I loved this book. I have read some of Emma Cline’s pervious work and this impressed me just as must. Cline’s descriptive writing helps to lay the scene and tension in a way that keeps you drawn in. This book felt gritty in the best way.

Book: The Guest
Author: Emma Cline
Publisher:
Pub Date: May 16, 2023

The description of the book says it’s impossible to look away from and it really is. I can’t say it’s that great but I kept reading. This story will draw you along. Something about it just draws you in and before you know it you’ve finished reading it. It’s a very simple story about survival and doing what it takes to get by day by day. I wish I could better explain how it feels to read this book…..the atmosphere it creates. You will feel like Alex just trying to survive each moment of each day and not really feeling anything. It’s not even 200 pages so it’s a quick read. I will say the whole phone charging thing wore thin. Was the phone broke or not? And the ending. I would love to discuss but then it would be a spoiler.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group-Random House and NetGalley for this sneak peak! Publication date is May 16, 2023.

3.5/4 stars

This is the perfect book to take to the beach; its short, intriguing, and leaves you wanting more

I started this book trying to comprehend everything that was going on but quickly realized that this is a book that you need to read without a quizzical thought in your brain. Once you clear your mind and get into the head of Alex (our drifter secretive main character) the story comes to life.

I particularly enjoyed the short length but long chapters, each felt like its wholly own portion of Alex’s life despite the book being set only between a few days. Cline clearly develops her character making this peculiar person believable and unique. The more I learned about Alex the more I wanted to follow her story.

Unfortunately, the ending was a little bit of a let down which is why this is more of a 3.5 star rather than a 4 star. I left the story feeling unsatisfied… although I’m sure that’s exactly what Cline wanted us to feel, a direct reflection of Alex.

Delighted to include this title in the May edition of Novel Encounters, my regular column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

The "Guest" in Emma Cline's latest novel is Alex, a 22 year old grifter doing her best to get by when her much older boyfriend decides he's done with her (for good? for the time being? for the week? It's unclear...) and has an assistant drop her off with a one way ticket back to the city and off the swanky side of Long Island. It wasn't totally out of the blue, he had a few reasons and/or he may have just decided they were over.

We don't know her background. We do know that she's alienated everybody she knows and carries everything she owns around with her in a bag (every time she pulled another change of clothes, shoes, toiletry, etc. I cracked up and marveled at just how big this bag must have been). She gets in situations, she gets out of them, she's trying to last a week until she can make an appearance at older boyfriend's annual Labor Day party.

The writing is solid, evocative of a sultry summer with damp clothing, beach fires, sand in all the crevices. The class disparity is evident, Alex floating amongst the uber-rich who could't care less about her. She only has her big bag while they have everything and don't realize how good they' have it. I get it. We're supposed to be in Alex's corner. I couldn't go there. She's not a good person, she uses everybody she meets, and there's not enough history to muster up any empathy for her circumstances. Her last mark was especially wrong. A 17-year old? Come on.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the advance reader copy.

I really wanted to like this book. I devoured THE GIRLS by Emma Cline but this one just didn't hit the same way. Sad to say I didn't finish this book which, is not something I normally do. It might be just not the right time for me and maybe I'll pick it up again later, but probably not.

Not my typical genre, but I enjoyed the story. I would like to hear a little bit more of her backstory. The few stories seemed out of character so I would have liked a little more understanding about what brought her to this summer. I have recommended it to a coworker who is more the demographic (22 y o).

What an incredible ride! I love when I read a book that features a character that so fully embodies charming chaos, and Alex, the protagonist, did that for me. She is a 22-year-old hustler who is very savvy at collecting rich men but also has poor impulse control and a high self-destructive streak. She has already worn out her welcome in many NYCs fancier establishments and with her roommates. She lines up a man who whisks her off to the shore, away from all her troubles (including an ex chasing her down for something she did), or so she thinks. But as the saying goes- "wherever you go, there you are," and she finds herself doing the same things in the new locale and gets kicked out of her older lover's home a week before his annual party, which is the talk of the town. Alex decided to lay low, spend the week hiding, reappear at the party, and win back her ex's heart, convinced he would help her out of her jam. Utter fantasy.

