Based Upon Availability audiobook

Morgan, the hotel manager of Four Seasons, still misses her sister, who died almost twenty-four years ago, and is contemplating breaking up with her methodical boyfriend. As she meets with her clients and customers, interviews applicants and does room searches, she comes across several interesting women, each with her own story to tell. Some of them are not who they appear to be, and most, like her, are looking for some closure to their problems, some happiness and human connection. Through it all, the Four Seasons hotel bears witness to the most trying moments in their lives, as they piece together their issues with family, love, sex and ambition.Based Upon Availability is a very character-oriented story, featuring eight apparently unrelated or unconnected women, sharing only two common things - the Four Seasons hotel and a disappointment with their life. This book holds testament to the adage that there is more than meets the eye. In the end, a rich and intricate web of life is created, as Alix Strauss tells the story of these eight women and brings them together through an intricate web.Reading this book was a lot like watching the movie, Vantage Point. In fact, this theme of several narrowly connected people in a story coming together and remaining thus connected, usually works well in a movie. The reader initially sees the world through Morgan's eyes. Having been inside Morgan's head during the first one-third of the book, the reader is also privy to Morgan's thoughts, suspicions and beliefs. And then the camera shifts and starts focusing on a certain piece of this panorama through a different pair of lens. Some things that Morgan saw in passing become the focus and we see how the significance of that event or person changes in light of its new meaning.I was not too impressed with Morgan's character. I found her very tiresome. She was one of those people who are empathetic on the inside, but appear remote and professional to the people around her. She fails to connect much with anyone on an emotional level. She is understandably upset about being single while nearing her thirty-third birthday, she wants to experience the joy of motherhood, and she is still not over the death of her sister. As she meets a new person, she aches to be a part of that person at some level, and wishes for something that person has, which she is lacking in. When however, that person's story is revealed, we sometimes see a picture so different from what Morgan painted. And I loved this aspect of this book because it is a reminder that we are not always right just because we saw something. It is enlightening to see a different rational explanation for the same picture.The other characters were a lot more interesting than Morgan. In some queer way, Morgan connects with all of them. Some, like Anne, Trish, and Louise are a prominent fixture in Morgan's thoughts. Anne, who works at Four Seasons and is dating a guy she met on the internet, is fired. Trish wants to hold a gallery in the hotel. Drug-addicted rock star, Louise, is being checked into the hotel by her friend, to clean up her drug addiction. The others are more faint and have an almost cameo-like appearance. Franny is an acquaintance of a man Morgan had drinks with. Sheila comes to her uncle's funeral. Ellen is interviewed by Morgan for an interior deco position. Robin is known to Morgan by face only through certain circumstances that befall Robin's sister.It was very interesting reading from the perspectives of the other women, and how they come to be connected to Morgan and the Four Seasons hotel. Alix Strauss has brilliantly written the intersecting seven stories, each spanning only a few pages. The long-drawn out narration of Morgan's story, while necessary, bored me ultimately because I couldn't see where it was going. Halfway through her narration, I was already ready for another character to come in focus. While it helped me get an idea of Morgan's troubles, I found all that prose too much to read. Also this isn't exactly a fast read, and I won't recommend you read it fast either. This book is best appreciated when the reader feels the strings holding the different characters together, and looks out for the several hints and appearances of the other characters in each perspective.I also found that I could easily relate to all the eight women, even though their lives are radically different from mine. Each of them go through the same problems that we are afflicted by at least once. In the end, they all ache to be loved, and the battles they go through are typical of most people.

