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Sep 01, 2009

Ben rated it:

If you haven't read Irving yet, I think you should give him a try. This novel isn't one of his "big three", but it's damn good.

First off, most Irving novels have some general characteristics:

- They typically have a Dickensian plot, in which you follow the characters through large portions of their lives. The breadth of the novel typically goes through one generational span, but often you'll get (at least) a few beginning chapters detailing the lives of the pr More...

47 comments like (35 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2007

Laura rated it:

To describe the plotline of The Hotel New Hampshire to a questioning would-be reader is to realize that you’ve been enthralled with a plot that is, at its core, rather silly. Circus bears and run-down hotels, plane crashes (so silly!) and midgets, botched taxidermy and obsessive weight-lifting – these are what Irving novels are made of. This was an undeniably fun read that I sped through, and I picked up another Irving (A Widow for One Year) as soon as I was done (I just can’t get enough). It More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jason rated it:

Awesome book. I had never read Irving before, and I have no idea why not. He's like that Deli that you always drive by but never go into, then one day decide "what the hell" and it turns out to have the best pastrami sandwich you've ever had in your life.

Anyway, the story revolves around an unusual family growing up and learning about sex, sports, love, death, failure, success, etc etc. It's quirky and funny and strange - Irving has a knack for finding little bits of truth More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2008

Schmacko rated it:

(This was the first book of my new book club).

John Irving is one of America’s great writers. Happy Days was one of America’s most popular television shows. (Don’t worry this will make sense later)

Happy Days was beloved, but everyone knows there was one episode where everything seems to start to go downhill for Fonzie and the kids; it was the episode where Fonzie drove his motorcycle over a ramp and jumped a shark. Now the phrase “jumped the shark” is utilized for that More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Kate rated it:

i've probably read this 10 times now. i went through a john irving phase, and i ODed about half-way through. (140lb marriage is a terrible book, btw. don't do it).

but this is one of my favorite books. it would be desert island number three, but it's a little too sad... i don't think it would be a good idea to isolate myself with it on an island to read again and again for eternity. that said, it's irving at his best. anyone who can take a family involved in incest and abuse an More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2011

Kinga rated it:

I've always known about 'Hotel New Hampshire'. I never knew what it was about but I knew there was a book. I knew there was a film too. I somehow imagined it to be something Hitchock-like mixed Last Tango In Paris. Imagine my surprise. So far there is something about a bear. I will finish this review when I am done reading.

Ok. Done reading. I don't think John Irving will ever get five stars from me. Though he is an excellent story-teller - and this is what a purpose of every novel sh More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2008

Suede rated it:

I really wanted to like this book, and at first I did. But then they went to Vienna...and then it just got long. And confused. And I really hate to do this here, in such a public forum, but, I really think it's my duty as a goodreads do gooder...

BT, yet again your 5 star rating is WRONG. You should be ashamed of yourself. What are you doing, just clicking haphazardly on stars? Are you not taking your job here seriously? Am I going to have to ban you from reading? I think you More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2008

Deenbat rated it:

I learned never to read John Irving ever again. I'd like to give this even less than one star, if there were a way.

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 25, 2009

Dave rated it:

"So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone's older brother, and someone's older sister - they become our heroes, too. We invent what we love, and what we fear. There is always a brave, lost brother - and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on; the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them."

I have started writing this revi More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2008

Alex rated it:

So far this is the weakest John Irving book I have read. His books are always crazy and slightly unbelievable, but this is the first time I didn't believe. Spoilers ahead. First off all I just didn't believe the plane death. Who travels in plans separately, did people actually do this? You drive in the same car together, going separately just doubles your risk. Plane crashes are just so unlikely that I didn't buy this for a second. I really liked Egg and Mother, but wasn't sad when they di More...

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 21, 2008

Shriya rated it:

I read this book a long time ago for the first time, but only recently since then. I'd forgotten what a good author John Irving was- or maybe it's just that at 12 years of age, I wasn't able to appreciate everything he was getting at.

I really liked this book for the way in which it makes me laugh - at especially unfunny situations. Frank and his cymbals. Egg who was named egg, because well, he was just an agg when he was conceived. Lilly who tried to grow - and maybe everyone else s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 12, 2008

Willy rated it:

'Classical' John Irving book.
Has a lot in common with Garp an The Cider House Rules: casual storytelling, sympathetic characters, ...
If you like these two books, definitely read this one too.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 05, 2010

Ally rated it:

Hotel New Hampshire is that book for me. That one great book. It makes me want to go back to any other book I rated with 5 stars and lower them down at least one - because surely they do not compare to this one.

It's impossible to summarize Hotel New Hampshire and have it make sense to someone who has either not read it, or not read anything else by Irving. It contains bears, little people, taxidermy and radicals. The story has many fantastical elements - but at the core of this nov More...

0 comments like

Feb 25, 2010

Natalie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2009

Dominique rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Aug 17, 2009

Dominique added it

It is very difficult to summarise the plot of The Hotel New Hampshire because there are many characters and many events, and I regard all of those characters and events as being important. Very basically, it is about the Berry family: Win; Mary; Frank; Franny; John; Lilly; Egg; and Iowa Bob. However, saying that The Hotel New Hampshire is about the Berry family is like saying War and Peace is about the French invasion of Russia, or Animal Farm is about farm animals. The most memorable things More...

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Aug 14, 2009

Mikhail rated it:

I was attempting a description of this book for my friend some days ago, boiling it down, stripping it from its simple-y, Irving prose, as well as its tremendous sense of humor, and thought to myself, "My oh-my, this novel certainly sounds dark and disturbed." But it's not. Only Irving--and his populist-writing ways--has the ability to take such ludicrous ideas, ideas that conservative people would go red in the cheeks for and grab their heart--"Lord, this is too much! I must t More...

