Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Secrets
Review: "Ladies Night at Finbars Hotel" is a great book. I am a big fan of Maeve Binchy's writing, and am waiting for her next book to come out. Meanwhile I saw she had contributed to this book, so I picked it up. For those of you familiar with Binchy's writing, you'll notice how every chapter leads into the next, and the characters lives intertwine. The same happens in this book. Each chapter revolves around a guest in a particular room. One truly becomes engrossed in their lives. The writers all write along the same vein, so it is actually difficult to tell which author wrote which chapter. But that does not matter, all that matters is it is a good book which you will not want to put down. Order it today!
Rating: 
Summary: ladies night - but watered down
Review: A sequel to the original Finbar's Hotel, both edited by Dermot Bolger, this book follows the original format of having several well-respected Irish writers each write a chapter (unattributed) regarding a different room or charactor (porter, owner) on the same night in a Dublin Hotel. For this book, all the authors are women, including the popular Maeve Binchy, and the hotel has been spiffed up from its former seediness. Perhaps the seedier side of the Liffey is more interesting, for this has all the excitement of your basic hotel room decor. While the scenarios and problems of each charactor are varied (birth mother meeting son 27 years later, a nun with a rendezvous, a penniless faded film star with an illict guest in the penthouse she can't pay for) the writing and charactorizations never strike out beyond the realm of predicatability. In the first book, the common thread of charactors popping up in each others stories added another layer of interst, but each story could stand on its own merit as well. In this, the plot and places feel forced, the mention of charactors from other stories imposed on the story. While in the first, half the fun was trying to figure out who wrote each story (authors names are not given to any story), for ladie's night, it hardly matters. One story feels much like another. While the stories are pleasant reads, they never reach beyond (I hate to say it) Ladies Magazine fiction to the level of true literary fiction.
Rating:
Summary: If you loved Finbar's Hotel, read this one
Review: Actually, if you loved Finbar's Hotel (a set of intertwined stories set in a Dublin hotel in danger of being demolished, with each 'chapter' written by a different unattributed Irish male author), you've probably already read this. If you haven't read either one, it doesn't matter which book you start with; you'll end up reading both of them anyway.
Ladies' Night at FH is seven female Irish writer's response to the first book, and it's a winner. Authors among the 7 include Maeve Binchy and Dierdre Purcell, but it's up to the reader to try to figure out who wrote what. I didn't bother, too caught up in the delicious mini-plots and connections between guests in Rooms 101, 107, 110, and so forth. The neat twist is that the old hotel has been renovated by a rock-n-roll couple and has become The Place to be Seen in old Dublin.
Wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Chick Lit, or a Victim of Sequelitis?
Review: An old adage says that some good things are better left alone - and I've certainly found this to be true here, because although this "Finbar" sequel was devised and edited by Dermot Bolger, who also oversaw the original project, I cared decidedly less for this book than I did for the first "Finbar" compilation. The entries here strike me more or less as what is known as classic "chick lit": there is, among others, a woman trying to get pregnant for the first time shortly before menopause without having to marry, a freshly liberated woman confronting the guy who suppressed her in a relationship years ago, and a mother reuniting with the son she gave up for adoption shortly after his birth out of wedlock. Alas, all of this has been done before, and in many instances better and with more original plotlines than here. One characterization that does stand out among the rest, though, is that of a father who, in many respects at his wits' end (even quite literally so), pays a last visit to his career-woman daughter in a desperate effort to retrace the steps of his life and find again what they both have lost. (Room 102: "Da Da Da - Daa.") You might argue that as a type he, too, is an Irish cliche and in fact, would have been so long before Frank McCourt resurrected them in "Angela's Ashes;" and I would not fight you over the issue. Worse yet, I found the daughter and her fashion world entourage to be so badly stereotyped that I was actually ready to slam the book shut a couple of times halfway through the story. Yet, something about the father truly touched me. - I also thought that this story and "The Debt Collector" (Room 103) had the only truly well-done endings in the book; most of the others either fizzled out rather half-heartedly or came to a sudden, abrupt and more or less random stop. Unfortunately, in this and also in other respects the obvious centerpiece of the book, "The Master Key" (Room 105) - the story which is designed to hold the book together in a similar fashion as does "The Night Manager" in the first "Finbar" book - is particularly disappointing. It is also the biggest offender as far as consistency with regard to the recurring characters and the hotel's history are concerned; for example, the rather seedy and not at all respectable place of "Finbar I" is suddenly is described as a (still somewhat run-down, but essentially honorable) hotel for families and traveling salesmen right around the same time when "Finbar I" had clergy, cops and the underworld converge in the hotel's very own back rooms. My overall favorite entry is the story taking place in the penthouse, "Tarzan's Irish Rose," which is charming in an offhand fashion while at the same time sporting a rather sarcastic tone. Stylistically well-done and driven by an emphatically drawn, quirky protagonist is also "The Wedding of the Pughs" (Room 106); but alas, this story, too fizzles at the end and left me thinking "What? That's it?" Overall therefore, "Finbar II" unfortunately cannot sustain the high level set by the original "Finbar's Hotel" collection. It is an only mildly entertaining compilation and very inconsistent; both as far as the quality of the writing is concerned as well as with respect to those elements of the contents that are supposed to hold the book together and provide a bridge to "Finbar I."
