that are living and/or working in a women’s hotel in NYC in the 1960s in sort of a slice of life type of way. It unfolds as a series of vignettes or scenes that almost feels like episodes of a tv show. If I had to identify a “main” character around which many of the vignettes revolve, that would be Katherine - a young woman who we eventually come to learn moved away from home under difficult circumstances and who is leaning into her found family in and around the hotel as the hotel’s manager. In addition to Katherine, we also get stories that involve the hotel’s owner Mrs. Mossler, the elevator operator Stephen, and hotel tenants Lucianne, Gia and Ruth, among others.
The concept of the women’s hotel was really fascinating to me, and I really liked its feel of a more mature type of sorority house. Each character is completely quirky, odd and eccentric in their own way, and I really enjoyed the humor in the prose as we heard their stories. It was honestly really funny, and I don’t say that lightly about novels! But at the same time, it was almost unnecessarily verbose, and would veer off into waxing poetic about the most inconsequential details, which took me out of the story. I really enjoyed getting to know our characters in the hotel and certainly enjoyed the witty prose, but then I often felt that as soon as I was getting to know a character, the chapter would end and we’d move on to a different character and set of circumstances, leaving me unsettled.
All in all, it was a mundane yet charming read that was nothing like I’ve read before - the publisher compares it to Lessons in Chemistry and personally I don’t see any similarities there. True, they both made me laugh at times, but for very different reasons and they have very different vibes. While overall it had a number of things to like, I wish it would have had more of a cohesive plotline to pull everyone and everything together. Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
It’s hard to pin down what Women’s Hotel is really “about” since there’s not really a central plot, but it follows a small cast of characters that are living and/or working in a women’s hotel in NYC in the 1960s in sort of a slice of life type of way. It unfolds as a series of vignettes or scenes that almost feels like episodes of a tv show. If I had to identify a “main” character around which many of the vignettes revolve, that would be Katherine - a young woman who we eventually come to learn moved away from home under difficult circumstances and who is leaning into her found family in and around the hotel as the hotel’s manager. In addition to Katherine, we also get stories that involve the hotel’s owner Mrs. Mossler, the elevator operator Stephen, and hotel tenants Lucianne, Gia and Ruth, among others.
The concept of the women’s hotel was really fascinating to me, and I really liked its feel of a more mature type of sorority house. Each character is completely quirky, odd and eccentric in their own way, and I really enjoyed the humor in the prose as we heard their stories. It was honestly really funny, and I don’t say that lightly about novels! But at the same time, it was almost unnecessarily verbose, and would veer off into waxing poetic about the most inconsequential details, which took me out of the story. I really enjoyed getting to know our characters in the hotel and certainly enjoyed the witty prose, but then I often felt that as soon as I was getting to know a character, the chapter would end and we’d move on to a different character and set of circumstances, leaving me unsettled.
All in all, it was a mundane yet charming read that was nothing like I’ve read before - the publisher compares it to Lessons in Chemistry and personally I don’t see any similarities there. True, they both made me laugh at times, but for very different reasons and they have very different vibes. While overall it had a number of things to like, I wish it would have had more of a cohesive plotline to pull everyone and everything together. Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
October 6, 2024
I wanted to like this. It’s a premise I enjoy, character studies of a group of people. But it’s just boring.
It centers, per the title, on a hotel in 1960s New York that serves women. The tenants, owner and the elevator operator are our main focuses.
But it’s just dull. Lovely writing but that’s not enough to keep me interested.
It centers, per the title, on a hotel in 1960s New York that serves women. The tenants, owner and the elevator operator are our main focuses.
But it’s just dull. Lovely writing but that’s not enough to keep me interested.
December 7, 2024
worst book I have read this year wanted to DNF so many times. Lots of drivel by the author . Idk how it got so many good reviews-it was nothing like lessons in chemistry or the marvelous Mrs Maisel. It was super flat
November 16, 2024
Whoever wrote the copy for the book jacket clearly read a different book than what was contained inside said jacket. The comparison to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry is absolutely laughable, but perhaps the only funny thing about this book which was touted as being “very, very funny. “
November 9, 2024
Cannot finish. It’s just tedious. And boring.
