Member Reviews

I should start out with - I LOVED All the Missing Girls - and constantly recommend it to everyone. This is my 3rd Megan Miranda book! While All the Missing Girls is by far my favorite, I still enjoyed this book a lot.

The Last House Guest is a story about a young woman trying to figure out the details surrounding her best friends suicide the previous year. The story is told through some flashbacks/memories as well as present time and one year prior.

The novel and a few twists and turns - which kept me guessing the entire time. While some parts were fairly easy for me to figure out, others were more difficult. I enjoyed the book a lot and think it is the perfect book to take along on your summer vacation!

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I was excited because we need more books about young adults, that after high school age that doesn’t seem to be written about often, unless it’s syraight up erotica. The setting for the mystery sounded intriguing g as well. However, I just couldn’t finish it. The characters felt flat, and it was just so slow, I just kept waiting for something interesting to happen. Fans of Veronica Mars might find the character f Sadie to be interesting, she reminded me of Lily Kane.

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It is so hard for an author to live up to all the hype from an earlier, much celebrated work and I feel that this is the case with Megan Miranda in regards to All the Missing Girls. I am not alone in raving about this masterpiece.

Though I did not find that the Last House Guest was comparable in all regards, it was in and of itself an enjoyable, fast-paced read with an unexpected ending which makes me a continued fan of Miranda. Perhaps the writing was a bit choppy at times with the back and forth between time periods a little clunky, but my overall impression of this was a good one.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Simon & Schuster and Megan Miranda for my complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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I’m a big fan of the summer beach town setting so I knew I would like this. Kept me up late trying to piece together the mystery. Definitely recommend!

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This book was not interesting. It was underwhelming and boring. I struggled to get through it. There were numerous descriptions of the town and surrounding area, but nothing to keep me interested or entertained. I found it difficult to keep my mind focused on the main character, and often flipped backwards to remember what was actually going on in the plot or who certain characters were. I ultimately did not care for how this book was written. The back and forth storytelling from summer of 2017 to the summer of 2018, was not for me. I have read Megan Miranda's book "All the Missing Girls", and enjoyed it, but this one missed the mark completely for me. I hope to continue reading her future work. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

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A big fan of Megan Miranda! This one was full of "changes of direction" during the story. You just about think you know what's going on, and it changes. Finally it gives you the big twist, that you really should have seen coming, but you didn't. Good read that I'd recommend!

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This is a totally solid thriller - great setting, properly paced, and a perfectly fine "investigating a past death that MAYBE wasn't what people thought it was" type plot and OK characters. I think this just doesn't do much to distinguish itself from any number of other books like it. Personal bias here probably also kept me from really loving this one: a) the narrative voice of short, terse, declarative sentences isn't my thing and b) I'm always a hard sell on a dual timeline (I just think you usually end up way more interested in one timeline than the other, which I found here).

All in all, I think if you're into the premise of this, it won't let you down, so in that sense I'd recommend it. I just think it's unlikely to wow you, either.

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It honestly PAINS me to write this review because I really really loved All The Missing Girls and her YA novel Hysteria. However, this novel wasn't as gripping, nor did I care much for the characters at all. I'm a bit disappointed, but I just couldn't go on with the novel because it really didn't hold my interest at all.

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Oh my God! This book was awesome. There were so many twists and turns I got dizzy. I thought I had things figured out around 75% through, and I did, partially, but I was wrong, so very wrong, about the rest of it. And the best thing about it is that this book did not let me down by throwing in some big twist at the end that makes no sense and is only there to shock you. This ending was tied up all pretty with a big red bow. Wow, what a ride. I recommend this to people who love thrillers but are frustrated with the genre right now. Megan Miranda planned this out well and deserves much respect. I thought All the Missing Girls was really good, but this one is just superb! It will be published on June 18th, 2019. Go grab a copy or put it on hold at the library!

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The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda is a mystery, told by the same narrator in alternating timelines of Summer 2017 and Summer 2018. Avery has lived in Littleport, Maine her whole life. Her best friend Sadie Loman and Sadie's wealthy family are summer residents of Littleport and own a lot of rental parties. Avery works for the family, the Loman's, as their property manager. In Summer 2017, Avery is at a rental house owned by Sadie's family waiting for her to arrive for the Plus One party. The party is the most exclusive end of summer party for the town's 20-somethings. Avery texts Sadie to see where she is and doesn't get a reply, just the blinking dots that indicate she was typing a reply but never sent it. Later that night, Sadie is found dead on the beach. The police rule it a suicide. Avery doesn't believe it. Summer 2018 has Avery investigating everything that happened in 2017 and the night Sadie died. Littleport and it's residents are full of secrets and lies. This book was a fast paced read and kept me guessing. I thought every character at one time or another was the guilty party. Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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I read one of the author's previous books "All the missing girls" and really enjoyed. So I went into this book hoping that it would be as good as that one. Overall, I liked this book, maybe not as much as the previous one I had read but it would be a good book to take on vacation. I'm not really sure what made me not like it as much, but the characters and plot just seemed to keep my attention and not really GRAB it. I would recommend people to read it, though.

