Name: Alexia's review of The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill
Item: The Lonely Hearts Hotel
Rating: 3
Author: Alexia

Heather O'Neill

'Joyful, funny and vividly alive' Emily St John Mandel 'The Lonely Hearts Hotel sucked me right in and only got better and better . . . I began underlining truths I had hungered for' Miranda July 'Makes me think of comets and live wires . . . raises goosebumps' Helen Oyeyemi 'A fairytale laced with gunpowder' Kelly Link The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with a difference. Set throughout the roaring twenties, it is a wicked fairytale of circus tricks and child prodigies, radical chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians and brooding clowns, set in an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. It is the tale of two dreamers, abandoned in an orphanage where they were fated to meet. Here, in the face of cold, hunger and unpredictable beatings, Rose and Pierrot create a world of their own, shielding the spark of their curiosity from those whose jealousy will eventually tear them apart. When they meet again, each will have changed, having struggled through the Depression, through what they have done to fill the absence of the other. But their childhood vision remains - a dream to storm the world, a spectacle, an extravaganza that will lift them out of the gutter and onto a glittering stage. Heather O'Neill's pyrotechnical imagination and language are like no other. In this she has crafted a dazzling circus of a novel that takes us from the underbellies of war-time Montreal and Prohibition New York, to a theatre of magic where anything is possible - where an orphan girl can rule the world, and a ruined innocence can be redeemed.

the Bailey's Prize longlisted novel

The Lonely Hearts Hotel

Ashley vatafu

Alexia

2018’s biggest disappointment... 2.5 stars.
This book has been so hyped up that I thought I would at least enjoy it, but that wasn’t the case at all.
I’m rounding it up to 3 stars because loved O’Neill’s writing style, but I felt the story was unnecessarily long and all over the place.

Tannie Davidson

I don't really know what to say. It was very well written, but so very sad.

Dearna Mulvaney

Dakota Gigout

It was as horrible as it was lovely.

This story follows 2 orphans as they grow up through the depression and eventually learn to take control of their lives only to eventually lose what they hold most dear. Can they end up happy in such a monstrous world ruled by thugs and the perverted? 

Rose did what was needed to be done. Pierrot spiraled downward while keeping his humanity. They found joy in escapism and in each other. Without the hope they found within the other, they could find no fulfillment regardless of success; its own death. 

Following their story kept me enraptured in every page. The perversion of humanity at its worst and most beautiful. When characters hated or lusted, it was with an all encompassing ferocity. There were moments I was truly disgusted. There were moments where O’Neill acutely describes the plight of the depression and how women and children were treated. It also heavily features film noir and is poetically written. While I can’t aptly classify this as dark academia, the overall vibe is eclectic and will delight members of that occult.

I would never be able to recommend this book because it is filled with unlimited trigger warnings. However, it is a book I am glad to have read and will not soon forget.

TW: sexual violence, rape, murder, suicide, self harm, drug addiction, pornography, abuse to animals, degradation to women, abusive relationships etc

Set in Montreal and New York between the wars, a spellbinding story about two orphans whose unusual magnetism and talent allow them to imagine a sensational future, from the bestselling, two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize-shortlisted author. Exquisitely imagined and hypnotically told, The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. Set in the early part of the 20th Century, it is an unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose fortune hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to escape one's origins. It might also take true love. Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their true talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing for the rich, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen. Separated as teenagers, both escape into the city's underworld, where they must use their uncommon gifts to survive without each other. Ruthless and unforgiving, Montreal in the 1930's is no place for song and dance. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes, the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make those dream come true. After Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls hit the stage and the alleys, the underworld will never look the same. With extraordinary storytelling, musical language, and an extravagantly realized world, acclaimed author Heather O'Neill enchants us with her best novel yet — one so magical there is no escaping its spell.

A Novel

Emma

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE BOSTON GLOBE AND THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE "So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic. . . Utterly compelling." – The Washington Post A spellbinding story about two gifted orphans – in love with each other since they can remember – whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future. The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one’s origins. It might also take true love. Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen. Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city’s underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes – after years of searching and desperate poverty – the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they’ll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same. With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O’Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell.

Ashley vatafu &
The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill

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The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill