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A review by jreid00
The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye
4.0
When I saw promotion for this book in my library late last year, I was intrigued by the synopsis and told myself I would get my hand son it as soon as I saw it. Fast forward to today and I was not disappointed. Faye gave me a story I didn't want to put down. She presented to us a side of 1920s America that we don't normally see in books and showed that racism was in no way limited to the South. And she hit me with a few plot twists that I neverrrrrrrr saw coming. It was wonderful. However, I knocked off a star because of a few gripes:
1) Davy's disappearance, which is what intrigued me in the first place, sort have fell to the wayside midway through and was resolved in an odd, semi-neatly tied bow
2) Nobody and Max's brief little "romance" that was thrown in there was awkward and could have been left out
3) Faye was really heavy handed with the 1920s lingo, which I suppose wouldn't be a problem for somebody that knows that time period well. However, I found myself coming out of the story every now and then to try to decipher what the heck the characters were saying
4) This was the biggie for me. Her interuse of names and nicknames also irked me. If you're going to give a character a nickname, be consistent with using that nickname. With Nobody it was fine, but there were multiple points where she would call a character by both their government name and their nickname within two paragraphs and I'd have to to backtrack and remind myself that it was the same person.
Did I enjoy this book? Immensely. Would I read it again? Probably. Would I go buy it for my personal bookshelf? That one is still out for deliberation.
1) Davy's disappearance, which is what intrigued me in the first place, sort have fell to the wayside midway through and was resolved in an odd, semi-neatly tied bow
2) Nobody and Max's brief little "romance" that was thrown in there was awkward and could have been left out
3) Faye was really heavy handed with the 1920s lingo, which I suppose wouldn't be a problem for somebody that knows that time period well. However, I found myself coming out of the story every now and then to try to decipher what the heck the characters were saying
4) This was the biggie for me. Her interuse of names and nicknames also irked me. If you're going to give a character a nickname, be consistent with using that nickname. With Nobody it was fine, but there were multiple points where she would call a character by both their government name and their nickname within two paragraphs and I'd have to to backtrack and remind myself that it was the same person.
Did I enjoy this book? Immensely. Would I read it again? Probably. Would I go buy it for my personal bookshelf? That one is still out for deliberation.