2020: I loved Mandel's Station Eleven, and if you did too, you're also going to enjoy The Glass Hotel.

I thought the presentation of new characters and their slow chapter-by-chapter reveal was masterful. This can very easily slip into a cliched trope, but it totally worked for me here. The connections between the characters were varied and complex, and each new development added to the mystery of the story. I was able to keep track of all of the different names and storylines quite well; Mandel leaves enough breadcrumbs throughout.

I was blown away by how much I loved and sided with Suzanne, even though she's barely in the book, and as much as I enjoyed being in Vincent's head, it was really Ella who I found the most connection with by the end. Mandel really wrapped up the different storylines more than I thought she was going to, which is ever-appealing to me. WHY DON'T YOU SWALLOW BROKEN GLASS

A couple of personal notes that stood out to me: Vincent has a project in which she films 5 minutes of video wherever she is. One of my quarantine projects has been to film 30 seconds of "calm" throughout the state of Maine, so that was a fun parallel to see. I was also crying / laughing when the Ponzi scheme collapses on the same day as their scheduled holiday party, as I recently lived through a similar experience in which my coworkers & I were informed of our company's empty bank accounts on the same day as our holiday party.

To recap, don't ever put all of your life savings into one investment from a random dude you meet at a hotel bar.