The Lonely Hearts Hotel

A Novel

By: Heather O'Neill

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Named a best book of 2017 by The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle.

From the author of When We Lost Our Heads, 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.

©2017 Heather O'Neill (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic...Utterly compelling." (The Washington Post)

Enthralling

The beginning with the child abuse was hard to stomach, but that's what made it so good. It felt real. Great book. Highly recommend.

Beautifully magical, painfully crude and inspiring

One minute you are spell bound by the childish magic and before you know it, shocked by crude vulgarity of reality.

Excellent!

This book kept me company in the 25 hour drive from Minneapolis, MN to Tampa, FL. Thanks for a great book and performance. 👍

Exceptional

This book was recommended to me by a friend. I don’t read a lot of fiction, but everything about this novel (character development, imagery, pacing, plot, scene, etc) was so good. It’s a gritty, disturbing book, but it was well-written enough to provoke a visceral response. I look forward to more by this author. I listened in a single sitting. Wow.

Poetic justice

Julia whelan is amazing as always. The book has good prose. I got a very different story than what I had expected but I’m pleasantly surprised. Listening to this book was like watching a movie. It’s whimsical and lush with imagery.

A story of love and loss

I loved the overall storyline. Loved the way it didn’t have a cliche ending (these aren’t spoilers).

Go into this knowing you’ll have your heart broken several times for the characters and you will be rooting for them.

10/10 recommend it but be warned it tackles the topic of SA and the lasting impact it has on children - well into their adulthood.

Superb book, story, narrator!

1t was a ltl disheartening at first and all the things tht happened to Rose ...but it really did turn into a very great book!

IMPECCABLE BEAUTIFUL Writing, Interesting Story

What did you like best about The Lonely Hearts Hotel? What did you like least?

The author truly has a gift crafting sentences that feel like poetry. If you like flowery, descriptive writing (as I do) you will find yourself pausing and replaying certain aspects of this book because they are so beautiful.

Would you recommend The Lonely Hearts Hotel to your friends? Why or why not?

I was really torn on this book. While I thought it was very well written and the story was interesting enough, I found so much unnecessary and somewhat disturbing sexual content. I am not a prude or afraid of graphic sexual content but much of it felt perverted without aiding the storyline. I would recommend this book to some but definitely not to young readers or to anyone who could not handle the pedophilic content.

Not "magical" and a bit disturbing

This book was not at all "magical" as one reviewer said and I found the sex and sex abuse disturbing. Overall not a fan.

So dissapointing

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I started listening to this book because it was recommended from Pint-rest. The narrator, Julia Whelan does a good job;She is easy to listen to . I just kept waiting for the book to get better. There is a lot of abuse and unnecessary sexual content and drugs. I don't mind reading about any of those subjects, I just don't feel like the Author, Heather O'neill executed those subjects well. I could never fully get into the story. I wouldn't spend a credit on this book.

Has The Lonely Hearts Hotel turned you off from other books in this genre?

I couldn't even tell what kind of genre this book is. I would classify it as fiction ... I would still read books in this genre.

What does Julia Whelan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Julia Whelan has a voice that is easy to listen to and I would listen to another book she narrated.