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This was an average summer read at best. The plot is thick but not engaging. I was tempted often to skip to he end just to find out what happens.

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First line: I almost went back for her.

Summary: Littleport, Maine is a small coastal town that spends half the year catering to the wealthy visitors on summer vacation. The Loman family is the richest and most prominent family in the area. One summer the Loman’s daughter, Sadie develops a friendship with a local girl. They become inseparable. As their friendship grows, Avery is brought on to manage the family’s local rental properties and other business ventures in town. Then one summer everything changes. Sadie is found dead. The police rule it as a suicide but Avery feels like things do not add up. Who could want to hurt Sadie and why?

My Thoughts: This is a perfect read for summer vacations. It is set on a coastal town with beaches, bungalows and bistros. While reading it I desperately wanted to be sitting outside with a cold drink.

Miranda does a great job a spinning a tangled web. The story jumps back and forth between the summer Sadie died and the next one without her. But at the same time we get glimpses farther back into Avery’s past as well. There seemed to be so many possibilities for the ending. I was shocked by the big reveal at the end. The last 50 pages fly by so fast. It was hard to put down.

The one critique I had was that the author seemed to jump to some conclusions in the narrative that did not seem to connect. Avery makes a big discovery about half way through but I never figured out how. Maybe I missed something while reading or maybe it will be reworked in the finished novel.

FYI: My favorite Megan Miranda books is All The Pretty Girls. It is fantastic. The story is told in reverse. You would think it would give away so much but it does not. Both of these books are perfect for your summer reading list!

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3.5 crazy summer stars.

This is a book of mystery, friendship and murder. And to be honest I had no clue who was the bad guy in this book.

I enjoy this author and this book is no different. I do feel like at one point I needed to skim because it was not moving forward fast enough. But then you would catch an important clue here or there and you were totally sucked in again.

This book was good. I really enjoyed the small tourist town and all the characters.

**I received this book as an ARC and in return gave my honest review**

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The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda started off slow for me as the reader. I immediately was drawn into the Maine setting but had trouble connecting with any of the characters.

The storyline was interesting enough but I had a hard time staying engaged with the plot because I didn't feel I particularly knew or understood any of the main characters. I understand I might not be the right audience for this one and I can see many people loving this breezy and suspenseful summer read, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an advanced copy of this book.

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This was an okay book but I think I loved Miranda's previous books so much that this one felt a little more average to me. The mystery itself was really strong but I found myself not really drawn into the characters and sometimes found myself just wanting to find out what happens. Miranda is a talented writer however and although this specific book was not my favorite of her I still enjoyed it and I will continue to read her work!

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This was a very slow starting book. Thankfully I stayed with it because it became very interesting. You do have to pay close attention to the story because it jumps back and forth in time from past summer to present. I had to reread a few times. The characterizations were a little thin. A good summer read all in all.

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This is another book that had a very interesting premise and started off great. A young woman, Sadie has been found dead. It's ruled a suicide but there are those in town who blame Sadie's longtime friend, Avery. For me, this sounded great.

But it didn't deliver on the "wow" factor I was looking for. As Avery tries to find out the truth, we learn there is more to each character than meets the eye. Secrets are the name of the game here. Many characters have them but has the most revealing one?

This could have been a much juicier tale in my opinion. It was good but not great. Maybe it was me having high hopes for this one but at times, I found my attention dragging. Plus, I wish the chapters headers would have been clearer. Overall, a good book surrounding the mystery of what happened to Sadie - was it really a suicide, was it murder, was it an accident?

There were quite a few reveals at the end which helped my enjoyment, but will I remember this book in months to come? Probably not. But this could be a case of it was me and not the book. I still look forward to reading books by this author in the future. Again, this was enjoyable but I just wanted a little bit more from this one. More excitement, more likability of the characters, more oomph in the middle to keep my attention.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

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I loved her earlier adult books but I could not get into this one at all! The plot was sloppy and I couldn’t even connect with a single character.

There were some good parts in setting the scene and some of the flashbacks but it really got overshadowed by the predictable ending.

I think maybe she needs to slow down, she’s had a couple books out a year for a while now. This one had promise but seemed rushed.

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This reminded me a little of The Missing Girls, only here instead of a story told backwards, you alternate between two summers. However, looking back on the summer previously, more and more gets revealed that changes what you’ve thought of the summer that followed, similar to the backward storytelling. Some of the pieces that fall into place were easy to figure out beforehand but other stuff only makes sense in context of the past. I always enjoy how Megan Miranda pieces together her stories and this doesn’t disappoint.

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