Women's Hotel
2024
Set in a fictional 1960s New York women’s hotel loosely modeled on the real Barbizon, the novel follows a cast including Katherine the first-floor manager, Lucianne, Kitty, Ruth, Pauline, and Stephen the elevator operator. It’s been pitched as being in the vein of Dawn Powell and Rona Jaffe, with the immersive charm of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry. For me, it didn’t come close to living up to that comparison.
I couldn’t get into it. The characters felt like stock types rather than people, the humor didn’t land, and the whole thing read as a string of anecdotes rather than a story with real momentum. I never connected with it and didn’t finish.
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