The Lonely Hearts Hotel: A Novel

The Lonely Hearts Hotel: A Novel by Heather O’Neill               Audiobook: 12 hours, 2 minutes      Hardback Book:  400 pages                  

Great bittersweet story.    Reminds me of Pierrot, the sad French clown pining for his love, Columbine (cue the French accordion music).    But that is another story.   This story begins with the pregnancy of an unwed mother’s dropping their babies off at a Catholic orphanage in Montreal.    The children grow up unloved and brutalized by the nuns though they form bonds with the other children in the orphanage through their comical antics and musical abilities.   They have such tragic beginnings and even more tragic lives as they are treated like scum by the nuns and beaten for any thing and most times for no reason other than the nuns dislike the children because they feel they are abhorrant for being born out of wedlock to women who were looked down upon as whores and the children were made to pay for the sins of their mothers just for breathing.    The children somehow manage to keep their sanity though many crazy things happen to them and they fall in love.    Rose, the girl loves to dance to Pierrot, the boy’s piano playing.     A rich female benefactor offers the mother superior a large donation is she will let them come to her house to play piano and sing and dance for her guest which gets them a lot of gigs with the rich folks in town and become quite lucrative for the nuns.    After they are released from the orphanage at 19 the boy and 17 the girl.     The boy was adopted by a rich donor to the orphanage who heard the boy playing piano while he was there and was taken with the beautiful mellifluous tones.   The girl was sent to work as a maid and a nanny for a well-to-do family whose children were terrors, but, because of the girl’s winning way with children she was able to win the children’s adoration because she is always doing stuff that is Waaaaay out there herself.    She often dances with an invisible bear, etc.    Much more happens in this household which leads to a big change in Rose’s life.    Around this same time Pierrot has been writing to Rose at the orphanage but the nuns throw his letters away leaving him to think Rose received them but was not speaking to him for leaving.   In truth she never knew about the letters.   There paths come so close to crossing so many times over the years and each finds themselves in amazing circumstances learning new skills and making new connections.    Great story, if sad at times.   There is so much happening all the time throughout the book and the reader will be spellbound to find out what comes next.      I don’t want to give any more away but trust me this is an awesome book truly defining the when life gives you lemons make lemonade outside of the box survivalist thinking.    Just excellent.   It is a must read if you like stories with lots of loosends that come together in markedly unique ways it is a total pageturner!    I recommend this book for adults, maybe older teens,  there are many things that happen that are pertinent to the story but maybe a little too adult themed.   GOOD BOOK, I applaud you, Heather O’Neill you really capture the spirit of the moments.   

 - Shirley J.