Rating:
Summary: Chick Lit, or a Victim of Sequelitis?
Review: An old adage says that some good things are better left alone - and I've certainly found this to be true here, because although this "Finbar" sequel was devised and edited by Dermot Bolger, who also oversaw the original project, I cared decidedly less for this book than I did for the first "Finbar" compilation. The entries here strike me more or less as what is known as classic "chick lit": there is, among others, a woman trying to get pregnant for the first time shortly before menopause without having to marry, a freshly liberated woman confronting the guy who suppressed her in a relationship years ago, and a mother reuniting with the son she gave up for adoption shortly after his birth out of wedlock. Alas, all of this has been done before, and in many instances better and with more original plotlines than here. One characterization that does stand out among the rest, though, is that of a father who, in many respects at his wits' end (even quite literally so), pays a last visit to his career-woman daughter in a desperate effort to retrace the steps of his life and find again what they both have lost. (Room 102: "Da Da Da - Daa.") You might argue that as a type he, too, is an Irish cliche and in fact, would have been so long before Frank McCourt resurrected them in "Angela's Ashes;" and I would not fight you over the issue. Worse yet, I found the daughter and her fashion world entourage to be so badly stereotyped that I was actually ready to slam the book shut a couple of times halfway through the story. Yet, something about the father truly touched me. - I also thought that this story and "The Debt Collector" (Room 103) had the only truly well-done endings in the book; most of the others either fizzled out rather half-heartedly or came to a sudden, abrupt and more or less random stop. Unfortunately, in this and also in other respects the obvious centerpiece of the book, "The Master Key" (Room 105) - the story which is designed to hold the book together in a similar fashion as does "The Night Manager" in the first "Finbar" book - is particularly disappointing. It is also the biggest offender as far as consistency with regard to the recurring characters and the hotel's history are concerned; for example, the rather seedy and not at all respectable place of "Finbar I" is suddenly is described as a (still somewhat run-down, but essentially honorable) hotel for families and traveling salesmen right around the same time when "Finbar I" had clergy, cops and the underworld converge in the hotel's very own back rooms. My overall favorite entry is the story taking place in the penthouse, "Tarzan's Irish Rose," which is charming in an offhand fashion while at the same time sporting a rather sarcastic tone. Stylistically well-done and driven by an emphatically drawn, quirky protagonist is also "The Wedding of the Pughs" (Room 106); but alas, this story, too fizzles at the end and left me thinking "What? That's it?" Overall therefore, "Finbar II" unfortunately cannot sustain the high level set by the original "Finbar's Hotel" collection. It is an only mildly entertaining compilation and very inconsistent; both as far as the quality of the writing is concerned as well as with respect to those elements of the contents that are supposed to hold the book together and provide a bridge to "Finbar I."
Rating:
Summary: Not as good, but still worth the $$
Review: As I closed the back cover, the first words that came to mind were disappointing and pointless. No other words are necessary; these capture the essence of Ladies Night. This follow-up to Finbar's Hotel lacks the warmth, charm and wit of the original. If you are considering this book, my advice: save your money.
Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointing Reprise
Review: As I closed the back cover, the first words that came to mind were disappointing and pointless. No other words are necessary; these capture the essence of Ladies Night. This follow-up to Finbar's Hotel lacks the warmth, charm and wit of the original. If you are considering this book, my advice: save your money.
