ARC Copy...Had the feel (with a humorous + cozy touch) of an art deco era and style mystery crime drama only set in space with the tech and alien strangeness, which makes it interesting.

I can see myself keenly revisiting Floating Hotel, sooner rather than later. At first I was unsure about the novel's structure, with POVs cycling through the whole cast of characters. However, each character was so fully formed and distinct, and the story linking them all remained clear. I adored all of the characters, and - despite a big overarching plot with hints of mystery and even spy novels - Floating Hotel is at its core a character study. I really enjoyed reading this, although it felt very different to Frontier, and I'm eagerly awaiting whatever Grace Curtis writes next. As a side note: I also really enjoyed the mini-playlist in the acknowledgments, which somehow perfectly captured the vibe of the book as a whole.

Rating: 4.4/5

Spoilers

Review: A shifting POV is the novels complete ensemble from chapter to chapter. The hotel pops in and out of space time to ply in-system passengers with unequaled charm and presence. There is intrigue galore coupled with interesting back stories involving the crew.

The writing was excellent and the characters were very well built. The ending is fukin lame but let's hope Carl creates a new story line.

I was already a big fan of Grace Curtis’ work after reading Frontier earlier this year. Floating Hotel was just as much fun (while tackling some heavy topics) in a very different way.

The story unravels through chapters focused on different characters, which feel like delightful minisodes building up to the series finale and revealing the overarching plot. Despite the book handling a lot of different characters and perspectives with very little space to devote to each, I felt like I really got to delve into life and motivations of each character. I often found myself wanting to spend more time with them when I realised their chapter was nearly over. Daphne and Rogan were particular favourites!

4.5

This was a really good read. The way it's structured is perfect for the story that is being told. It's like a collection of short stories with different main characters, and there's a bigger story going on in the background of the short stories. And with that structure, it managed to be character focused while still having a thrilling plot. Yes, sometimes maybe it gets a bit carried away at being character focused, but it's not that big of a deal. The prose is a joy to read from start to finish, really playful without being annoying. It reads a lot like cozy sci-fi, but it's actually quite high stakes, and I just love that contrast.

This book has a unique structure, which is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness: each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, either a guest or a staff member of the Grand Abeona, a spaceship hotel orbiting around the galaxy, their stories interweaving and intersecting.

What's great about this is that for every reader there's at least one point of view character they'll enjoy reading about, but at the same time it's hard to get truly, deeply invested in anyone when so little space is devoted to each storyline. In this aspect the book would have benefitted from being longer, or from focusing on fewer characters.

I really liked the setting, both the hotel and the wider galaxy surrounding it - it felt well-drawn and realistic.

The book is a bit less cozy than I was originally expecting it to be: while the focus of the story is on hope and human connection, the stakes are high throughout, and it's set in an essentially dystopian future under a totalitarian government, with all that entails: murder, famine, death, the destruction of entire planets for the sake of harvesting resources... I would call this less cozy and more hopepunk. The world of the story is a place full of terrible darkness and injustice, but there is hope for a better future to be found in human connection, and in acts of kindness.

Overall, I enjoyed this very much, and I will be keeping an eye on future works by this author.

An oddly charming book. Not the ideal if you're looking for a swashbuckling space opera, but a quiet character study. This is likely a good fit if you enjoy character driven stories- it has a Becky Chambers flavor to its character centric narrative but it's a tale all of its own. Some pacing is a little strange but overall an enjoyable read.

I think this has an interesting concept, but the writing is a bit too clunky for me, this wasn't for me.

This cover is one of the most gorgeous of the year. Absolutely stunning. Amazing job, team!

The mix of exposition and dialogue felt off. It was like we had blocks of exposition, blocks of dialogue, and it just didn’t feel blended. And dialogue was used to give exposition as well. I wasn’t getting into it and stopped at 5%.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for the ARC.