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TL;DR: I doubt I’ll remember this, I really do. It was… okay?
Source: Netgalley, many thanks to the publisher!

Plot: A short story about a woman loosing her mind to pain and lack of sleep.
Characters: Our only real character of note is Iðunn and I have to be honest, she wins my rarely awarded ‘Maybe Too Stupid to Live” award.
Setting: The only real setting I can recall is a bit of a spoiler, but there were not any intensely vivid ones.
Horror: I really didn’t find this very scary? I suppose I figured out the twist the ‘scare’ early and that killed the vibe.

Thoughts:

The Night Guest is billed as an ‘ensnaring’ story to keep you up at night. I’ll give it ‘ensnaring’ simply because it’s a fast read. But this one will not be keeping me up at night, and I doubt it’ll do that for anyone else. Our main character Iðunn is trapped in a familiar hell of trying to find out what’s ‘wrong’ with her. She’s tired, she’s lethargic, she seems depressed and no one will take her seriously. In the course of the 200 page novella we watch her pinpoint a cause and then find the reason for it.

It’s a dark story. We have animal abuse, murder, blood, pain, some implied violence, and grief touched on. These are just touches for the most part, the animal abuse and death was the biggest and most seemingly impactful part, but all play a role. The first of my big complaints involves that, the themes in this are presented but almost never actually explored or in some cases even seen on page. We just get gloomy character talk about them. Sure we see some of the impact in Iðunn, but nothing comes off the page to haunt me from this.

The other big complaint I have is that Iðunn is genuinely the most frustrating person to read about. She’s one of the rare characters I’m going to label ‘Too Stupid to Live’. I understand some of her frustrations, some of her worries but she refuses to take any real action to help herself. Over half of this novella could be cut out if she’d paid attention to her pedometer when she bought it. It was just so frustrating.

Ultimately this novella left me annoyed and disappointed. It’s not badly written, it’s well translated, and I didn’t completely hate my time but I’m not a huge fan.

2 out of 5 pedometers (you bought the thing for a reason, pay attention to it)

Okay so first as someone who has struggled to get a medical diagnosis for years I felt an overwhelming kinship to our main character iounn (I couldn’t find the proper form of the o to spell her name correctly) in the first 2 chapters. As I kept reading I didn’t want to put this novella down as it was so enticing. I was a little disappointed by the ending it just felt very cut off to me but I enjoyed the read overall.

*I received a free ARC COPY from NetGalley*

This was a quick and creepy read. I thought I had everything all figured out, but the last few chapters proved me wrong. I enjoyed this, and I liked the characters and concept. This is really fast-paced, and while the ending definitely felt a bit abrupt, I can see how that fits in with the vibe of the story in a way.

Iðunn keeps having unexplained symptoms, that no doctor can diagnose. All of her blood work and scans come back normal. She’s been waking up with extreme fatigue every morning, even though she feels well rested. She then starts to notice random bruising all over her body, and one morning has the taste of blood in her mouth.
Things only continue to get worse, so she buys a watch to track her steps. The watch resets at midnight, but there are over forty thousand steps when she wakes up. Where did she go?

I’ve seen 50/50 reviews for this, but I won’t lie, I kind of enjoyed it! I was hooked from the beginning with the dark and eerie Icelandic setting. It’s a short 208 pages, with very very short chapters. I read it in under 3 hours and couldn’t turn the pages quick enough.
While this is a twisted horror story, I throughly enjoyed the writing and thought it was the real winner. The author did a great job at keeping me entertained and pulling me right back in.

One major trigger warning is the death of cats, specifically the murder of cats. But it’s mostly just one chapter in the book with minor descriptions, so if you can get past that, you might enjoy it! (Trust me, I love my cat).

The Night Guest was published yesterday, 9/3!
Thank you @netgalley and @torpublishinggroup for this advanced copy!

A delightfully unsettling horror novella! Throughout, I felt I had a strong sense of what was going on with the MC, but was pleasantly shocked and surprised by the last few chapters.
Overall a very quick and creepy read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the ARC!

This had the potential to be a five star read. It is a super fast paced thriller that is so good at making the reader fear falling asleep because of the mystery surrounding what Iðunn is doing at night when she thinks she is sleeping. I loved reading about the psychological impact this had on her and the author did such a good job exploring impacts on her life.

