This is one of the best novels I have read all year. The narrative, the plot and the characters are magnificent in their complexity and detail.
The concept of houses and apartments having their own energy, taking a little bit from each person who has lived in their space and how that affects the next person inhabiting it, is something that each of us can probably relate to. Starting in the dawn of WWII to the 2000's, we get a glimpse of the lives, dreams and hopes of the people who live in an art deco apartment on Miami Beach.
As the landscape of the city changes, so do the tenants. The voices of each and every one of them, like ghosts, live on forever in the apartment's memory.

I really enjoyed this!

The collection is relatively strong and the writing voice is easy to get accustomed to. The end became a bit muddy for me, but overall, this was such a pleasant read.

Thank you to the publisher for the arc.

The premise seemed really interesting but I just couldn’t get past the writing style.

I’ve really been liking the books that take a look in at people in their apartments. Little Prisons. The Rabbit Hutch. Both of those were five star reads. And this one focused on just the people that had lived in apartment 2b in this one apartment complex. But something was missing for me. A little further character development. A little more plot. Or maybe I just needed to be a little more attentive if a reader. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the book I was hoping for. But I strongly suggest others still read it because it really could have been my weird reading mood making me not love it.

✨ Review ✨ The Apartment by Ana Menéndez; Narrated by Whitney Dykhouse

This book lives within Apartment 2B of the Helena, an art deco building in South Miami Beach, and through its eyes, we see 70 years of residents moving through its pages. From its first residents in the early moments of WWII in Miami for military mobilization, to its final resident, Lana, the inhabitants of this apartment parade by our eyes.

Often unfulfilling, these characters pass by without resolution to their stories, just as people's lives do not always neatly fit into their residency within a building. We see glimpses, incomplete pictures of the struggles and successes of these people, and for this lack of completion, this book may frustrate some. Sometimes, we only see pieces of their stories through the eyes of later residents, finding a cast iron pan or an indent in the floor, bringing clues to previous residents' pasts. I loved this complex layering of stuff left behind, furniture, photos, or other layers to the apartment throughout its life. It's a story deeply about space & place.

The final character, Lana, is lonely and alone, but finally succumbs to her neighbors' efforts to fold her into their circle. The book ends with a beautiful testament to community and neighbors and found family.

I enjoyed the audio narration, though in the later parts of the book when it shifts perspectives regularly, I found it hard to follow whose POV we were in. Switching to the ebook copy here helped as the section breaks at least signaled when POV shifted.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (4.5)
Genre: literary fiction, historical fiction
Setting: the Helena, South Miami Beach
Pub Date: June 27, 2023

Read this if you like:
⭕️ books grounded in a particular space (in this case, Apt 2B)
⭕️ multiple POVs, almost short stories, knitted together
⭕️ finding the intersections between people over time

Thanks to Counterpoint, HighBridge Audio, and #netgalley for advanced e-copies of this book!

Think of this as a series of short stories all set in Apartment 2B and ranging from 1942 to the present. Menedez uses the sequential tenants to tell the tale not of the apartment but of life in Miami- the new comers,, the immigrants, the long time residents both young and old, It's poignant. There's a touch of magical realism at the end which felt a bit out of place but no matter, the story itself was engaging. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

Similar to the Late Americans, this book feels like an interlocking connection of short stories rather than a novel. It charts the lives of people living in a Miami apartment; most of them have almost nothing in common except the address. There are moments of hope and tragedy and it is well-written; I read it on a plane and it passed the time quite nicely.

I did not finish ‘The Apartment’ as I just couldn’t get into it. It seems to consist of a list of residents in said apartment with no ties or thread between them.
It feels like a sequence of short stories, which is no bad thing, just not what I was expecting.

A novel that contemplates displacement and what we owe one another. Told through a kalediscope of stories of different apartment tenants, the narrative takes on perhaps too many voices for a single novel.