Dissonance before moments of harmony makes the harmony sound beautiful. Just as harmony and dissonance exist side by side in music, life is the same. Because harmony is preceded by dissonance, that's why we think life is beautiful.
Welcome to the Grand Abeona Hotel: home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and …
The Hotel At the End of the Universe
4 stars
A little bit like if The Restaurant At the End of the Universe were a hotel instead (but less fantastical/absurd), and with just a touch of The Communist Manifesto thrown in.
I really enjoyed the style of writing, where each chapter is from a different character's point of view. It meant it read a little bit like a collection of short stories, which I felt made it easier to read.
A little bit like if The Restaurant At the End of the Universe were a hotel instead (but less fantastical/absurd), and with just a touch of The Communist Manifesto thrown in.
I really enjoyed the style of writing, where each chapter is from a different character's point of view. It meant it read a little bit like a collection of short stories, which I felt made it easier to read.
Welcome to the Grand Abeona Hotel: home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and …
...but she was also panicked in case the good tables were full, forcing her to spend two weeks making small talk with a bunch of bug-eyed, slack-jawed, mouth-breathing professors of the Humanities.
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur …
It's not a bad book...
2 stars
But I didn't enjoy it. Though I can understand why people might like it, I won't be recommending it to anyone.
Overall I think I just found Sam and Sadie unlikeable as characters. I feel like they were pretty jerky to everyone around them, and each other, and themselves, for pretty much of the time.
I also didn't like how some elements of the story were "ret-con'd" in several chapters later: "oh hey, I never mentioned he's had a dog this whole time, well he has, and now I'll detail those past events, even though we're five chapters beyond that point." And on a similar point, there are several plotlines and characters that get introduced that seemingly go nowhere, or just outright get left undeveloped after they serve their singular purpose of introducing "blank". Like, for example, the dog.
Finally, I found the ending completely …
But I didn't enjoy it.
Though I can understand why people might like it, I won't be recommending it to anyone.
Overall I think I just found Sam and Sadie unlikeable as characters. I feel like they were pretty jerky to everyone around them, and each other, and themselves, for pretty much of the time.
I also didn't like how some elements of the story were "ret-con'd" in several chapters later: "oh hey, I never mentioned he's had a dog this whole time, well he has, and now I'll detail those past events, even though we're five chapters beyond that point." And on a similar point, there are several plotlines and characters that get introduced that seemingly go nowhere, or just outright get left undeveloped after they serve their singular purpose of introducing "blank". Like, for example, the dog.
Finally, I found the ending completely unsatisfying. I know this is a subjective point, but the last page kind of just happened and then I realised that the next bit of text was acknowledgements and not another chapter.
Twelve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father …
"But even the wisest of men may die, and that is especially true when the wisest of men has a fondness for industrial chemicals. So went my mother's patron, in a spectacular display of Science."
"That's very sad," sighed September.
"Terribly sad! But grief is wasted on the very roasted."