My problem came with the ending. It was abrupt and I still do not know what happened despite rereading it a few times. Also there should be a trigger warning for cat deaths (poor kitties). If you’re in a good mental space this should be a good read - and maybe you’ll like the ending better than I did.

I still quite enjoyed it overall.

The narrator on the audiobook really had me sucked into the story.

Thank you to @macmillan.audio, @tornightfire, and @netgalley for my ALC and ARC copies. All thoughts are my own.

What an odd little book! In a good way! Quick and easy to get through in one sitting. Which is good because once you start, you have to know what on earth is going on. I look forward to more from this author.

This is a roller coaster of a book. Iðunn is exhausted every day and figures she must have some health issues. She has a major issue! She sets herself up to try and figure out what is going on when she sleeps. This book is creepy and keeps you wanting to know what's happening. There are 100 chapters but some of the chapters are just one sentence long, which I enjoyed. It adds to the creepiness and urgency that you feel while reading. The ending fell kind of flat for me, as I was a little confused on what actually was happening, but it was a good enough for a fast read.

Dark, atmospheric, disturbing, thrilling, and spine-chilling page-turner.
Quick and short to read, well-written, set against the backdrop of Iceland.
This might be this fall’s most epic horror novella out there!

What a deliciously disturbing story!

The Night Guest is a short horror read that is utterly engaging and thought provoking.
I love when an author is able to perfectly capture the shared experience of chronic illness, and Knútsdóttir does an absolutely incredible job with the subject matter. As someone who spent decades looking for answers to my various health issues, I was already empathizing with Iðunn and her search to find the cause of her crushing fatigue within the first few paragraphs.

Being written off by medical professionals simply because she’s a woman with unexplained symptoms, her family and friends issuing well meaning but infuriating “advice”, and the loneliness that steadily increases the more your health declines are all themes that Knútsdóttir expertly handles.

The tension and suspense is so well crafted, steadily building until the very last sentence. Whether it’s the initial text, Mary Robinette Kowal’s translation from Icelandic to English, or a combination of the two, the writing is excellent. There are some stylistic choices that I absolutely loved which were incredibly effective, particularly the single sentence chapters. This is an incredibly streamlined and hard hitting story.

While some people will probably wish for a more definitive or explosive culmination, I actually really liked the ending Knútsdóttir chose as it seemed, at least to me, the most logical outcome. The only thing of concern is that the book contains animal death which, although it isn’t explicit, it is pretty well described after the fact. There’s also some other situations that people might find triggering (date r*pe, attempted SA, bodily h*rm), as well as the standard gore & violence that usually occur within the horror genre. There is no TW list.

5 Stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group / Tor Nightfire, however my review is completely unbiased and is my own personal opinion left of my own volition

The Night Guest follows Iðunn, a young woman in Reykjavík struggling with chronic fatigue and mysterious injuries. After buying a smartwatch, she’s shocked to find it records over 40,000 steps taken during the night—steps she doesn’t remember.

The author tries to make Iðunn relatable, with her grief, strained friendships, and frustration with being medically dismissed, but she often comes across as insufferable. The pacing kept me hooked, but the ambiguous ending left me more confused than satisfied. While I appreciate some mystery, I wanted more closure.

Themes of women’s bodies, disbelief, and lack of agency are touched upon, but they feel surface-level. Despite the disappointing ending, the suspenseful first half and some genuinely horrifying scenes make me open to reading more from this author.

Content Warning: Unpleasant things happening to cats.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for an advanced reader's copy of The Night Guest.

The Night Guest is a translated Icelandic horror novella following Iðunn who has been battling crippling fatigue and unexplained bruising. Of course the various doctors she sees have no real answers for her and friends and family try to give her advice that showcases the fact that they have no clue how truly devastating the fatigue is. However, Iðunn does decide to try out an activity watch and is horrified to realize that she walked 40,000 steps while she thought she was sleeping. She then tries everything she can to figure out where she is going at night and why her night time injuries are getting worse.

This was an atmospheric and increasingly creepy read. The idea of not having control of your body while you think you are sleeping is a horrifying idea and Knútsdóttir truly brought the ick factor. She paced this story so perfectly that the suspense and disturbing events start unfolding slowly but then build up to an intense, yet not fully satisfying ending.

I never at any point in the story had any idea of what was going to happen next to the point where I could not put this book down until I finished at 2 in the morning. Sadly, I think this is the only work of Knútsdóttir's that has been translated because I would love to read more from her.

this was a really unique and creepy book, and a quick read! I finished it a bit confused and wish it had been a little longer to tie it all together a bit more.

