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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Delightful all the way down. This might be the most fun I’ve had reading a book in years - I was already recommending it to people when I was around 100 pages in.
Half a dozen lines or images made me genuinely laugh out loud, and a couple more made me cry, and the whole thing is so rich that I want to climb inside it and stay at the Hotel Metropol. What a banger.
Half a dozen lines or images made me genuinely laugh out loud, and a couple more made me cry, and the whole thing is so rich that I want to climb inside it and stay at the Hotel Metropol. What a banger.
I wrote a review a while ago, so I won’t do one here; nevertheless it was still very good
adventurous
funny
inspiring
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This story is so well written, it’s just impressive and joyful to read. It’s not a book that is tense or I was dying to pick up again and again, but every time I did I found myself really enjoying reading the next developments of the story. It’s like Eloise in the Plaza as an aging Russian man. Great characters, it felt warm and loving, but had this setting in Russia that gives you a perspective on what things may have been like for the people there during that time.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Although A Gentleman In Moscow was published in 2016, it wasn’t until I happened across a footnote somewhere in 2019 that said Bill Gates had it in his reading list that this epic was brought to my attention. I am not a Gates fan, but the idea of him reading this fiction book fascinated me and I picked it up immediately. Then life happened and it wasn’t until these last few months I picked it out of my reading pile to finish it.
Part of my fascination with this slow-burn novel comes from my personal experience in Moscow, having lived in the former Soviet Union for four years as a teenager - but you don’t need my knowledge of Russians and their humor and customs to feel at home in the Metropol Hotel. The hotel is the setting for nearly the entirety of the novel, as it’s where the main character, Count Alexander Rostov, finds himself under house arrest when the aristocracy he belongs to is eliminated following the Bolshevik Revolution. There he must remain, on threat of death, as a Former Person - but inside the hotel he is larger than life, charming and witty, and his adventure inside the walls becomes the greatest of his life.
This book, as I told my husband, is a book for lovers of literature and art, of history, old movies, wine, architecture, philosophy, of all the most beautiful things and of all the most bleak. Amor Towles takes the stark grey threads of the new Soviet regime struggles and sews them perfectly into the gold and jewel-toned threads of a fading aristocratic society.
This is not a light read nor a quick one - you will find yourself looking up the names of famous paintings, the history of certain world leaders, the architecture of buildings that may or may not still exist and the roles of black and white movie stars. If you have page markers, this is the book to use them on. Because the ideas, philosophical treaties proposed and choices made will linger with you for weeks after you read the final pages, and you will dream of the grand Metropol Hotel and the lives it’s seen.
Part of my fascination with this slow-burn novel comes from my personal experience in Moscow, having lived in the former Soviet Union for four years as a teenager - but you don’t need my knowledge of Russians and their humor and customs to feel at home in the Metropol Hotel. The hotel is the setting for nearly the entirety of the novel, as it’s where the main character, Count Alexander Rostov, finds himself under house arrest when the aristocracy he belongs to is eliminated following the Bolshevik Revolution. There he must remain, on threat of death, as a Former Person - but inside the hotel he is larger than life, charming and witty, and his adventure inside the walls becomes the greatest of his life.
This book, as I told my husband, is a book for lovers of literature and art, of history, old movies, wine, architecture, philosophy, of all the most beautiful things and of all the most bleak. Amor Towles takes the stark grey threads of the new Soviet regime struggles and sews them perfectly into the gold and jewel-toned threads of a fading aristocratic society.
This is not a light read nor a quick one - you will find yourself looking up the names of famous paintings, the history of certain world leaders, the architecture of buildings that may or may not still exist and the roles of black and white movie stars. If you have page markers, this is the book to use them on. Because the ideas, philosophical treaties proposed and choices made will linger with you for weeks after you read the final pages, and you will dream of the grand Metropol Hotel and the lives it’s seen.
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Está bien. Durante muchos momentos no le encontrás mucho sentido al libro más que mostrar una mirada histórica sobre rusia. El final me ha gustado bastante.
Por momentos deseaba que pasen otras cosas, pero creo que el autor hace que también sea llevadero el sentir que no pasa nada.
Es más de reflexión del amor, las relaciones y la política.
Por momentos deseaba que pasen otras cosas, pero creo que el autor hace que también sea llevadero el sentir que no pasa nada.
Es más de reflexión del amor, las relaciones y la política.
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Ahhhh this is a book that kept on giving!! I’m so so happy with the ending