Review
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“O'Neill's lively style is so filled with vivid
descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience
is virtually cinematic... in the hands of this brilliant author,
even the ugliest events are depicted with the most musical
cadences, soaring arias and symphonic resolutions. Filled with
inspired twists and turns, the tale is utterly compelling,
creating a world where desperation and love coexist.” —The
Washington Post
“A larger-than-life, gritty love story that reads like a
fable...The greatest strength of O’Neill’s work, however, is her
wholly unique narrative voice, which is at once cool and
panoramic, yet shockingly and wisely philosophical. The
novel brims with shimmering one-liners.” —The Boston Globe
“Art, love, imagination — these values are held aloft in
O’Neill’s novel, with Pierrot and Rose floating through life as
‘collector[s] of beautiful moments’… the nature of the theatrical
spectacle Rose and Pierrot and company have created speaks to the
mesmerizing effects of the novel itself.” —The San Francisco
Chronicle
“It is stunningly, stunningly good … O’Neill, always an original
and enchanting storyteller, is at the height of her powers. The
Lonely Hearts Hotel is a feat of imagination, accomplished
through the tiny, marvelous details she scatters across the
page.”—Lit Hub/The Toronto Star
“O'Neill is an extraordinary writer, and her new novel is
exquisite. She has taken on sadness itself as a subject, but it
would be terribly reductive to say that this book is sad; it's
also joyful, funny, and vividly alive.” —Emily St. John Mandel,
author of Station Eleven
“Heather O’Neill’s style is laced with so much sublime
possibility and merciless reality that it makes me think of
comets and live wires and William Blake’s 'The Tyger.' Between
prose like that and a story like this, you have a book that
raises goosebumps and the giddiest of grins.” —Helen Oyeyemi,
author of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
“Because this book is so filled with delightful things, it would
be easy to overlook how finely it is made. The Lonely Hearts
Hotel sucked me right in and only got better and better,
ultimately becoming much tougher, wiser than I was prepared for.
I began underlining truths I had hungered for but never before
read. By the end I was a ping, tearful mess.” —Miranda July,
author of The First Bad Man
"A fairy tale laced with powder and romance and icing sugar,
all wrapped round with a lit fuse. Each of Heather O'Neill's
sentences pricks or delights. If you haven't read her other
books, start with this one and then read all of the rest." –Kelly
Link, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Get in Trouble
"[Walks] the hypnotic line between tragedy and fairy
tale...O'Neill's prose is crisp and strange, arresting in its
frankness; much like the novel itself, her writing is both
gleefully playful and devastatingly sad. Big and lush and
extremely satisfying; a rare treat." —Kirkus (starred review)
“In a love story of epic proportions, O’Neill’s excellent
historical novel plumbs the depths of happiness and despair...At
the very end of the tunnel are floodlights to the stage, sad
clowns, gigantic moon props, chorus girls, and the one thing that
time and distance cannot diminish--true love grander than any
circus act. This novel will cast a spell on readers from page
one.” —Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed review)
“O’Neill is a mistress of metaphor and imagery ('her sobs were
flung on the deck'). This is brilliant tragicomedy...in a
melancholy love story that brings to life the bygone days of
theatrical revues. It’s a little weird and a lot of
fun.” —Booklist (starred review)
"This simultaneously heart-breaking and life-affirming novel
depicts the range of the human experience through the eyes of its
almost preternaturally charismatic hero and heroine… O’Neill’s
prose is gorgeous, with arresting imagery." —Library Journal
(starred review)
“All at once, The Lonely Hearts Hotel is whimsical, melancholy,
tragic and delightful—a wonderful feat that recreates the
ambivalence of life. Throughout the novel, the bleakest of
realities are colored by magic, and the most joyful moments are
cloaked in subtle gloom… a highly original work of fiction.”
–BookPage
“O'Neill's fairy tale spins a bittersweet spell…Brazen, offbeat
and thoroughly bew, The Lonely Hearts Hotel mixes the
sacred and profane into an effervescent love potion.” —Shelf
Awareness
"Magical and charming and sexy and raunchy and
enchanting.”—BookRiot
"O’Neill fuels her prose with a frothy charm that’s almost
self-deprecatingly simple, letting its depth sneak up on you...
it’s the kind of book that both bookworms and casual readers
would discuss with friends over coffee, appreciating its humor
and quotability." —Open Letters Monthly
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About the Author
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Heather O’Neill is a novelist, poet, short-story
writer, screenwriter, and essayist. Lullabies for Little
Criminals, her debut novel, was published in 2006 to
international critical accl and shortlisted for the Orange
Prize for Fiction. Born and raised in Montreal, O’Neill lives
there today with her daughter.
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