I uhhhhh idk about this one! The beginning was interesting. I was invested in what was going on with our main character. She seemed unconcerned with her life at the beginning and then increasingly paranoid as the strange things continued to happen. I thought the build was good, the decent into madness felt authentic. However, for such a short book I felt like the ending was too rushed. When the big drama ending started, I looked at the time left and realized only 10 minutes were left in the book. I thought how can we wrap everything up in that amount of time. It just felt rushed to me. And honestly I didn’t even understand the ending. Which don’t get me wrong I think was the point. I just wanted to know what was in the cave and have more of a solid resolution. That’s personal preference though bc I know lots of people love an ending that’s up for interpretation 🤷🏻‍♀️

ALSO I felt unprepared for the killing of all the cats. I did not like that at all!

This novella had great potential. I was so intrigued and creeped out by the mystery of what was happening to the main character at night. I love an unreliable narrator and I really started to suspect she was insane, especially when she started staying awake. The ending wasn't satisfying for me though, which is why I knocked off a star.

Thank you to MacMillan audio and NetGalley for allowing me to listen!

This story takes the cake as one of the creepiest I've read this year. This is narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal and she does an excellent job of bringing Iðunn to life. I think the narrative talent shines as the story progresses and events become more chaotic.

TW: There is animal abuse in this story. It's done off-page but does involve dead cats. I didn't know that going in, and it would have affected my choice to listen. That said, it's only mentioned a few times, and it's near the end. This isn't a story where it's done overly gratuitously, or occurring throughout the story.

Our story starts with Iðunn , who is at a doctor's appointment, desperate for help after she's been experiencing fatigue, and aches and pains for months. Tests have been run, but nothing is coming back abnormal. She's let herself become riddled with worry, thinking she has ALS, leukemia, or worse.

As the story starts, things appear fairly normal. Iðunn has dinner with her parents, girls night with her friends, and even meets a man and goes on dates with him. As she received minimal medical support, she took matters into her own hands and purchased a fitness watch. Iðunn is getting her 10,000 daily steps in, and one morning, she wakes up with the watch on and 40,000 steps logged. This leads her to more self-diagnosing (sleepwalking) and Iðunn asks for sleeping pills to help her stop sleepwalking. It works...at first.

This story is considered to be part of the horror genre, and I would say that's accurate. There is some suspense/thriller aspects but I'd classify it as horror. The chapters are fairly short, and it's easy to continue reading/listening. However, this book is short. Approximately 208 pages, and less than three hours via audiobook. I have a great appreciation for authors who don't overdo the story, but in this case, I wish there had been some more explanation of the area, Iðunn's sister, and more character development. I think it would have truly enhanced the story.

The ending is left up to the reader's interpretation. Depending on your perspective, the ending could take on a few different meanings. This doesn't necessarily bother me, but I do love seeing how the author intended it to be, it sometimes can pull the rest of the story together because you see incidents in a different light.

As a horror novella, I would recommend this book. It kept me hooked, and I kept wanting to listen to one more chapter to get answers, which led me to devour this book quickly. The narration brings the scariness to life because you experience Iðunn becoming nervous, but knowing something else is happening, but can't find anyone to help her.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for this alc.

This is the first book I read from an Icelandic author. It’s about a woman, Iðunn, who has trouble sleeping. Every time she wakes up she feels tired, like she has run a marathon. She starts to wake up with her body covered in bruises, dirt, and eventually blood. She then buys an Apple Watch and realizes she walked something like 40,000 steps while she was sleeping. The problem is that she can’t recall where she went or what she did.

The whole book is about the protagonist trying to figure out what’s wrong with her, what she is doing while she’s supposed to be asleep. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, who really captured the despair of the protagonist to know what exactly is going on, and delivered a well-paced story. The more Iðunn knows what she is doing at night, the darker this story gets. Check trigger warnings before reading this one.

