This book takes us into the mind of Alex, a grifter trying to secure a place among Long Island’s elite as she runs from past mistakes and makes a whole bunch of new ones. Alex isn’t a likable person and moves from one horrible decision to the next. Part of me couldn’t help but root for her, though. Maybe because she’s interacting with people who seem to be more together than she is, but in reality they are likely just as bad.

The writing here is foreboding and tense and works really well to keep the novel and character compelling. There’s also a certain “ick” vibe that I can’t explain…but like I was here for it, maybe?

While not a plot-driven story, I can still see this being the kind of book you could easily read on a beach or poolside in one sitting. It’s a beach read, but for sad girls.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC!

Sadly this book was not for me. The story seemed to meander aimlessly and by the end I was left completely confused as to what I’d just read.

3.5 A train wreck of a character, with strong resonance to Wharton's House of Mirth. While a propulsive read with a straightforward narrative style, I missed some understanding of the character's motivations beyond her seemingly choiceless choices. A sad statement for someone just 22 years old.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the Advance Reader Copy.

Thank you NetGalley for a chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review. “The Guest” by Emma Cline was one I ravished very quickly. With an electric style of writing, Cline makes you want to absorb every moment our main character goes through, and you’re left to wonder what happens next. I fell in love with the way Cline wrote, and how she created a clearly dislikeable character. However, this book did not do much justice for me. I felt extremely uncomfortable with the sexual themes with an underage boy, who was very clearly a young teenager from the start. It did not help that those themes somewhat continued after our main character’s awareness of this fact. It felt like everything and nothing happened in this novel all at once. Although I was pushing through the story quickly, I found myself wishing that something more would happen. While there was tension sprinkled throughout, it wasn’t enough for me. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading morally gray characters, loves a poetic writing style, or isn’t a big thriller fan. I would have rated this book higher if it wasn’t for the underage child, and I found myself thinking about the ending for a long, long time. It will definitely not be a book I forget.

I was disappointed. I really liked The Girls and had anticipate liking The Guest just as much. But, I felt like it never really got started. We follow Alex, a professional hustler/maybe prostitute, this was never spelled out only left to the readers interpretation, through a wild week of survival on an eastern seaboard vacation island for the rich (no names, please) after her "boyfriend" asks her to leave. Determined to get him back she remains on the island hustling her way through meals and lodging all the while popping stolen pills and stealing her courage and belief that she can fix the mess she has made.
The problem is that the story left me flat. I didn't care for Alex. Her character wasn't developed enough to evoke compassion or hate. All the characters seemed half-formed, but not in an intentional way. Disappointing.

This was a slow paced meandering book. Lost of angst and repetition. I still found myself engaged and wanting to read more. Single pov and long chapters. If you’re in the mood for a slow dark and slightly disturbing read this will fill the bill. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher’s for an early copy in exchange for an honest opinion. 3.5⭐️

Since I read The Girls way back in 2016, I have eagerly awaited Emma Cline’s next novel. And The Guest did not disappoint.

It's a mood piece following a young grifter as she waits out a week for her former sugar daddy’s Labor Day party with a plan to recapture his heart, or at least his attention. The prose manages to be both languid as Alex drifts from place to place and situation to situation, but also tense as she makes increasingly worrying decisions.

I don’t always put mood over plot, but the vibes were just right with this one.

Read if you like: lazy summer days, not paying for shit, living in the moment

TL;DR Goodreads Review

the epitome of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

-- Some Thoughts --

Emma Cline is an auto-buy, auto-read author. It's both impressive and wild to me that she has managed to create a character portrait in which the reader is not privy to the character's backstory, and it's only revealed in short glimpses. A paragraph or two, a sentence thrown the reader's way. All the while the character, in this case Alex, wanders around Long Island doing horrible things for her own selfish needs and letting her own decisions guide exactly where she's going.

Like always, Cline's writing is superb, if a bit subdued. There's something circular and repetitive about the writing in this book, though one could argue it was just Cline inhabiting Alex's mindset as she counts down the days to the big Labor Day party in which she will get her man back. I think the third-person POV worked well in terms of showing the distance that Alex holds the reader, and everyone else, at. However I do think that Cline's writing works best when she's in the first person and is allowing these sumptuous details to be filtered through the eyes of a specific narrator.

But, all in all, Cline absolutely slayed, killed, and murdered this book. There are so many passages highlighted in my Kindle copy because she manages to describe things perfectly, like so perfectly I can't even figure out if it's even possible to rewrite her work, which, to me, is the sign of a writer working at their highest power.

This kind of book is usually totally my jam but I reckon I read this at the wrong time :/ We didn't vibe right now but hopefully after it's out I can buy a copy and then we will connect haha

Alex, our main character, has minimal to no limits. She lies, steals, and manipulates to get what she wants and needs. She's a sex worker with a love for the power she feels when manipulating men, stealing their medications/money/etc and will stop at nothing to make sure she is taken care of. She has a pretty solid gig with Simon, a wealthy man in his 50's, until she acts out at a dinner party with his friends and he sends her packing.. only she never leaves the area. The Guest follows Alex while she uses whatever means necessary to get her back in Simon's good graces.

I was pleasantly surprised with how hard I was rooting for a character that does little to deserve that. Would I want her in my house? No. Would I want her around my kids? Absolutely not. But yet still I was captured by what would happen next. I didn't want to put this one down. I knew I loved it when I finished it last night but now that I've slept on it, I really really loved it. I will be going back and reading Cline's previous work for sure!

