Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.
This book was entertaining but I think it could have been shorter. Maybe a short story. It did bother me that multiple chapters back to back only had a sentence on the page.
Other than that I don't have a lot to say about this book. It was a bit disappointing but overall it was good.

Reading this book felt like being on a rollercoaster... that only ever goes up. Like many others, I felt that the book was leading to a big climax, only for there to be no resolution. I'm not sure if that was the intention of the author (i.e. as an artistic metaphor for the life and struggles of the main character, Iðunn), but for me, it detracted from the otherwise good storyline. I can't help but feel as though the essence of the abrupt ending could have still been preserved while adding a few more pages of explanation, which only makes me think that the ending was rushed and incomplete rather than a point made by the author. In any case, I enjoyed reading most of the book, and I look forward to seeing more from this author!

Thank you to Net Galley and Tor Publishing for the ARC.

This is a very unusual story about a woman who realizes that she's been sleepwalking at night. Where does she go, and what does she do there?

I've never read a book quite like this. I went into it expecting certain themes to be hit, and though I ended up being wrong, I still really enjoyed this book. The writing style is very engaging and different from other horror novels I've read.

The way this story unfolds is so masterfully done, and the mounting sense of dread kept me flipping pages super quickly.

The one thing I admit didn't work for me so well was the ending, because I'm still not quite sure what happened. I do like endings that are open for interpretation, but I expected more of my questions to be answered.

I'm really glad I took a chance and read this book and will definitely be thinking about it for a long time.

The Night Guest, despite being a translation from its original Icelandic, is a short thriller with beautiful, biting language. I found myself entranced by the borderline defamiliarization in the prose, in the strange way the narrator describes the world around her. She has almost a childlike innocence, and is treated as such (her parents failing to acknowledge her veganism, her coworkers pitying her for buying a pedometer rather than use her phone, etc.).

I thought the short, repeating chapters made for a wonderfully tense atmosphere. The repeated “where did I go?” chapters cemented Idunn’s innocence in the depth of her odd yet monstrous condition; she is as much a victim as anyone else, her life taken by this unknown force.

This story does a beautiful job of showcasing the struggles of a chronically ill woman, framing it with horror elements, painting a picture that chronic illness doesn’t just hurt the host, but those around them as well.

While I wasn’t a big fan of the ambiguous ending, I found that viewing this book more as a metaphor and less of a true monster story gives it more power and authority. There’s never a clear or true end to chronic illness, and when you’re a woman, it’s just “all in your head” anyway.

To close up this review, I want to applaud Mary Robinette Kowal for her brilliant translation of this work. Definitely a novella to check out if you need a quick scare with some substance!

ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

I’m backlogged with ARC’s but trying hard to play catch up! This book was really unexpected and took me by surprise! It’s rather short and has been translated fairly well since the author is from Iceland. Some of the names were difficult for me to pronounce but I pushed through and it was well worth it! The story ends pretty open for interpretation and I really hope there will be a follow up! I would recommend to anyone who likes mysteries and unreliable narrators!

I was hooked from the very first page. A woman feeling fatigued constantly and having to state her case for doctors over and over again?? Been there, babe!
We follow an Icelandic woman named Iðunn at her darkest point. She is always tired, waking up in mysterious bruises, desperate for answers. She meets with a new doctor, a psychologist, and even purchases a smart watch to track her health. She starts noticing her smart watch amping up her number of steps by a significant amount…. Hello??? The call is coming from inside the house.
Missing neighborhood cats, pushy icky “ex”, a dead sister, the tone being so dark you have to wait and let your eyes adjust - no wonder I devoured this. You can physically feel the fog that Iðunn is trying to navigate her way through, and it never lifts… not once.
Along with other readers, I was taken aback by the last chapter. It felt very out of tune with the rest of the book, and I’m still scratching my head trying to decide if I loved or hated it. Every part of this short book felt like it seamlessly blended together in a lovely depressing web, but that last chapter was… hmm.
If you cannot stomach animal abuse, do not read this.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All of these thoughts and opinions are my own.

Iðunn has been struggling with fatigue so she goes to yet another doctor. After going through the normal routine, they never learn anything new.

Until one night she falls asleep with her smartwatch on and when she wakes up she learns she’s walked over 40,000 steps over the course of the night.

What happens when she’s asleep? Why is she waking with injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?


I really enjoyed this book. BUT please do not read it if you have a hard no for animal death/abuse. It happened off page, but it was talked about, and there was quite a good portion dedicated to it. Like so many cats. Besides the multiple cat deaths, I really enjoyed this book! It was a short and sweet horror novel that was great. The pacing on this book was also really fast, so before I knew it the book was over! The downside was the overly ambiguous ending! I’m all for a little mystery in my ending but this was left wide open, and I needed a little more resolution. While I have made up my own ending in my head, it just doesn’t work the same for me as if the author did it for me.

As this was a translated book, I just wanted to say that it was well done, and I think the translator did fantastic! I read a few translated novels a year, and sometimes the translator doesn’t quite nail things, but I think that this one was flawless.

I devoured this and boy was it tasty! There was a lot of unanswered questions but I felt this was intentional, I felt I was losing my mind along with our protagonist, the writing style was fantastic and I would definitely read more by this author, it's fast paced with short chapters which adds to the feel of the rapidly declining mindset of our main character, suspenseful and creepy prose that gave me the heebie jeebies, this was a tense and unsettling novella

<i>The Night Guest</i> is perfect for when you want a spooky book to finish in one sitting. It's basically written like a stream of consciousness: straightforward and choppy (in a good way), which just adds to the thrill.