July 17, 2024
I think I saw somewhere that Lavery was inspired by Barbara Pym writing this (though now I can't find the quote), and whether that's true or something I made up, I thought about Pym a lot while reading this and it strikes me as a wonderful and telling comp for this novel. There are some more obvious references in mid-century American literature, novels set in or around women's hotels, but the sensibility of Pym is so alive here. Pym's novels are about women who are trying to figure out what they want out of adult life, but unlike many other novelists writing on this subject she is skeptical of romance. While there is often a romantic possibility in her books, it almost never comes to fruition. Her characters are spinsters, often but not always by choice, but their lives are interesting regardless. The drama of her books is made up of the small rules of social interaction in middle-class post-war England, often between neighbors, or landlords (or ladies) and their tenants, who have to put up with each other whether they like it or not.
Though this is a very American book, and Pym's writing is very English, many of these themes come through in "Women's Hotel" as well: the most central character, Katherine, is a Pym-like spinster, dealing with her own private problems and not interested in romance, and many of the neighbors only tolerate each other, but have elaborate rituals for doing so. Lavery's writing is also infused with a humor similar to Pym's, which I find hard to describe. The book doesn't ignore darker elements of the reality of living as a single young woman in the city (there are some quite alarming scenes), but for the most part the tone is light and generous to all the characters. It is a pleasure to spend time with them.
Though this is a very American book, and Pym's writing is very English, many of these themes come through in "Women's Hotel" as well: the most central character, Katherine, is a Pym-like spinster, dealing with her own private problems and not interested in romance, and many of the neighbors only tolerate each other, but have elaborate rituals for doing so. Lavery's writing is also infused with a humor similar to Pym's, which I find hard to describe. The book doesn't ignore darker elements of the reality of living as a single young woman in the city (there are some quite alarming scenes), but for the most part the tone is light and generous to all the characters. It is a pleasure to spend time with them.
December 27, 2024
Hoo boy, did I love this! I found the first 20 or so pages almost impenetrably dense and If I hadn't already been a fan of Daniel Lavery's work across other mediums, I would have given up on it. I'm so glad I didn't. This novel is definitely not for everyone, as there is not much plot at all, but I was completely charmed and entertained by his descriptions of the mostly low-stakes goings-on of the residents and employees of this fictional hotel. His observational humor is top notch. Daniel Lavery is so smart and funny, it makes me feel shy.
July 31, 2024
A cool character study and setting gives mad men vibes. Prose was a bit pedantic though, and plot is virtually nonexistent!
January 7, 2025
An hour and a half into the book I had no idea what was happening so I started over. Didn’t help.
June 16, 2025
I LOVED this book. It made me laugh out loud more than once. It was so silly and whimsical. Only gripe was that it had such a 1920’s trans Atlantic feel but it was technically set in the 1960’s. Made me wish I lived in a women’s hotel and then I remembered I basically do :)
October 17, 2024
After reading 10% of the book, I realized that I am probably not the target audience. Going in I expected a history of the hotels (how they came to be and the downfall, societal perceptions, maybe following the lives of a few women's daily routines.....) What I got instead was the author trying to use as many words as he knows to get his point across. At times a SINGLE SENTENCE took up entire page of my kindle. There were sections where the paragraphs were so long that I flipped through multiple pages of the kindle and the paragraph still continued. Reading felt like a chore especially when my eyes kept swimming because there was nothing to break up the text and give my poor brain a chance to breathe.
50% into the book I did start to enjoy the book more, but I think I was too jaded at that point from the awful 1st chapter. Will attempt to reread the book again in a few weeks and see if I can change my mind.