The storied Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan is the backdrop for a unique novel about the secrets that women carry. Based Upon Availability by Alix Strauss ties eight women's stories into the hotel, with Morgan, a sales manager at the hotel, at the center of the story. Morgan's life seems to revolve around a tragedy that occurred in her youth. Her older sister Dale died when she was just eleven years old, after a long, protracted illness. Her sister's death has held the center of Morgan's life. Morgan is angry when no one, not even her parents, remembers the anniversary of her sister's death. Morgan has idealized a relationship with her sister, imagining all they would have shared had Dale lived: boyfriends, husbands, being an aunt to her sister's children. This imagined sisterly relationship is contrasted with an actual sisterly relationship between Robin, a real estate agent, and her sister Vicki. Vicki is horrible to her sister, treating her worse than one would treat an enemy. She uses Robin, who only wants a close relationship with her sister. Vicki tortures Robin incessantly. The tables are turned in a horrible incident that takes place in the hotel. One has to wonder if Dale had lived, would their relationship be more like the idealized one Morgan imagines or would they have a dysfunctional sisterly relationship as Vicki and Robin do. All of the women harbor secrets, and try hard to hide their dysfunction. Morgan surreptitiously takes room keys from the hotel, and during the day, lets herself into rooms to rifle through guests's belongings. She imagines the kind of life they lead, and when she finds a sexual item, she steals it, hoping no one reports it missing. Anne works at the hotel and desperately tries to hide her obsessive-compulsive disorder. Through online dating, she meets an artist who works with "found objects", and he proves to be her undoing. Franny was my favorite character. She is in her late thirties, a Southern belle who relocated to Manhattan. She works as a seat filler for award shows and Broadway openings, an exciting, though lonely, occupation. At the end of an exhilarating evening, "getting on a bus or sitting alone in the back seat of a cab dressed in other's people's gowns she'd purchased at consignment shops and on EBay, with no one's hand to grasp, was devastatingly lonely. At home, though she could sit anywhere she wanted, she never found a comfortable spot, a place where her body could just relax."Sometimes when novels had many characters, they can all blend together in the reader's mind, but Strauss excels at creating unique, individual women with words like that. Of Honor Kraus, a high-powered "PR icon to the stars", Strauss writes "she wears success like the wash boys in the kitchen wear their cheap cologne-strong and powerful-". From those words, you get who Honor is right away. All of these women are sad, and their relationships with themselves and those they love is tenuous. Ellen wants so badly to be pregnant that she convinces herself she is, driving her husband away. Morgan wants a sisterly relationship with Trish, a gallery owner, who has a complicated relationship with Olive, an artist. Franny falls for a neighbor, and wants deeply to be a part of all of her neighbors's lives. This is not a happy book. But the women in it will haunt you, as you ponder what secrets the women you know harbor within themselves. It may even cause you to look inwards at the secrets you keep about yourself.

The next time I stay in a hotel all of my belongings -- even the toothpaste -- will have a really loud alarm attached to them!!Why? Because a character named Morgan in Based Upon Availability has STICKY FINGERS!Upon first glance, I thought this was going to be a light read. Look at that cover. It's fairly light and cheerful with those flowers on it. But those windows are closed, hiding what's inside -- a dark and humorous novel by Alix Strauss. Four Seasons hotel manager Morgan has long been haunted by the death of her sister Dale. She never got the chance to say goodbye. Fearing she was too young, Morgan's parents did not allow her to attend Dale's funeral. Ever since, Morgan has been searching for the human connection that she lost. Long looks at Dale's photos and reminiscing about the sound of her voice and her smell aren't enough. She makes excuses to see gallery owner Trish. A friendship with Trish allows Morgan to imagine how life with Dale could have been. Giggles and gossip over lunch, the anticipation of a wedding and maybe having a niece or a nephew. But it's just a fantasy.When friendship isn't enough, Morgan goes on "room checks" to relieve hotel guests of their property. They won't notice small things missing? Who is going to miss a pill or two? But one of her larger thefts, a sex toy, I have a hard time believing that wouldn't be missed!!Along the way we meet other women who are searching for that same human connection. A washed up rock star Louise A.KA. Lou who comes to the Four Seasons to dry out. Trish is obsessed with her weight and speaks of herself in the third person. Ellen badly wants a child to save her marriage, no matter the consequences. Anne desperately wants to be free of OCD. Robin's sister, Vicki, unlike Dale is alive but their relationship is dead, leading Robin to do something strange and funny! I won't say what, but it involves handcuffs and Kahlua!The ties that bind them all are Morgan and the Four Seasons hotel. Strauss' writing is smart and often unpredictable. This is the first book I've read where a character feels empowered by a sex toy, I just wasn't expecting to read that. I've never been to the Four Seasons (not in my budget), but Alix Strauss weaves together an often sympathetic, funny and dark portrait of what could be going on there. Rating: SuperbNotes: I received a copy of the novel from the publisher at the request of the author. For more information on Alix Strauss, visit: http://www.alixstrauss.com/

I'm normally not a huge fan of books with more than one main character from whom the perspective rotates, especially one with 4-5 characters... but these characters were all so intertwined, and the closeness of which they were tied together was revealed the more you read. It was hard to put down! I loved it.

The writing in this was lovely and the concept was pretty cool. I gave it 4 stars more for style than for substance; some of the sibling stuff, in particular, was heavy-handed. The front end was better than the back end. Still, totally not a waste of time and I may look for Strauss's non-fiction.

After a bit of slow start I really got into this book. I loved how all the characters were connected. I almost wish there was more about each of the other characters than there was of Morgan.

As seen on Book(re)marks-http://bookremarks.blogspot.com/2012/...

account of a woman coming to terms with her dysfunctional family and her long ago sisters death.