I really enjoyed the writing. It was dark, dangerous, propulsive, cringy, and exciting.

This book had the perfect amount of delicious wickedness, unexpected tenderness, and utter calamity for me to eat it up in a day. If you want something wild and unhinged, it would be a fantastic summer vacation read.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 by Emma Cline⁣
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This spare, elegantly written novel is both a thriller and a brilliant feminist commentary on the lives of sex workers. Alex is a twenty-two year old woman who has found herself in the Hamptons with no money and no prospects. It’s fascinating that neither the Hamptons or the words sex worker are ever actually used in this book. ⁣
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The author does a masterful job at building a growing sense of dread over Alex’s predicament. A bad character named Dom is chasing Alex for what appears to be a large sum of money she owes him, yet we never get to see more of him than texts or brief phone calls.⁣
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Emma Cline chose to take a huge risk here by not giving Alex a backstory. We don’t know exactly why she ended up in “the city” (New York but never mentioned!) as a sex worker and then stranded in the Hamptons at summer’s end. It doesn’t matter. I was riveted.⁣
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Class divisions are sharply skewered here - the Hamptons staff are almost invisible yet ever-present and the wealthy are truly in another world of their own. Children are cared for by nannies and spend no time with their parents.⁣
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As an aside, I applaud Ms. Cline for gaining some agency over her own life and writing by not shaming her young main character for her sex work. In real life, the devious Boies Schiller law firm (Harvey Weinstein’s defenders) had viciously tried to make public Ms. Cline’s sexual history in a misogynistic lawsuit filed by her ex-partner. Ms. Cline triumphed as she should have. ⁣
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Alex might be a grifter but I sympathized with her. The ending was absolutely explosive. Highly recommend this suspenseful, broody and dark novel.
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(𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘙𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘢 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.)

I loved Emma Cline's book The Girls, so I was excited to read this new book from her. It was every bit as good as The Girls and in some ways even better. Cline really knows how to do a character-based story and as you watch Alex slowly unravel, you simply can't put the book down. It's like a quiet horror story, but also has bits of beauty. The writing is exquisite and the juxtaposition of class adds to the atmosphere. It's the perfect summer read due to the setting, but it would be intriguing at any time of year.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I can't wait to read more from this author!

The Guest is the story of Alex, a 22 year old who is drifting along Long Island after things end one night with an older man. I feel like I knew how it was going to end but I kept turning the page to see.

I really liked The Girls by Emma Cline and was looking forward to reading her new book, The Guest, about a young girl wandering from place to place after being kicked out of her boyfriend’s house.

This book reminded me a lot of My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The main character is not someone you necessarily root for, but instead cringe at. They have bad behavior and make poor choices. But that might be why it’s entertaining, it’s the classic train wreck you can’t look away from.

I felt a little addicted to this book. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a cliff hanger, I was so compelled to read more and finished this book in only a couple days. I thought this was a really good book that I enjoyed reading but I wouldn’t say it was a great book that everyone must read. It was definitely interesting just not groundbreaking.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC of this book.

I love the way Emma writes characters that are raw and real that are always relatable whether you wish to admit it or not.

This was an interesting story and reading it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Poor Alex is just trying to survive but making poor choices.
Many thanks to Random House and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I'm not much of a Cline fan, but I give all her work a shot just because she's so incredibly hyped! This was another disappointment - deeper than the Girls, but still a slight effort.

I really love low-stakes con/scammer novels because they make such a great thought exercise. Could I, like protagonist Alex, survive in the Hamptons for days with little money and no food or lodging by scamming strangers? How would I do it? Would I be ethical about who I targeted or merely opportunistic? And perhaps most important here, could I parlay it into a life in which I don’t have to scam to survive anymore?