50% into the book I did start to enjoy the book more, but I think I was too jaded at that point from the awful 1st chapter. Will attempt to reread the book again in a few weeks and see if I can change my mind.
November 17, 2024
Actually a DNF, 88 pages in. No plot, no characters i like. No sense of time or a place. I knew it was 1960s ONLY because it said so on the book jacket. How did this get published? Was there no editor?
did-not-finish
January 2, 2025It should be no surprise to my book club that I didn't get very far into this book. 🥱
November 24, 2024
I've waited long enough on this one. I initially got an ARC about six months ago, made it a chapter or two in, and absolutely abandoned the book. I couldn't break through its shell, and I couldn't tell whether this was a me problem or a Lavery problem. Having returned to it six months later and finally made it through, I can confirm: a bit of both.
I'm not surprised the reviews have settled at 3 stars here. I really want to praise the book for Lavery's lovely, poignant, clever, funny-- shockingly funny-- prose. I want to talk about how a book doesn't need a strict plot structure to succeed. I want to slink and skitter and make excuses because I don't want to rate a Lavery book badly. And this makes it very hard to be honest about the book's merits, or its shortcomings, because I cannot get away from the fact that I love Lavery and I wanted to love this too.
The central takeaway: this book meanders. It meanders like hell. It has gorgeous prose, and at its best it is endlessly quotable, but you will be wandering back and forth with ample flashbacks at inopportune times about characters you may feel you already should have known had had X or Y or Z in their past. There is little in the way of organization when it comes to chronology or focus; the omniscient narration is lovely but my goodness does it make it hard to keep my feet on the ground. Any given chapter will shift between half a dozen of this large cast, and according to other reviews I was not alone in often finding it hard to tell the difference between characters.
Things pick up about halfway through, but this is going to be far too late for most modern readers-- I definitely get a sense of an older plotting style here (before editing?) but I wish so badly Lavery had chosen to modernize if only in the sense that this would have been such a lovely collection of interconnected short stories! Imagine if each chapter were a story about a different member of the cast, with each popping in and out of each other's narratives! Instead, things were so uneven-- I think my ultimate enjoyment of the back half came mostly through getting better at skimming-- that it would be hard to convince a new reader of Lavery's talent through this book alone.
And things just kept coming up-- I was a little sad that there were no queer characters given the author, but then all of a sudden we meet two lesbians who have just moved in and find out this one character has been bisexual the whole time!, almost like Lavery had the idea halfway through the draft to add that in. Same with the backstories on the characters; it was like he just kept having ideas and writing them in as they came up, and nobody ever worked out the order.
I'm having trouble describing this accurately so I will point you to Dona's review: "The narrative voice is too distracted with the details of the setting to get going with an actual story. [...] This is a book designed like a string of scenes or scene clusters... Each scene focuses on furthering just one part. Contained. Little beads. Beads because the primary content of the scenes don't build on previous scenes. One character will develope in one scene, another in another scene, another provides some plot progression..." I personally loved the writing style while she didn't, but this is the only way I can think to put the plot issue. Little beads. There was tension near the end, but it was absolutely not consistent throughout the book, which led to it feeling somewhat out of nowhere.
Honestly, as I finished reading, I wondered if there wasn't a serious case of "running out of time" on this whole thing. I think Lavery landed himself a novel contract and it took him so long to write the darn thing, meandering all the way, that he turned it in too late to get it the sweeping edits it needed. He sold his novel "proposal" in 2022, which means he had just two years to get the thing from draft to published. This is not enough time for a debut novel! Nobody had any evidence Lavery could write novels!
There is absolutely a Grand Budapest Hotel vibe to this thing. The prose is lovely. It's so quotable! But, you know, some good quotes do not a good book make. And so I am tragically disappointed, and I will lay the book to rest happy to be done. Read something else from this author; literally everything else he's done is better constructed.