Rating: 
Summary: gimmicky device, but great, hearbreaking stories
Review: First: that the authors of the short stories are not identified is a gimmick, and one that is not useful for the American reader unequipped to "guess the author." Second-- the only reason I minded this as much as I did is because the writing was so good! I would certainly have liked to read more work by the authors of some of the stories, particularly the "Room 102-- da da da-- daa," in which a fashion designer is confronted by her manic-depressive father-- this story is heartbreaking, vivid, has a sense of inevitability and transcendance that is accomplished with amazing speed. The stories all take place in Finbar's Hotel, once a seedy, traintrack stop, now owned by a rock star and decorated with minimalist cool. But the new decor can't quite hide the hotel's past, and several of the stories involve former residents and workers. The stories were apparently written sequentially as well, as protagonists of early stories are described as peripheral characters in later ones. This is a nice, neat trick that gives the reader a satisfying sense of "aha." But overall the stories were simply a feast. My only complaint is the anonymity. They vary in style and tone-- "Room 101-- Touchy Subjects" takes on a woman whose best friend's husband has agreed to be a sperm donot, what could be just TV-movie or situation comedy is handled with compassion, humor and a portrayal of what love in marriage really is that is very touching. "Room 103-- the Debt Collector" involves a woman's interview with the man who once ruled her heart and shattered her self-esteem; the reader's knowledge of the woman's real pov as she politely talks to him on the verge of her wedding affords a delicious irony. Other stories involve a nun looking for the right man to sin with, a former maid meeting her illegitimate son, a woman confronting her husband having an affair-- in which she discovers that neither the affair nor her marriage are what she thought they were, and, improbably, an elderly has-been silent film star who trashes the penthouse with a tiger escaped from the zoo. That last story may be a bit OTT with its whimsy, but don't let the other situations fool you into thinking this is just a literary version of PLAZA SUITE. Each story's real subject is Ireland-- the changing mores, the loss, the gains, the growing pains of the Celtic Tiger. And all the writing is, as they say, garjus.
Rating:
Summary: gimmicky device, but great, hearbreaking stories
Review: First: that the authors of the short stories are not identified is a gimmick, and one that is not useful for the American reader unequipped to "guess the author." Second-- the only reason I minded this as much as I did is because the writing was so good! I would certainly have liked to read more work by the authors of some of the stories, particularly the "Room 102-- da da da-- daa," in which a fashion designer is confronted by her manic-depressive father-- this story is heartbreaking, vivid, has a sense of inevitability and transcendance that is accomplished with amazing speed. The stories all take place in Finbar's Hotel, once a seedy, traintrack stop, now owned by a rock star and decorated with minimalist cool. But the new decor can't quite hide the hotel's past, and several of the stories involve former residents and workers. The stories were apparently written sequentially as well, as protagonists of early stories are described as peripheral characters in later ones. This is a nice, neat trick that gives the reader a satisfying sense of "aha." But overall the stories were simply a feast. My only complaint is the anonymity. They vary in style and tone-- "Room 101-- Touchy Subjects" takes on a woman whose best friend's husband has agreed to be a sperm donot, what could be just TV-movie or situation comedy is handled with compassion, humor and a portrayal of what love in marriage really is that is very touching. "Room 103-- the Debt Collector" involves a woman's interview with the man who once ruled her heart and shattered her self-esteem; the reader's knowledge of the woman's real pov as she politely talks to him on the verge of her wedding affords a delicious irony. Other stories involve a nun looking for the right man to sin with, a former maid meeting her illegitimate son, a woman confronting her husband having an affair-- in which she discovers that neither the affair nor her marriage are what she thought they were, and, improbably, an elderly has-been silent film star who trashes the penthouse with a tiger escaped from the zoo. That last story may be a bit OTT with its whimsy, but don't let the other situations fool you into thinking this is just a literary version of PLAZA SUITE. Each story's real subject is Ireland-- the changing mores, the loss, the gains, the growing pains of the Celtic Tiger. And all the writing is, as they say, garjus.
Rating:
Summary: Appealing, fun, but a little fluffy
Review: I bought this book because I saw Maeve Binchey's name on it. As much as I love her writing, I have not read much Irish fiction, and this looked like a fun book. The book is a set of short stories that have inter-connecting characters in the stories. Each chapter was written by a different author, and I had fun trying to figure out who wrote which chapter. The story itself was light and fun, but not as much as I had hoped. I enjoyed reading Ladies Night at Finbar's hotel, and would highly recommend it as a vacation or beach read. Nothing too deep to get lost in.
|
