Quick Review – Hotel Magnifique

Hotel Magnifique. All her life, Jani has dreamed of Elsewhere. Just barely scraping by with her job at a tannery, she’s resigned to a dreary life in the port town of Durc, caring for her younger sister Zosa. That is, until the Hotel Magnifique comes to town.

The hotel is legendary not only for its whimsical enchantments, but also for its ability to travel—appearing in a different destination every morning. While Jani and Zosa can’t afford the exorbitant costs of a guest’s stay, they can interview to join the staff, and are soon whisked away on the greatest adventure of their lives. But once inside, Jani quickly discovers their contracts are unbreakable and that beneath the marvelous glamour, the hotel is hiding dangerous secrets.

With the vexingly handsome doorman Bel as her only ally, Jani embarks on a mission to unravel the mystery of the magic at the heart of the hotel and free Zosa—and the other staff—from the cruelty of the ruthless maître d’hôtel. To succeed, she’ll have to risk everything she loves, but failure would mean a fate far worse than never returning home.

Note: I’m coming to realize that I don’t always have the motivation to write more than quick review for books. Normally I like to lay out all of the pros & cons, but this is especially hard to do when I enjoyed the majority of the book. So today, I thought I would start with a new section of “quick reviews” to give a couple of main thoughts on this book and my overall rating. I hope you all enjoy!

Representation: Achillean bisexual love interest.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I’m a big fan of Caraval and have heard this would interest fans of that series, and it definitely did! I’m actually really surprised that this book has below 4 stars for an average star rating.

I think the main issues I took away from the book was I did think Jani’s actions throughout the book didn’t make sense to me. She was at times, frustratingly dumb with her actions and thought processes. I also thought the book was pretty predictable but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it, because the idea of the Hotel was unique and whimsical enough that I was caught up in the world.

On top of that, the magic system was really interesting and I would love to see this book expanded upon, especially because I enjoy the beginnings of romance that we got. I didn’t expect this book to be earth shattering, but it was a nice breather in comparison to other books I’ve been reading and I think a lot of teens really would enjoy this.

I rated this book 4.75 stars and while I had some complaints, it really was enjoyable overall.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Purchase Book

Trigger Warnings

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments!