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Literary Awards: Kirkus Prize Nominee for Fiction 2016, Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction 2016, Book of the Month Book of the Year Award Nominee 2016, Dublin Literary Award Nominee 2016
Mentions:
- A favorite of Queen Camilla during the pandemic (Camilla Parker Bowles' favourite books - Duchess of Cornwall releases list of favourite books)
- On a list of President Barack Obama's favorite reading list from 2017. (All Barack Obama's Reading Lists for Summer 2024 and Beyond)
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A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with a story of Count Alexander Rostov.
When, in 1922, the thirty-year-old Count is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. An indomitable man of erudition and wit, Rostov must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.
Unexpectedly, the Count's reduced circumstances provide him entry to a much larger world of emotional discovery as he forges friendships with the hotel's other denizens, including a willful actress, a shrewd Kremlinite, a gregarious American, and a temperamental chef. But when fate suddenly puts the life of a young girl in his hands, he must draw on all his ingenuity to protect the future she so deserves.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the Count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose. (Source: goodreads)
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This has been on my TBR for quite a while. I can see why this might be a favorite of some people, yet I would not say it is a favorite of mine. I did not hate it and did not feel I wasted my time; it just doesn't make my top shelves.
This was a slow one, sometimes to the point of boring. I didn't see a lot of character development of the Count throughout until the very end, and it seemed more out of character than a development. Maybe I didn't notice the subtlety.