Alex’s origin story isn’t an unusual one: Young woman with few resources and little to offer toward traditional employment does her best to make it in the big city. Alex, perhaps more ambitious and savvy and certainly less scrupulous than many in this position, isn’t going to let herself waste away living paycheck to paycheck working in a bar or some such.

The moral quandary of what she does is more complicated than just whether or not she is a good or bad person or a user or a scammer or however you label what she does to get by. It’s hard to feel sorry for the rich men she acts as companion to who she takes advantage of financially, but what of the more innocent marks who land in Alex’s path?

It’s fun to think how you might manage in her circumstances and interesting to think about the morality of what she does. And the book is certainly well written and well paced.

I didn’t like the ending, which leaves you hanging on something that I don’t think can remain ambiguous in a story like this. That’s why this was a four rather than five-star book for me. But regardless of this, it’s still a fascinating book well worth a read.

Alex is a drug addicted prostitute who while trolling a fancy hotel meats Simon who mistakes or her for just a young girl trying to make it in the big city he invites her to his summer home while he works in his office she spends lazy days at the beach swimming in his pool and taking pills. After an incident where she Rexis car who wants nothing to do with her and gives her a train ticket and tells her to go back to the city but this isn’t what Alex does. Instead the first night she sleeps on the beach but the next day she meets a younger guy who says he’s 19 but in actuality he’s a 17-year-old high school student who is vacationing with his parents. she tells him she’s staying with friends and eventually that is what she does but these are friends she just met she is trying to wait on the island until the party Simon is throwing at the end of the summer happens because she just knows if he sees her he will change his mind about not wanting her plus she can’t go back to the city because the one friend she didn’t have after he left her in his apartment she stole all his money and all his drugs soon to find out that this guy is not only looking for her in the city but has found out where she’s at and is coming to get her. everyone is talking about what a great author Emma Klein yes and I must admit her descriptions of things can be humorous at times and touching at times andshe definitely has talent I just found that Alex is very unlikable she is a scammer and a thief throughout the book I was waiting for a lot more intrigue and more deception than just stealing pills from peoples homes and breaking in and on occupied guesthouse I do want to say I was captivated throughout the whole book only because I thought this was leading up to a big shebang and all those behead a shebang it wasn’t the one I thought it was going to be nor was it what the booklet up to. There is no one in this book to route four except for maybe the caretaker to Simmons Friends Home who I thought so bad for when Alex ruined the million dollar cleaning after he’s so nicely allow her to stay but either way if you like literary fiction because I wouldn’t call Dessa thriller then you may like The Guest by Emma Klein it is in my opinion a solid three star read but only if you know what you’re getting into. I received this book from NetGalley and Random house books that I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Emma Cline, author of the hugely popular The Girls, is back with a new novel perfectly timed for the Summer.

Summering on Long Island has just taken a bad turn for Alex when a poor decision forces her out of her easy living lifestyle with an older gentleman. She has always gotten by as a grifter using her charm, looks and the ability to understand what people want. Now Alex finds herself with a one way ticket back to New York City but determined to find a way to stay on Long Island for the end of the summer.

Cline tells the story from the perspective of Alex. The reader learns of her questionable and selfish choices throughout the course of the book. While not a likeable character, I found myself drawn into the story to find out what would happen to her and hoping that she could find a better way of life. The reader can also see the other side of Alex’s world with the array of elitist and snobbish people she interacts with. A unique and unpredictable summer story about the darker side of society.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this title before its release.

This book made me uncomfortable, but that shows how strong the writing is! Alex is frustrating the build up was great! Perfect summer read.

I loved this book so much and can’t wait to read more Emma Cline.

The constraints of the setting create a sense of urgency and suspense that is heightened by the reader's knowledge that Alex is not aware of the danger she is in. Reminded me of the movie "Shiva Baby." The book also has a very distinct "Bright Lights, Big City" feel, with its descriptions of the glamorous and decadent world of the rich and famous. This is contrasted with the more down-to-earth world of Alex, who is trying to find her place in this world. The book also has a bit of a "Gossip Girl" feel, with its focus on the social lives of the characters and the drama that ensues.