Hello,
I am apart of a white elephant book exchange. If you do not know what that is, basically a group of people gather and bring a wrapped gift that is unlabeled and one by one each person chooses a gift and unwraps it. You can also choose to steal someone else’s gift. At the end all attendees leave with a gift, even if it’s not what they want.
The problem I am having is that I read Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel recently and I quite enjoyed it. I want to use this book as the gift I bring, but I had read Glass House before hand, which contains a couple of characters that are appear again in Sea of Tranquility.
For those of you who have read both of these, do you think it is inappropriate to introduce someone to Sea of Tranquility before they have read Glass House? It is not exactly a sequel, but there are spoilers within the contents.
Example of a connection between the books: In Sea of Tranquility, Mirella wonders what happened to Vincent, a friend of hers who she has not see in a long time. She decides to find out and makes contact with her brother only to find out that Vincent died. This is how Glass House is connected, Glass House tells the story of Vincent, so by the end of the book, the reader finds out Vincents fate. By reading Sea of Tranquility, a major conflict (the fraud case) and the ending of Glass House is spoiled.
While this may not seem like such a big deal, I know I would be turned off from reading Glass House if I had read Sea of Tranquility first. That being said, I did not enjoy Glass House very much and I will not be gifting it in place of Sea of Tranquility. I have other books in mind, so there is no need to list any.
Thanks!
by tagzn
4 Comments
They can totally be read independently. Her books are so good.
You should read all of her other books. I try to read authors in the sequence of publication of their books or the characters if they repeat in a ‘series’, this way you would not have read them ‘out of order’. Series of characters, I try to purchase the earliest releases first, and buy enough to hold me for a while, but always read them in the proper sequence. With certain characters what happens in the early books gets mentioned in later story arcs, and later plots reach back into the earlier books. Michael Connelly’s ‘Harry Bosch’ series is a great example, you have to start at the beginning. [Robert Crais](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8944.Robert_Crais)’ Joe Pike/Elvis Cole detective series needs to be read in sequence to fully understand the character development. Many other series should be treated the same. The ‘Jack Reacher’ series by Lee Child is of the same genre. I have read and enjoyed all of Emily St John Mandel’s books, hoping for more. They are very much recommended!
I don’t think this is a big deal. I’ve read both and Vincent is not a huge plot point in Sea of Tranquility. I mean if you didn’t know the backstory, it could be any person named Vincent. These are considered stand alone books.
Plus there is no saying whoever gets the book would even like it or like it enough to go back and read Glass House.
I read Station 11, Sea of Tranquility and then Glass Hotel in that order. I don’t consider them a series but more so just books that take place in the same universe and contain Easter eggs.
Good choice, Sea of Tranquillity is my favourite book