Book Review: A Gentelman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Book: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

This was our book club read this past month. I had only half of it read by the time we met, but I FINISHED NOW! Yay! It's a great book, but there are some slowish parts I must say... or parts that just basically go over my head. But not enough to make me too frustrated.

Anyway, it's about a dude.. a Count who has ties to the Russian Tsars? yes? I think... and he gets mixed up in the political upheaval that happens after the Russian Revolution and because of a poem he wrote, he is under house arrest for the rest of his life and big fancy hotel in Moscow.

Which doesn't seem so bad since he was basically living there anyway, but it turns out they kicked him out of his fancy suite and banned him to tiny attic room.

Well, he makes the best of it and lives his life over the years and this is his story... his life in this big fancy hotel in Moscow! (Guys, if I ever go to Moscow.. ha ha... this hotel will be something I will be wanting to see for sure now!)

The years fly by and it seems big events happen all the time on the 21st of June, since that's how many chapters start out. I loved that literary device. And I'm so slow that it took me nearly the whole book to realize all the chapter titles started with A.... I wonder what the significance of that is, cause nothing obvious is coming to mind. But it's cool anyway and another fun little device of the author's.

Our Count meets a little girl who becomes his close friend and they have all sorts of adventures in the hotel. We watch her grow up and then we watch HER girl grow up. The Count is very close buddies with the workers in the hotel and ends up being a waiter at the restaurant himself.

You'd think he was happy with all the lovely stuff that's going on there, and it seems there's plenty to do. He even has a girlfriend! But it appears not all is as it seems....

I loved the writing in this one. So snarky and funny and witty. I loved it. I loved learning about history as we flew through the years, though as I said some of it went over my head. I loved this Count character from the very first page. He's great!

It isn't an easy book to read, that's for sure and requires some brain power, but I'm happy to say I seemed to have found the power needed and even though it took a few weeks, I managed it just fine!