“Count the Ways” is one of my favorite books so I had very high hopes going into “The Bird Hotel”. Although the middle part was a bit slow for me, I loved the vivid descriptions of La Llorona, the run-down hotel where the main protagonist Irene travels to try and heal her soul.
Though fictional, the lush Central America setting of this novel is clearly close to the author’s heart, as she owns a beautiful lake home in Guatemala and often shares photos of her life there. The first part of this book really drew me in, as Irene suffers a terrible loss and looks for some sort of solace by traveling to a far-off place and starting over.
Irene encounters many colorful characters at La Llorona and they will come in and out of her life over the many years she spends there. There is an undercurrent of sadness running through this book yet the ending was hopeful and wonderfully uplifting. Joyce Maynard is a brilliant writer and I look forward to reading many more of her books.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy!
About the Book:
Enter the magical world of La Llorona with New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard.
After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist, finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano.
The Bird Hotel tells the story of this young American who, after suffering tragedy, restores and runs La Llorona. Along the way we meet a rich assortment of characters who live in the village or come to stay at the hotel. With a mystery at its center and filled with warmth, drama, romance, humor, pop culture, and a little magic realism, The Bird Hotel has all the hallmarks of a Joyce Maynard novel that have made her a a leading voice of her generation
The Bird Hotel is a big, sweeping story spanning four decades, offering lyricism as well as whimsy. While the world New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard brings to life on the page is rendered from her imagination, it’s one informed by the more than twenty years of which she has spent a significant amount of her time in a small Mayan indigenous village in Guatemala.