The White Octopus Hotel

Series Info: This is a stand alone book.Thoughts: I enjoyed this. I thought the beginning of the book and mystery behind The White Octopus Hotel was especially intriguing. As with many time travel books, things don't quite add up and make sense, you just kind of have to go with the flow.In 2015 Eve is visited by an old man who says he is a composer named Max Everly, a composer that Eve admires. However, Max Everly shouldn't be alive. Then Eve starts to hear rumors of The White Octopus hotel, and she thinks she remembers visiting there herself. However, when she looks into it, the hotel has been closed since 1935. Eve decides to go and visit the ruins of The White Octopus Hotel and finds herself pulled into the past.As I have mentioned many times, I am not a huge fan of time travel stories. No matter how well they are written, things never seem to quite add up, and so many questions are left unanswered. That is the case for this book. In addition to that, what starts out as a mystery ends up more as a love story set throughout non-linear time. It is decently done, and I liked Eve and Max well enough. However, the ending felt a bit contrived and unfinished to me. I had so many questions about the "why" and "how" of everything that happened. When you really start to think about it those answers end up being circular because this is about time travel.I really loved the beginning of the book where Eve is tracking down information on the mysterious White Octopus hotel. Once Eve travels back in time to the hotel, things slow down quite a bit. Eve is participating in a hunt for clocks and octopus that she hopes will unravel both some mysteries from her past and some secrets about the hotel. During this hunt Eve is also having occasional encounters with Max. This is a situation where Max has spent time with Eve, but Even hasn't spent time with Max yet because she meets him later in her timeline than he meets her in his. We also occasionally hear from Max's POV as well and this gets into some events in WWI.This was easy to read, and I enjoyed Eve and Max as characters. There are a lot of side characters here and they weren't as well done. The bouncing back and forth in time never really gets confusing; it is clearly indicated on the chapter what time you are in. However, all this bouncing around does pull you out of the story, and then once you are starting to get into the time you are reading about, you are pulled back into another time.This was well done but suffers from some of the flaws all time travel novels have. The ending doesn't quite make sense if you think about it too hard; you are left feeling like a lot of your questions aren't answered. When you try to think about the answers to them, you start to feel like you are chasing yourself in circles.My Summary (4/5): Overall I really enjoyed the beginning of this book, the characters, and the odd White Octopus Hotel. I though the middle was a bit slow and the jumping between POVs and time (while not confusing) did pull me out of the story, leaving me feel less engaged than I would have liked. The ending left me with a lot of questions about the "how" and "why" of The White Octopus Hotel. There were a lot of other mysteries about the people within the hotel that were never answered. If I had realized that this was a time travel book, I probably wouldn't have picked it up for review because that is a genre that I don't really enjoy. If you are looking for a love story across timelines sort of story, this is decently done.

A.B. has written something magical. Not just the use of magical realism, but a charming story that transports you.

It is a story of magical realism. A hotel that has been shrouded in mystery since it opened, even more once it's been closed for decades. Eve has loved Octopuses for years. She draws them all the time. Her life, though, is dull and boring, and she has regrets. She absolutely loves the music of Max Everly, a musician who disappeared decades before she was born. Everything she has come across lately seems to be connected to the White Octopus Hotel and seems to have magic connected to it. It's a story of love, finding one's self, and forgiveness (of others & one's self). It was hard to put down as one wants to find out what happens next.I received an ARC copy from NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.

Have you ever wanted to right a wrong that you made or wish you had the ability to time travel and make a different choice? In this mysterious and magical book Eve lives with guilt everyday that she is the reason that her sister, Bella died. She feels haunted by her sister and even has an octopus tattoo that moves on her body. One day Eve meets an old man named Max Everly who tells her to go back to the hotel. Eve knows a Max Everly, a famous composer, but he has been dead for years. Eve decides that she will find this hotel and when she does she discovers that she has been there before. The only hitch is that the hotel closed in 1935 and Eve was not even born yet.There is so much to this book. The more I read, the more I had to keep reading to try and figure out how everything is connected. There are so many great elements to this book including time travel, mystery, historical fiction, and romance. But it is also a story about survival. Eve and Max are two characters who have both been through so much. I could feel their pain and I was rooting for them the whole way through the novel.This is truly a unique novel with so many different layers. If you love time travel, magic, a mysterious hotel that is always changing, and a few octopuses. this is the novel for you!!

Oh, the magical elements contained within this story are a wonder to behold! We begin with Eve, a young woman who blames herself for the childhood death of her sister and the grief that follows her through life. When Eve visits the ruins of The White Octopus Hotel, she eventually meets Max, a war veteran with his own haunting past. I found myself so captivated by the magical objects found in the hotel and intrigued with Eve and Max's story.