“Alex drained her wineglass, then her water glass. The ocean looked calm, a black darker than the sky. A ripple of anxiety made her palms go damp. It seemed suddenly very tenuous to believe that anything would stay hidden, that she could successfully pass from one world to another.”

PLOT SUMMARY:

Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome.

A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city.

With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.

GRADE: C-

REVIEW:

First of all, this book was beautifully written and it’s no surprise since it’s from the author of The Girls, which I never read, cause I don’t like cults or Charles Manson – but I do know it was a bestselling novel. Now to talk about this book, The Guest centers around Alex – a young woman in her early 20’s who becomes a grifter for a week when her older boyfriend breaks up with her after a dinner date gone wrong.

I usually love unlikeable characters and I was invested in Alex’s plight and the ways she uses people for her benefit. But at the end of the day, I don’t get the point of this book. This book abruptly ends at its climax – so everything that has been building up to a certain moment ends up not being resolved and this truly irked me a lot. Especially since not much else happened in this book.

I meandered between boredom and secondhand embarrassment for Alex and yes, Emma Cline can write but does that necessarily make for an engaging plot? Sadly no. I’d forgive this book if it was all vibes and no plot, but it’s no vibes and no plot.

This is a pass for me.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

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