Rating: 
Summary: Good Lord...
Review: So very bad. So veeerrrrrry bad. The story, situations, characters, they're so transparently contrived it's hideous. All fiction is contrived, but good fiction doesn't seem contrived at all. The book is just soooo cute. All the characters and their little foibles are just so cute and heart-warming and heart-wrenching. It's sickening. I read this book with an open mind, but by the end I was just ready to throw it off a friggin' cliff. It is so terrible. The Hotel New Hampshire is a farcical framework of a novel. Everyone acts according to the type that was set up for them at the very begining. Hence the type given to the kid who dies right off is "cute kid", and the mother "warm mother"- so when they die we're all sad and-"oh... why did little cutie-kid and warm, kind mother have to die?" It's pathetic. Everyone is given a caricatured, unbelievable personality at the beginning, and they only act according to that through the whole book. That is not great story telling, that's pumping out a book designed only to get some sort of emotional response, through all sorts of little, cute, fantastic occurrances. The characters are so contrived you can't even understand how they could possibly be a family. They're types, not developed characters, and they exist in the book as just separate lilttle tools for the writer to use, not as people. Crap I tell you. Exactly how many times does the phrase "sorrow floats" appear in the book anyway? I mean, good God Irving! Find something else fercryinoutloud! every other page it's "sorrow floats"! "Hey, Dad", "Yes son?", "Sorrow floats Dad", "It sure does son. By the way- I'm blind!", "Yeah I know, and I lift weights! And sleep with my sister! And isn't my wife just so unique in her bear suit?", "Sure is son, oh and before you go- I'm oblivious apparently, so although I've been living in this freaking hotel for years, I still haven't figured it out that no one ever stays here except maybe one or two people a year, and coincidentally they're rape victims. But being a two-dimensional character-type, that's all lost on me, all these years of obvious emptyness - I still haven't figured out that no guests stay at our hotel... Cripes son just shoot me in the head and get me out of this crappy story", "Sure Dad"- [BLAM!] "Gee, sorrow really does float" I want you to read this book. I want you to read it and realize just how terrible it is because this guy is getting away with murder- pumping this kind of crappo out.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This was my first Irving novel, selected because the synopsis of "New Hampshire" sounded so intriguing. What a disappointment. Irving's writing is brilliant; I really felt like I knew the characters and I could picture their mishaps in my mind as clearly as if I were there. But I kept waiting for the horrible world they all lived in to somehow get better - while all of the themes Irving explored created some humorous situations, it was all a bit too much. I eventually lost my enthusiasm for what happened to the characters and I found myself wishing the book would end much sooner than it did. I haven't given up on Irving, though. "Owen Meany" will be next.
Rating: 
Summary: I loved this book!!! A must read for all teens and adults!!!
Review: This book was great. Heart warming, funny, raw and realistic I really feel that everyone over fourteen should read it. John Irving did a great job I definetly think this is his greatest work. The characters were as real as my own siblings and the events we developed with a style only Irving could do justice to. I cried , I laughed and you will too when you read (THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE, by: JOHN IRVING ) !!!
Rating:
Summary: yes, but will you like it the morning after?
Review: Hotel New Hampshire to me is kind of like drinking whiskey or puppy love. At the time, its the most fantastic thing in the world and you wonder how people can live without it. Then, the next day or week or month, you look around and wonder if anyone saw you acting like such an idiot. That's not to say that Hotel isn't one of Irving's best or one of the greats of all time. Its just that its so intensely written that after you've finished reading it you feel strange for having been moved so much that you start wondering if you have overreacted. Looking back, I have to say that its one of Irving;s best, although it's more emotional than Garp, but I steadfastly prefer it's themes to what I would call the wimpier themes of his later books. New Englanders against Vietnam and examining their faith? Come on, thats important, relevent stuff but not what we read John Irving for. We want irony and fatalism on such a grand scale that it would blow our minds if it weren't so plausible.
