A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Gentleman in Moscow follows the protagonist Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who is arrested after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 after returning home from Paris. The Count is sent to be under house arrest for the rest of his days in the Hotel Metropol. This begins a tale of a stubborn man and his journey throughout his days at the Hotel and what happens when he becomes a surrogate father for a young girl named Sofia.

Although this describes the basic premise of this book, you won't be able to truly see the beauty of this book until you immerse yourself in the world of the Count.

We meet the Count when he is charged before the Bolshevik tribunal and is considered a "social parasite," he refuses to confess to any crimes and be put to death and this is just a small glimpse into the Count's personality. Instead of execution, he is sentenced to house arrest.

What makes this book beautiful is not just the simple and subtle humor of Count Rostov, but the ability that the author has to portray things in such a lyrical yet simple sense. We often find the Count eating dinner at the hotel restaurant, observing the hotel guests, and talking to the waiters. Something about the way that he describes the wine he is drinking, how he speaks about the hustle and bustle around him makes you feel like you are sitting next to him, hearing the hum of gossip and the clinking of glasses. You can almost feel the loneliness he experiences in the first years of his arrest.

This feeling of loneliness is so innately human to all of us, so when the author captures this so well it's almost startling to read. That human experience is an integral part of the book. Although a majority of us will never experience being on house arrest in a Russian hotel in our lifetime, we all get lonely and we all have things that make us reevaluate how we see the world. This is what happens when the Count meets Sofia. I will not go into how this plays out to not spoil the book, but she profoundly changes the direction of the Count's life. Before her, the Count had the same routine and the same mindset every day. This young girl changes how he views the world in the best way possible.

Throughout their journey together we learn through both the Count and Sofia to always look for the best in people and the beauty in the small moments. There is beauty in how they got to each other and how they learn to appreciate the good, bad, and ugly together. In the end, this book has always taken my breath away and that is why it is on my list of favorites.