This was a good quick read. I really enjoyed it. It kept me interested and I read it in one sitting. I felt bad for the main character and what she was going through. I was disappointed in the ending. I feel like it stopped too abruptly leaving questions. I did enjoy the narrator.

I absolutely devoured this book. I tore through it in one evening.

Iðunn keeps waking up with unexplained pain, bruises, and other injuries. Is she sleepwalking? Is it something more serious? She tries seeking medical help, but that's a dead end, as is often the case for women.

For a brief period, sleeping pills seem to help, but when those are gone, she has to find some other way to deal with what's happening to her.

I promptly fell in love with the main character in the first chapter and just became more and more invested as the story progressed. Iðunn is quirky and smart, and she loves cats, but there's definitely something a little off about her. Even she sees that. "It briefly occurs to me that it's not normal to have no one close enough to share such a feeling with."

I could see myself in her shoes so many times during this story. It is definitely going to stay with me for a long time. You might even say it will haunt me.

* Trigger Warning for animal mutilation. *

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for an ALC in exchange for an honest review. I was really looking forward to this one and I must say, I was quite disappointed. While I did enjoy the pacing and unique structure of the story, I do not tolerate animal cruelty in books. So for that reason, I just cannot rate this well.

The Night Guest was a creepy novella that was so captivating I read it in one sitting. I loved that the narrator felt so unreliable and in the end we really didn't get a concrete answer on what was happening but I found that almost more intriguing than if everything had been spelled out. Iðunn was a fascinating character and I feel like the author used her as a way to show what happens to women in healthcare without being too heavy handed with it. Iðunn is still as much of a mystery to me as she was in the beginning. We never really learn more about her or her motives and that adds to the unsettling nature of this novella. The narrator of the audiobook was fantastic and I really enjoyed being able to hear the characters proper pronunciations. She kept her pitch and tone constantly interesting and it really added to my enjoyment of this novella.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review. Receiving an advanced gifted book copy does not impact or influence my review in any way. #MacAudio2024

4.5 rounded up to 5!

The Night Guest is a horror/thriller novella that is insanely fast paced and hooked me from page one! I was so impressed by the amount of things that happened in this book in such a short amount of time.

The slight mystery throughout the story kept me guessing, and I love dhow the author sprinkled in just the right amount of clues and subtleties about the character. You start piecing together what might be the truth, but it's still open to interpretation, which adds to the eerie atmosphere.

This book is a great reminder of how fantastic-and challenging- novellas can be. Packing so much tension, mystery, and character depth into a compact form is not easy, but the author does it so well!

I definitely recommend it for spooky season, especially if you're looking for a quick, fast-paced read that's perfect to devour right before bedtime. Just be prepared to sleep with the lights on- or not at all! hehe.

For about the first third of The Night Guest I was completely bored. It is exhausting. When stuff does start happening it is fairly obvious that there is sleepwalking going on. Add that to what else is going on and you can guess the ending. The very ending. I am glad this was a short book.

This book had sooo sooo sooo much potential. I really was so excited. There is such a great build up of dread and tension, characters having conflict. I was really enjoying it, waiting anxiously for the reveal, and then… *splat*.

It just ends with like two paragraphs.
It was like, “Boom- here’s some of the answer(s) you have been waiting for. Now go away and think about it.”

It was so disappointing.
So many questions unanswered.
So many loose ends.

I honestly had to check to see if I had only gotten a preview of the book and not the whole thing. There is so much I still want to know!

I won’t say “don’t read this” because it was SO good until the last chapter or two. But be prepared for two things:

TW - dead cats
Abrupt ending with many unanswered questions.


Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This horror novella was such a gripping read. It held my attention fully from beginning to end. I love that they brought in a new horror… waking up to thousands of unexplained steps on your fitness watch. As a smart watch wearer, that would be wild! Highly recommend this one for the *spooky season*!

Sort of regretting reading this right before bed....but in the best way. If you're looking for a quick suspenseful read, check it out!