This is probably one of the only novellas I liked reading, and ironically its only flaw is I wish it would have been longer— the story is just so interesting that I feel like the ending doesn't do it justice! I wanted more!

Will probably reread this again in October once it's out, I have a feeling this will rate higher when I read it in the proper atmosphere ~~

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in return for an honest review!

The Night Guest was quite the ride. The story revolves around a woman who wakes up each morning feeling tired, her body exhausted and does not know what she could have done to cause this. It snowballs from there, turning spooky interweaving her family and relationships. I personally thought this story needed more depth. The ending was quite abrupt and felt too quick, not really answering many questions that I had. It left the story very open ended which as a reader reading a thriller, I was expecting more. I also found the characters to be quite unlikeable, including the main character. She had many disturbing thoughts and her inner monologue was not one I really enjoyed experiencing. I think this story had great potential and I did finish it quickly, but I found myself frustrated with the lack of storyline and ending.

The Night Guest is compulsively readable and a quick lil horror story. I was on edge and the bumps in the night were bumping! I do wish it had been longer and more fleshed out, the ending is abrupt—as others have said. I loved the peek into Icelandic daily life and I quite enjoyed the writing style and would absolutely pick up another book by this author in the future.

The Night Guest was a quick read that will surely pull you in… HOWEVER! The ending was a huge letdown and is really what brought me to my 2.5 star rating.

4.5🌟
The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir is a well written, creepy, psychological horror novella.
TW: Death of cats, but without the details of the deaths.
I really enjoyed this quick read. Loved the short chapters. The surprising ending made you think, but I loved it. Although the story did leave me with a few unanswered questions.
I would definitely recommend.
Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What. The actual fuck. Did I just read?

I read this in one day, couple hours because I had to know what was going to happen. It's been a long time since a book so thoroughly messed with my mind. This is the perfect length. I feel like I was losing my mind along with her. Of course some I was able to piece together before her, but I'm not currently sleep deprived, so that probably helped.

I think I'ma have to read this another 3 times so get my mind right with it.

TW: death (killing) of cats (plural).

Not sure how I feel about this one.

I felt it was easy to read and I felt empathy towards the main character. But I felt the ending was rushed and left too open ended. That there was no real resolution or solution explanation.

Just because the book made me think "what the fuck" to myself does not mean it counts as a mystery..

Rating: 2/5 ✰

Story:
The Night Guest is about a woman who wakes up every morning with constant, crippling fatigue no matter what she does to try and stop it. Even after a good night's sleep, Iðunn is sore and exhausted with doctor's unable to figure out what's going wrong. It's a short little novella with chapters that sometimes only contain a sentence or two, making it incredibly easy to get through.

Unfortunately, the entire story felt incredibly predictable, and there was little depth to actually create real interest in the characters or general plot. All of our interactions with the plot and the character felt very surface-level, even in the "payoff" chapters where the Iðunn has realizations about her situation. While the pacing and writing were solid, I think there desperately needed more care put into the characters and/or the various horror parts at the end. It just had so many loose ends, but not in an "oh wow how fascinating I wonder what happened" way, more like a "did the author forget about this/mean to add this in?" way.

Characters:
Speaking on the characters, there's actually very little we know about Iðunn besides the very basics. Her thoughts are all incredibly action-oriented and (I hate to use this description again but it's true) surface-level. All of her interactions with other characters felt aimless and shallow, which she even acknowledged. Still, the acknowledgement was in such a passing way that it felt like a way to just force personality traits on her and get on with the plot instead of properly fleshing her out. Many of the side characters, which I think we're supposed to care about or worry for, did not even get that bare minimum. I think if we just had more to attach us to (at least) Iðunn it would've helped the overall story so much.

Closing thoughts:
Just kinda horror porn without any real depth. Could've had something bigger to say about society, healthcare, mental illness, grief, or literally anything and just chose not to. This lack of criticism would've been fine if the plot and characters had been more solid, but they were also lacking. I really wanted to like this, and don't think it was necessarily the worst read or anything, I just wish it had realized it's potential a bit more. If you like horror just for the sake of it being horror you might like this one, but if you're hoping for mystery and anxiety like I was then I probably would not recommend.

Oooh, thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of The Night Guest. I didn't know what to expect--which made it fun!

The book is eerie and quick paced, but still really pacts a punch for any mystery and horror fans.

I’ve read this in Icelandic, and this translation is really great. The bleakness shines through even stronger in English.

Give yourself some time and tear through this in one sitting, late at night. It will stay with you after.

This was so unexpectedly good. I picked up this book because I tend to like some Icelandic authors and thought it was in interesting description, but I was sucked in from page one. I literally read this book in one sitting. It was incredibly atmospheric, evocative, and emotive. The plot was unexpected and fresh, I thought the author did an excellent job of creating an unstable MC. Highly recommend, I will be following this author to see what she puts out next.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this early review copy!

This book was just WOW. I can already tell I will be thinking about this deliciously creepy and dark story for a long time. The chapters (and book) are short and they are so tense and pacey that the books flies by. I couldn’t put it down. The author builds the mounting dread and the collapse of the main character’s sanity so incredibly well. Even though I wished the ending was just a fraction less ambiguous, I still really loved this tense and creepy book!