The Lonely Hearts Hotel

Reviews

“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 intimate 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 gasping, tearful mess.” —Miranda July, author of The First Bad Man

"A fairy tale laced with gunpowder 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 bewitching, 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 Expand reviews