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Mar 06, 2008

Josie rated it:

I really loved this book. I found out about it through one of my social work professors in college because in the book, there is a dog named Sorrow and I was really intrigued by the symbolism that Sorrow comes to represent throughout the book. There are some sad moments as well as some unorthodox moments (uh, brotherly-sisterly love?!?!) but....aside from that, I really like this book. John Irving's writing is definitely quirky and different than most, but he is one of my favorite authors.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 15, 2011

Allegra rated it:

...for the third time. There are certainly scenes and plotlines (and even a character named Susie) that seem a bit too far-fetched. But like his influences (I'm thinking mainly Hawthorne here), Irving isn't speaking to the truth of the world around us, but rather the truth of our hearts. So sure, it's hard to buy bits when thinking only pragmatically, but easy when you examine what those bits mean--to the characters whose lives and fears are terribly real, to the family whose closeness is writte More...

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Dec 16, 2009

Tom rated it:

Quirky, bizarre, tragic, fiendishly funny, "The Hotel New Hampshire" is anything but a conventional family saga, though a family saga it certainly is. The Berry family are different. Love abounds - both healthy and incestuous. It is the overwhelming desire of the Berry father to run a hotel, which he does, with dubious success, in both a former girls' school in New Hampshire, and in Vienna. It is the Berry children who grab the readers' attention, sympathies and love - all five of them More...

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Nov 01, 2011

Carole rated it:

Kaikki isäni hotellit on kiva lukukokemus, jota omalla kohdalla hieman varjosti aiemmin lukemani Irvingin Garpin maailma. Kirjojen maailmat ovat hyvin samankaltaisia ja roolihahmoissa, tapahtumissa ja tapahtumapaikoissa on paljon samaa, eli kirja ei täysin uutta maailmaa avannut. Itseäni nämä samankaltaisuudet häiritsivät hieman, mutta toisaalta hyvä kirjailija osaa käyttää samojakin aineksia useammissa tarinoissaan niin, että ne jaksavat aina pitää kiinnostuksen yllä. Irving osaa!
Jostain More...

0 comments like

Oct 27, 2010

Chana rated it:

It is hard to choose a rating for this book as there were things I really liked about it and things that really turned my stomach. "Like" doesn't really cut it as a rating but, well there you go.

I love the eccentric characters and the quirky, laugh-out-loud dialogue. As I noted when I read A Widow for One year, Mr. Irving is a very fine writer, better than most; however, as I also noted before, he comes across as sexually obsessed and twisted, certainly he and I are not s More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 14, 2010

Paula rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 23, 2009

Jessie rated it:

I recently came across a review of John Irving's work which claimed that only three of his novels are worth reading: A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Cider House Rules, and The World According to Garp. The Hotel New Hampshire, the reviewer claimed, is pretty good, but too "odd" to be considered great.

It is oddity that makes The Hotel New Hampshire worth reading (over and over). I have read The Hotel New Hampshire at least 5 times, and have found that it improves with each readi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 12, 2007

Catherine rated it:

this pissed me off. for the first 200 pages of this book i was mildly interested but didn't necessarily like it. after that i got more interested, and felt some positive emotion rather than no feeling either way, but still wasn't crazy about it. and finally, in the EPILOGUE, i really liked the book, and couldn't put it down. that's a whole lot of book to slog through to like it at the end.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2011

Laura rated it:

I'm just not sure what to make of this book. John Irving is one of my favorite authors. His ability to craft interesting and believable characters is one of his strongest talents, and in that regard, this book is no disappointment. Even the setting is intriguing: who hasn't wanted to live in a hotel at some point in their lives?

Perhaps the thing I found most unsettling about the story was how casually the subject matter is treated. Death, sex, and more death: it's all treated in a nearly off-ha More...

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Oct 04, 2011

Vicky rated it:

This is a major novel for me, it is THE NOVEL that started my interest in literature! I was a young teenager when I first read it, my aunt and my mother had tried to read it and neither finished it for they didn't like it! I devoured it! It is the first time I affirmed tastes in literature that belonged to me, that weren't shared by the ones I loved with whom I usually shared everything I read. It is the novel that made me realize I had taste of my own and I could like things that my usual re More...

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Mar 17, 2011

Richard rated it:

During the first three quarters of this book, it was sometimes difficult for me to "keep passing the open windows," as members of The Hotel New Hampshire's Berry family often encourage one another to do, because I was becoming so darn depressed. At one point during the book, the prostitute called Fehlgeburt, an avid reader, states that American fiction is naive and too optimistic. Perhaps Irving made Fehlgeburt state an opinion he was doing his best to satirize (naivety: a performing More...

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Oct 04, 2010

Rowena rated it:

I'm in the process of rereading John Irving novels and I'm blown away by how much more they mean to me, a decade later. Of course I enjoyed them as a teenager but I imagine now that I'm "mature," I have a deeper understanding of Irving's nuances. What really awes me is that Irving is a consummate planner. Every little turn of phrase, every seemingly minor incident has deep meaning and affects situations down the line. His books are so pleasurably whole, giving a sense of deep satisfact More...

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Jan 24, 2008

John rated it:

My good friend Jenny was reading this book in high school about the same time the Jodie Foster starring movie came out. I didn't quite finish it, but there were some occurrences in the book that I didn't see in the movie that I thought were interesting. Something about a bear suit/costume.....

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

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