3.75 stars

This is a short and zippy Icelandic horror book, around 200 pages, that I read in about an hour late at night. The creepy vibes were awesome, and I really enjoyed the writing itself, so the translation was smooth and top-tier. I wish that there had been a bit more to the ending, if it had hit like the rest of the book did this would have easily been a 4+ star read for me.

This follows twenty-something Iðunn, who lives and works in Reykjavík, and she is TIRED. Literally. She's been suffering from chronic fatigue and mysterious injuries, and no doctors or friendly advice have been able to help. She gives in and buys a smart watch to track her steps in hopes that exercise will help, only to wake up one day and see that the watch says she's walked over 40,000 steps during the night. 
Iðunn is a compelling and relatable main character. Her parents never remember that she's vegetarian, but they're all bound together in their grief for her dead sister. She feels like her friends all like each other better, and prefers the company of the neighborhood cats to most humans anyway. She has a pushy ex who she only got involved with due to boredom. And she's tired of being medically gaslit but simultaneously worried she might be going insane.

I really liked the pacing of this and rushed to the end to see how things played out and all of the reactions of people in Iðunn's life when things were revealed. But alas, the end was very ambiguous, and it cut off before anything was truly resolved or revealed. I appreciate a bit of mystery, but I still wanted more here. I would happily read more from this author, though, and had a good time. Check trigger warnings if you pick this up, though! Thanks to the publisher, NetGalley, and the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 3.5⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: Horror novella📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
A spine chilling and creepy read without an abrupt and unclear ending
The translation was well done

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Creepy and spine chilling reads
Fast paced and quick reads
Captivating and psychological horrors
Suspenseful and intense

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
A very quick read

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
The ending just cut off and was kind of vague

A great intro-to-horror read in the new adult sub genre.
This is my first book by Hildur Knutsdottir and I was engaged by her haunting writing style. Looking forward to reading more of her work.
The Night Guest itself is a fast paced, quick read delving into creepy psychological horror. I wasn't thrilled with the ending or the decisions Idunn made in the story but overall was happy with the vibe.

Trigger warning for cat death, something I know many readers, even horror fans, would be upset about stumbling into.

This was so much fun! I couldn't put it down because it captured my attention so quickly.

Iðunn is always tired (but who isn't?), but when she starts waking up feeling like she's been doing hard labor all day and is covered in bloody scratches, she starts to suspect something isn't quite right.

This is a very quick read- a true one session book. It's extremely captivating and has very short chapters. Following a theme of identity through grief, Iðunn's mystery evolves rather quickly in this immersive tale. The story is set in Iceland, which was a new setting for me. I would have liked to experience more if Iceland, as I felt this story could have taken place anywhere.

Iðunn is an unreliable narrator, which is always charming. The characters she meets along the way are interesting yet I am not sure I would have trusted them. There were a few things that seemed odd about the side characters and situations, which just added to the story. Knútsdóttir's writing style is concise and easy to read. There is a bit of open door spice in the book, but nothing too graphic. This book would be appropriate for an older young adult who is wanting to venture into creepy tales.

The ending seems rather abrupt. I understand what the author was trying to convey, and I believe that it was done perfectly, but I would have liked to have had maybe a few more chapters at the end to really wrap things up.

I had a good time with this one and would've easily read a full length novel. Perfectly unsettling. Some of the content did bother me a little (re:animal deaths) but thankfully it wasn't lingered on.

The Night Guest was a super quick, short read that kept me engaged and engrossed from the first page to the last. I read it in 2 sittings (easily can be read in 1), I just had to know what was going on and how it was going to end. However, the abrupt ending left me wanting more and a little frustrated, therefore deducted a star from my rating for that. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this book!

Thank you Tor and NetGalley for the early digital copy for my honest thoughts and review.

Many thanks to NetGalley and TOR Publishing Group for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A young woman consults her doctors about recurring extreme tiredness, bruises on her body, stiffness, and blood stains Once she finds a doctor who'll take her seriously, she slowly starts figuring out what is wrong with her mostly due to the activity app on her watch.

This little novella is well paced and keeps the attention. Unfortunately I thought the ending was such a let down, it will make you gasp and throw the book to the next wall. Not sure if something was lost in translation but an okay read.