I'm not surprised the reviews have settled at 3 stars here. I really want to praise the book for Lavery's lovely, poignant, clever, funny-- shockingly funny-- prose. I want to talk about how a book doesn't need a strict plot structure to succeed. I want to slink and skitter and make excuses because I don't want to rate a Lavery book badly. And this makes it very hard to be honest about the book's merits, or its shortcomings, because I cannot get away from the fact that I love Lavery and I wanted to love this too.
The central takeaway: this book meanders. It meanders like hell. It has gorgeous prose, and at its best it is endlessly quotable, but you will be wandering back and forth with ample flashbacks at inopportune times about characters you may feel you already should have known had had X or Y or Z in their past. There is little in the way of organization when it comes to chronology or focus; the omniscient narration is lovely but my goodness does it make it hard to keep my feet on the ground. Any given chapter will shift between half a dozen of this large cast, and according to other reviews I was not alone in often finding it hard to tell the difference between characters.
Things pick up about halfway through, but this is going to be far too late for most modern readers-- I definitely get a sense of an older plotting style here (before editing?) but I wish so badly Lavery had chosen to modernize if only in the sense that this would have been such a lovely collection of interconnected short stories! Imagine if each chapter were a story about a different member of the cast, with each popping in and out of each other's narratives! Instead, things were so uneven-- I think my ultimate enjoyment of the back half came mostly through getting better at skimming-- that it would be hard to convince a new reader of Lavery's talent through this book alone.
And things just kept coming up-- I was a little sad that there were no queer characters given the author, but then all of a sudden we meet two lesbians who have just moved in and find out this one character has been bisexual the whole time!, almost like Lavery had the idea halfway through the draft to add that in. Same with the backstories on the characters; it was like he just kept having ideas and writing them in as they came up, and nobody ever worked out the order.
I'm having trouble describing this accurately so I will point you to Dona's review: "The narrative voice is too distracted with the details of the setting to get going with an actual story. [...] This is a book designed like a string of scenes or scene clusters... Each scene focuses on furthering just one part. Contained. Little beads. Beads because the primary content of the scenes don't build on previous scenes. One character will develope in one scene, another in another scene, another provides some plot progression..." I personally loved the writing style while she didn't, but this is the only way I can think to put the plot issue. Little beads. There was tension near the end, but it was absolutely not consistent throughout the book, which led to it feeling somewhat out of nowhere.
Honestly, as I finished reading, I wondered if there wasn't a serious case of "running out of time" on this whole thing. I think Lavery landed himself a novel contract and it took him so long to write the darn thing, meandering all the way, that he turned it in too late to get it the sweeping edits it needed. He sold his novel "proposal" in 2022, which means he had just two years to get the thing from draft to published. This is not enough time for a debut novel! Nobody had any evidence Lavery could write novels!
There is absolutely a Grand Budapest Hotel vibe to this thing. The prose is lovely. It's so quotable! But, you know, some good quotes do not a good book make. And so I am tragically disappointed, and I will lay the book to rest happy to be done. Read something else from this author; literally everything else he's done is better constructed.
September 19, 2024
3 stars
The titular setting and the array of quirky characters make this a unique read, as does the author's characteristic voice, though some readers may find certain stylistic choices challenging.
Lavery's voice, both in writing of all genres and even in podcasting and other nonfictional spaces, is unmistakable. His command of the language leaves renowned experts in the field swooning, but it also makes his writing, at times, somewhat inaccessible to broader audiences. Sometimes, the language overtakes the plotting and character development here, and I wished for a different outcome. Additionally, since this is more of a character study, wherein the hotel becomes a backdrop for many individual stories, there isn't as much forward movement and apparent plotting as many readers may expect. For me, this was a read focused on observations versus actions.
I enjoy so much about this writer, and while this effort did not resonate with me in the same way that other works by Lavery have, I still enjoyed the glimpse into this world.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and HarperVia for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
The titular setting and the array of quirky characters make this a unique read, as does the author's characteristic voice, though some readers may find certain stylistic choices challenging.
