The Bird Hotel

 

The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard

Fiction

2023

Finished on July 28, 2024

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

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.

I have yet to be disappointed by a novel written by Joyce Maynard. Last year I read Count the Ways, which made my Best of 2023 list, and I've just finished another gem, which is bound to be on my 2024 list. If I manage to get a copy of How the Light Gets In (Maynard's new release and sequel to Count the Ways), I may wind up with two of her books on that list.

The Bird Hotel is hefty novel, but the chapters are short, giving one a sense of reading a chronological collection of vignettes. This format made it easy to read in fits & spurts, which made it a perfect read during a visit from relatives, but it wasn't until Irene found her way to La Llorona, that I became invested in her story. The cast of characters came and went as the years passed, but Maynard draws each so vividly that I was able to imagine them (and the lush setting) without any trouble.

We could have taken ‘tuk tuk’ into the village, but Jerome suggested we walk. It was the time of day I loved best, when the sun was sinking behind the volcano in the sky, changing color every few seconds— rose color, giving way to peach, giving away to violet, golden glow on the hillside, and birds swooping low over the water.

There are a few unexpected events that take place in the final quarter of the book that held me so captivated, I sped through the last section without glancing up. Had it not been for the sluggish start, this would have been a perfect 5-star read. I was never tempted to give up on the book, but I'm glad it grew on me the further I read. 

“Nothing stays the same forever. . . Not gardens, or love affairs. Not joy, or sorrow either. Animals die. Children grow up. The thing you have to learn is to accept the changes when they come. Welcome them if you can. See what they bring into your life that wasn't there before.”

Now that I've read The Bird Hotel, and have a sense of the richly drawn setting, I prefer this cover art to that of the one I read.

Are you a Joyce Maynard fan? Click here to see more of what I've read and loved by this talented author. Maybe this will be the year I finally make time to re-read The Usual Rules.