I like historical mysteries and find the history of religion and monasteries fascinating, but those two felt separate in this one. The endless philosophical discussions and lists of architectural details and so on made me doze every once in a while, and finally I started skimming them to only get to the actual storyline. Really, substance in historical mysteries is a great thing, but it has to be executed well or it takes a lot away from the story. Which in this case was quite interesting, I was just constantly harassed by those interruptions.

English Philology entrance exam
I can't say I liked it that much. The narrator did give us some funny moments but I personally couldn't get inside the characters as well as I would've wanted. Because the Chance sisters did seem really spicy and interesting girlies.

Blah. That's what I started to feel after a while. It started with beautiful descriptions but reading ahead it became very clear that there was nothing special. Nothing new describing an affair and the writing was just occasionally pretty. Read it in a day to get rid of it quickly.

Not my type of horror. A quick read but I almost never get much out of contemporary horror.

The writing is all over the place and the story extremely superficial. No matter how hard I tried I could not find any insightful passages or hidden metaphors. Yes, the main character is a hermaphrodite. So? It's not like his/her identity is present as a continuing red thread in the whole "epic family saga" so I wouldn't be that shocked about it. Very very hollow and the ending was flat (I'm surprised I decided to go that far). Well, maybe that was a logical continuance after a flat family story.

More like three and a half.

A harmless little novel that was originally published in serialized form. This works for its advantage and is its downfall, since there is a good chance some readers will get addicted to the story in their desire to know what happens next after the cliffhanger endings to the chapters, but nothing really pays off until the end and the series of events just seems disjointed.

Undoubtedly charming, maybe a good companion for tea and biscuits if one is so inclined, but not very memorable. Bennett probably had fun slapping this together, but all of it is mostly just silly in a disposable way. Maybe my reaction reflects more of the fact that I was expecting a slow cozy-ish mystery set in a hotel, not international intrigue nor a busy plot crammed with everything one can find in a mystery novel. In that sense, The Grand Babylon Hotel works as a satire of the genre, but did I have fun reading it or did it engage my attention at all times? Not particularly.

I don't know if it was the spirit that was missing or what, but something was definitely lacking and prevented me from liking this as much as I had hoped or as much as I usually enjoy these types of novels. Easy to put down, which is evident from the time I spent on finishing this slim poor thing.