Rating: 
Summary: I LOVE YOU, JOHN IRVING
Review: Only John Irving could write (and get away with) a book about incest, homosexuality, rape, bears, and death and keep it from sounding like a bad Jerry Springer episode. He has a talent for making the utterly ridiculous sound astoundingly normal and the astoundingly normal utterly ridiculous. "The Hotel New Hampshire" is no exception. Although it doesn't compare to such masterpieces as "Garp" and "Owen Meany", it is still an exceptional piece of work from an exceptional author.
Rating: 
Summary: Way below "Garp" and "Owen Meany"
Review: I was utterly enchanted by "The World According to Garp" and then put off by this laborious, unfunny tale. How could the same author have done this? No matter: fortunately, I later read "A Prayer For Owen Meany" and my faith in John Irving was restored. What an astoudning treasure of a novel! Anyway -- get any John Irving book EXCEPT this one.
Rating:
Summary: The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
Review: This is my first John Irving book, and I find his style of writing ery good. He mixes drama with comedy in his plot, and his writing touches your heart. The descriptions of the book are awesome, he uses frases that people comonly use, so you understand what the character is trying to say. The characters are so real, I mean you feel you now them from years. They are really liberal. Some remind me of my family and my friends. Each of the characters have totaly different personalities, and you could feel their happiness and pain in the moment they were talking to each other. The novel takes place in two different countries, in the u.s (Maine) and in Vienna. It occurs between 1940 -80's. The main character John Berry is telling you his life, and you really laugh when you read about his experiences and his family, which he describes as a hotel family. I strongly recomend this book to all the people that read this critique. I'm sure that it will become your favorite book especially if you like a book with strong emotions.
Rating:
Summary: sorrow floats
Review: Loved this book, but not as well-done as Owen Meany. Only Irving could have so many wonderful meanings of "sorrow floats." Highly recommend it, butnot for the easily offended.
Rating:
Summary: Berry Good
Review: My favorite book by my favorite author, The Hotel New Hampshire tells the story of the Berry family. Alluding to The Great Gatsby, the story details the travails of a family led by a father always living in the bright future. But most compelling is the way the family, despite numerous catastrophes, eccentricities and perversions (tragic death, rape, dwarfism, pet bears, and incest) seem so normal. And aren't all families like this, imagines John, the main character: weird to outsiders but so normal to themselves. A life-afirming, funny, outrageous tale full of Irving's favorite motifs (bears, Vienna, lust, whores, Sorrow), The Hotel New Hampshire is a winner.
Rating:
Summary: "Berry family survives the worst of times..."
Review: Wow! The first book of Irving's I read was "A Prayer for Owen Meany" - perhaps that was a mistake because now when I read his other novels, they just don't compare. I would rank "The Hotel New Hampshire" as my 3rd favourite (with Garp coming in second to Owen). But, who else but John Irving could come up with the Berry family? So many taboo situations (although, it was written prior to the Politically Correct Ages): homosexuality, incest, dwarfism, lust, death, fascism, prostitution, "abortions & miscarriages". It just makes my head spin that he can pull off such a novel. So many emotions were toyed with: sadness (when SO MANY PEOPLE DIE!!), revulsion (not too hip to incest), love (I too lusted for Franny), laughter (need I explain?), and yearning (I want to see the movie now for sure). It is also interesting how autobiographical his novels are (at least in particular characters) - in Owen, it was easy to see "John" as John, in "Garp" you also see a little of him, but in "Hotel" it was hard to see who was supposed to be John - "Iowa Bob"? "Win Berry"? (isn't John's middle name Winslow?), or again another John (John Berry)? There are also the references to wrestling (John's favourite sport). You begin to wonder about the other things that reoccur in his novels - prostitution, Vienna (although he did live there for a time I believe), bears (Hotel & Garp), incest (Hotel & Owen), tragic death (Owen, Garp, Hotel, Son of, 158lb Marriage). Anyways, before you begin to think that I didn't like the novel - I did - I loved it!! John Irving is my favourite author (and I've read a lot) - I can hardly wait to jump into "A Widow For A Year". Mr. Irving - Thanks for another great read!!
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