moon110581 's review for:

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

4.0

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I have read and loved several John Irving novels, but until recently hadn't read this one. The Hotel New Hampshire was always surprising me. Starting out, I thought, "Ok, I know what this book is going to be like and it will be nice to read." I was wrong about knowing what this book was going to be like. It was unbalanced and erratic at times compared to some of his other books, with the same strong characters and complexity. Maybe even more complexity. I never knew what was going to happen, I was often surprised. Sometimes the book would get a little too silly, or a little to serious, but with all it's strange little parts together made up a wonderful book. I learned a surprising amount about Vienna and its history. What made it especially wonderful to read, as always, were the characters, and how they grew and developed over time. It was like I knew them when they were young and could look back with them as adults.