Very much enjoyed this new offering from Emma Cline. 22 year old Alex lives a precarious existence in NYC as a sort of escort or "sugar baby" to a series of older men, the latest of which has potential as a steady companion after he invites her to stay with him at his place at the far reaches of Long Island for the rest of the summer. Alex "the guest" is not a good person. She's an opportunist, a grifter, an interloper, a "tourist" that reminded me of Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) in Fight Club - she's LARPing for the summer at stable adulthood, hobnobbing among the quiet luxury of the Long Island elite, saying all the right things and carefully curating her public persona. As Alex's idyllic summer progresses we see her make a series of misjudgments, with the propulsive plot giving the reader nary a moment to consider which of her many faux pas will ultimately cause the whole carefully crafted persona to unravel. As the story continues we learn the circumstances from which Alex has escaped back in the city - and what's at stake for her were she to have to confront them at long last. There is a constant state of foreboding throughout and when you finally reach page 225 you'll be perplexed that just like that, it's over. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the early access to this quietly simmering thriller.

This book explores life living on the edge through the eyes of our Alex a young woman trying to keep in front of the debts and grudges she has accumulated. Alex is a bit of an antihero in that she is manipulative, self-centred, cruel and yet you can't help admire her tenacity. For a book where not a lot happens it is a compelling read as Alex struggles to make it to the end of week where she hopes her former sponsor will take her back. Emma Cline does a great job of communicating Alex’s state of mind through her internal dialogue. I got Sally Rooney vibes from this book but found it more interesting

"The Guest" shows Emma Cline's versatility as a writer, and that she can shine without a plot-driving motor like that of "The Girls." Here, we have a lovely and slowly unfolding story with a character who you want to shake and scold and times, but whose psychological makeup is comprehensive and believable. You'll come away from this thinking of Alex as a person and not merely as a character.

I wanted to like this, as I really enjoyed The Girls, but I just couldn’t.
Alex is a working girl who’s down on her luck. Her older ‘boyfriend’ sends her back home after an extended trip to Long Island, not knowing she doesn’t have a home to come back to. She decides to secretly stay and pretends to be who she isn’t, manipulating several people along the way.
I have a hard time with books like this. Stories that don’t have much of a plot, purpose, or resolution just don’t do it for me

The Guest by Emma Cline is a masterpiece of storytelling that will captivate readers from start to finish. Alex, the protagonist, is a complex and multi-faceted character that the reader will reluctantly find themselves rooting for even as she makes bad decisions and manipulates those around her. The writing is beautifully crafted, with vivid descriptions that bring the world of the Hamptons to life, and a tense and palpable atmosphere that keeps the reader on edge. The plot, although rather slow and at times a bit meandering, is compelling and unpredictable. Highly recommended for fans of character-driven stories and evocative prose.

although the guest is told in 3rd person pov, i couldn't help but want to root for our protagonist alex through all the crazy situations she gets herself in to survive. maybe it started out as pity because she's just trying to find a place to get through the next day and she's only in her early twenties. however, i think it's because the people she interacts with are as horrible as she is, maybe even a bit more. the rich simply don't have the same worries as everyone else and the unsavory thing is that they seek out people to confirm their own shortcomings. i mean don't we all, but it feels extra icky here following alex.

The ending of this book made me so angry, but honestly, that's the sign of a good book. I cared so much I wanted to throw it across the room :)

Emma Cline is an author I will continue to read in every time she puts out a book, simply because she can tell a good story that keeps the readers squarely on their toes

“It was better, sometimes, to never know certain things existed.”

Emma Cline’s writing has beguiled me since The Girls and this work is no different. Cline has an uncanny ability to write detail of the most mundane thing and make it interesting, engaging, and evocative.

Alex, though a grifter and not a likable character, is not an altogether unlikable one either. Maybe some readers will find it hard to relate to this POV, the have not in the midst of overwhelming abundance. The envy. The hunger. Desperation. Of being outside of it, nose pressed to the glass.

It reminded me of being a nanny for wealthy families in Greenwich, Connecticut and in New York City in my twenties - being merely a guest in a world of excess. The otherness that permeates down into your cells.

This is a 3.5 star for me merely because I felt such a build to an end that never came. I was left wanting more from all of the characters, waiting on character development or some type of climax that never presented itself. However, it was an immersive quick read and I recommend it.

One of my favorite quotes:

“But maybe some things could never be erased. Maybe they tinted some cellular level of your experience, and even if you scraped away whatever part was on the surface, the rot had already gotten beneath.
The scratch on the painting, the itch in her eye.”

Come for the plot, stay for the prose. The beguiling, abrasive, and oh so beautiful prose!

Wow. This is my first experience with Emma Cline and I plan on reading everything she's written. What a gorgeous writer. The story follows a mysterious grifter named Alex who's killing time in the Hamptons after her older gentleman friend releases her from her services. She goes from one awkward situation to the next, using her inherent charm and hustling ways to keep up the ruse. As someone who lived in NYC for 18 years, this journey to the Hamptons and seeing "how the other half lives" kept me GLUED to the pages. I read it so quickly. I fell in love with Alex and wanted to journey with her to the end of the earth. Though this may not be for everyone, if you enjoy an anti-hero(ine)'s journey, it's a perfect beach read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

The Guest, by Emma Cline, is an easy read that would be good for a day at the beach, or by the pool. I easily finished it in the afternoon. Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.