The Glass Hotel

by Emily St. John Mandel

I really enjoyed this author's first book, Station Eleven, about the aftermath of a pandemic.... again very significant considering the coronavirus pandemic we are experiencing right now.

So, I was eager to read her next book which is getting rave reviews.  However, while this book was probably good I did not enjoy it.

The book is basically about a man who creates a ponzi scheme and the lives he impacts. But there is a girl and her brother who play the main roles in the book.

There are a girl and boy who are step-kids.  The boy resents the girl and her life.  He is a drug addict who has been kicked out of college after several rehab treatments funded by his mother.  His mother has died.  If I remember correctly he was in Toronto.  He goes to Vancouver to see his step sister.  She doesn't get along with her stepfather/father and goes to live with an aunt but is suspended from school when she etches some grafitti on a school window.  She goes to live with an aunt but that doesn't work out so eventually she leaves.

The two siblings meet up again when the girl is working as a bartender on a hotel on a secluded cove on Vancouver Island.  Her brother comes to see her and she gets him a job as a cleaner at the hotel.
The brother etches some words on the hotel window and is fired.  The girl ends up hooking up with the owner of the hotel who wants her to be his pretend trophy wife.  She agrees because she has a nice house and all the money she wants.

Her brother goes on to be a somewhat successful music/performance artist.  The girl goes to one of his performances and is furious to find he has used some videos she did as a child as part of his performance.  She had intended to reconnect with him but after what she has seen walks away without talking to him.

The girl doesn't realize that her wealthy "husband" is actually running a Ponzi scheme.  He is eventually tried and sentenced to 170 years in prison.  The books explores the impact of his deceit on some of his clients.  The man himself is haunted by ghosts of some people he hurt who have died but most of the time he lives in his mind making up alternate realities.  He does not accept any responsibility or seem to have any regret.

The girl goes to work on a cargo ship as a cook.  She seems to like her austere life.  One day while she is trying to film the ocean she falls overboard.

I had real trouble getting into this book as I disliked all three main characters, they were totally without morals, self-absorbed and un-sympathetic.  I was very disappointed by this book as the first one was so fascinating and the characters so interesting.