Lavery's voice, both in writing of all genres and even in podcasting and other nonfictional spaces, is unmistakable. His command of the language leaves renowned experts in the field swooning, but it also makes his writing, at times, somewhat inaccessible to broader audiences. Sometimes, the language overtakes the plotting and character development here, and I wished for a different outcome. Additionally, since this is more of a character study, wherein the hotel becomes a backdrop for many individual stories, there isn't as much forward movement and apparent plotting as many readers may expect. For me, this was a read focused on observations versus actions.
I enjoy so much about this writer, and while this effort did not resonate with me in the same way that other works by Lavery have, I still enjoyed the glimpse into this world.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and HarperVia for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
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December 3, 2024One of those books where a stunning ending lends significance to everything that comes before.
Up until the 70% mark I thought this book was delightful in a fluffy, soon to be forgotten kind of way. The narrative voice is mildly amusing, insightful but shallow, rousing neither emotion nor deep reflection. (Wes Anderson vibes, but with more historical research. Further enforced by cover art that seems to referenceThe Grand Budapest Hotel.) The last 30% contains inciting incidents and slightly shocking reveals that pull everything together. Ironically I never felt compelled to want more of this book until the very final “wrap-it-up” chapter. On further reflection that feels poignantly apt for the subject.
Like the often referenced corner automats of the early 20th century, Women’s Hotel is about a period in women’s history that was mostly ignored in its time and forgotten when it was gone. The people who lived it consigned to the same. It infuses the memory of the book with a slight melancholy, and makes the light tone meaningful. I ended up really liking what Lavery did here, in the end.
Up until the 70% mark I thought this book was delightful in a fluffy, soon to be forgotten kind of way. The narrative voice is mildly amusing, insightful but shallow, rousing neither emotion nor deep reflection. (Wes Anderson vibes, but with more historical research. Further enforced by cover art that seems to referenceThe Grand Budapest Hotel.) The last 30% contains inciting incidents and slightly shocking reveals that pull everything together. Ironically I never felt compelled to want more of this book until the very final “wrap-it-up” chapter. On further reflection that feels poignantly apt for the subject.
Like the often referenced corner automats of the early 20th century, Women’s Hotel is about a period in women’s history that was mostly ignored in its time and forgotten when it was gone. The people who lived it consigned to the same. It infuses the memory of the book with a slight melancholy, and makes the light tone meaningful. I ended up really liking what Lavery did here, in the end.
March 5, 2025
I am a Dan Lavery stan through and through. I cut my teenage writer teeth on The Toast, I read his short stories, his advice columns, his essays, his text messages from fictional characters. I say this as someone who has been through it all: character-driven novels may not be his strong suit!
Of course, I am still trying to decide the extent to which this is a "character-driven" novel. Or whether it's a novel! It feels much more like a series of vignettes, more so about the hotel as a collective than the individuals who reside within it. Truly what it says on the tin! Lavery is, as always, an excellent writer of sentences, but I'm starting to understand why "great sentences" are not enough to cut it; without compelling character arcs (we mainly get light satirical portraits with an occasional moment of humanity, but not enough to feel like that's the point) or a plot driving us forward, we cannot just swim in these great sentences forever.
I commend Lavery for trying something different and I will follow him anywhere, even if, like in this novel, I don't stay for long.
Of course, I am still trying to decide the extent to which this is a "character-driven" novel. Or whether it's a novel! It feels much more like a series of vignettes, more so about the hotel as a collective than the individuals who reside within it. Truly what it says on the tin! Lavery is, as always, an excellent writer of sentences, but I'm starting to understand why "great sentences" are not enough to cut it; without compelling character arcs (we mainly get light satirical portraits with an occasional moment of humanity, but not enough to feel like that's the point) or a plot driving us forward, we cannot just swim in these great sentences forever.
I commend Lavery for trying something different and I will follow him anywhere, even if, like in this novel, I don't stay for long.
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