*The Night Guest* by Hildur Knutsdottir is an unsettling story that artfully blends elements of psychological thriller and supernatural suspense. The story follows Iðunn, a woman battling unexplainable fatigue that no doctor can diagnose and no amount of lifestyle changes can fix. As Iðunn navigates the frustrations of being dismissed by her friends, family, and medical professionals, her situation takes a terrifying turn when she discovers that she has been walking tens of thousands of steps in her sleep. Waking up with mysterious injuries, Iðunn becomes increasingly desperate to understand what’s happening during the night.

The pacing is taut, with each chapter pulling the reader deeper into Iðunn’s mysterious affliction. As her nighttime activities grow more dangerous and bizarre, the tension escalates to an almost unbearable level, making *The Night Guest* a chilling read that lingers long after the final page. This novel is perfect for fans of psychological horror and anyone who enjoys stories that blur the line between the real and the supernatural.

Thank you Hildur Knutsdottir, MacMillan Audio, and Netgalley for the advanced copy!

Was hoping to find a horror novel that I could get behind, but then she had to go and kill the cats so it’s a big nope from me.
Plus nothing was explained and if you are going to have animal cruelty you had better give me a good reason, it was just confusing and awful. Do not recommend.
The audiobook narration was decent and helped with the Icelandic pronunciations.

Author Hildur Knútsdóttir produced an eerie and impressive horror novella with The Night Guest. Suffering from constant fatigue, Iðunn is looking for a solution to her sleeping problems. However, tests from doctors and psychiatrists are revealing nothing. The physical exhaustion and soreness take a toll until one night she discovers she walked 40,000 steps in her sleep. This had me sucked into the story from the beginning. The plot of what’s going to happen every time she slept was very unsettling and disturbing. It’s a very fresh idea. The horror and tension are losing control of yourself doing something so mundane and essential. Overall, this was a tightly written story that could be finished in one sitting. I liked the ending, but it could have been more developed and drawn out. I was sent a copy of the audiobook by Macmillan Audio. While I enjoyed the narrator, it was a little difficult to get immersed in the story because the chapters are extremely short. Sometimes the narrator had to introduce the chapter every minute, so the experience may be better with an ebook or physical copy.

Trigger warning for animal cruelty and gore
Thank you Netgallery, Macmillan Audio, and the publisher for providing an advanced copy to review. All opinions are my own.

Holy moly what did I just read. Short story lovers who like dark, mysterious, absolutely bonkers stories need to give this one a shot.

2.75 stars
I'm so sad over this one because I had such high expectations of it, but I just don't think this book was for me. I was not the biggest fan of our main character and a lot of her choices baffled me. I will say the premise of this novella was so fascinating to me and I enjoyed the overall creepy tone. Also the audiobook narrator was FANTASTIC.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

Wow...this was a fun, quick read. It is a horror on several points. The ending was a little bit of a let down.

Rating: 4/5

Loved the setup, but this kind of went off the rails and had a very unsatisfying and confusing ending. I think it needed to be either a short story or a full book — the novella length didn’t quite work for me. That said, I seem to be an outlier, so I wouldn’t discourage people from listening/reading (the audiobook narrator was great!)

Pros:
Eerie Atmosphere: Set in contemporary Reykjavík, the story weaves an ensnaring web of unease that’ll keep you awake at night.
Idiosyncratic Voice: Knútsdóttir’s writing style, with its parenthetical asides, creates a queasy sense of vertigo.
Psychological Horror: The terror haunting the protagonist is never fully explained, adding to the suspense.
Grotesque Beauty: The conclusion balances grotesque and beautiful elements, leaving a lasting impression.

Cons:
Abrupt Ending: While the narrative builds tension masterfully, the ending might leave some readers craving more resolution.

Beyond pacing, it’s the lingering questions—the unsettling gaps—that make this book memorable. A touch more closure would’ve pushed it to a perfect score.