This was just underwhelming, the second after I finished it I forgot what it was about. The drama, or the twist doesn’t seem purposeful, and I just didn’t really care about the narrators motives.

I heard that this was written in a fever dream kind of style after I got it and I was a bit on the fence about it because that's not usually something I enjoy. However, this provides enough information for it to be okay for me.

I wouldn't say things make sense and there's no clear plot here, but it's an unsettling little story. The whole concept of your body being taken over in your sleep was very creepy to me. I also loved the short chapters and how quickly things moved.

That said, I wanted and expected more from this. It has creepy moments, yes, but I feel like this isn't the best or most complete execution of the idea. Like, a lot more juice could've been squeezed out of this with more development, more details, and more plot.

I don't think it works as a novella, not with this structure. The ending is too abrupt and there's just not enough there for readers to sink their teeth into. As it is, it's just 3 stars; I won't be thinking about this story beyond today, but I'm intrigued by this author. I liked the ideas!

About the audiobook: the narration is well done. Nothing spectacular, but it was delivered well.

This is a brilliant short novel. I loved the emotion of the narrator. The story is almost predictable but holds the reader/listener on the edge the entire way. The mc character build is perfect! Easily 5 stars!

Social media post to come.

I made the mistake of starting The Night Guest prior to trying to wind down for the evening and did not want to put this book down. The Night Guest hooked me in with Iðunn's first trip to the doctor to try and figure out why she is constantly exhausted and bruised. The initial encounter with the doctor and her the desire understand what's wrong *and* have it be easily fixable from a doctor is highly relatable as someone with a chronic illness. Similarly relatable was the results inevitably coming back normal and well meaning friends and acquaintances try to provide advice, including all of the alternative medicines and essential oils to try to fix you.

As the mystery with Iðunn's illness unfolds, we get hints into what is going on - her fitness tracker has her at 40,000 steps and when she eventually enables the GPS, she finds she's heading to the same place each night. Along the way, we meet her married coworker and ex-lover, Stefan, her dead sister's boyfriend, and plenty of neighborhood cats.

I really enjoyed the novel overall - it's very tightly written, and the increase in Iðunn's desperation gets more and more evident by the single line entries that we get within the book. I could feel the intensity ratchet up, and the writing was further animated by the incredible narrator of The Night Guest, Mary Robinette Kowal. Mary's ability to inhabit the emotional state of Iðunn was fantastic, and I also really appreciated having her pronunciations of Icelandic names so that I could better understand how to say everything myself.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me an advanced copy of the audiobook.

Iðunn is in yet another doctor’s office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something’s not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven’t revealed any cause.

When she talks to her friends and family about it, the refrain is the same - have you tried eating better? Exercising more? Establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to step-counting watch. Nothing helps.

Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch in, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night…

What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?

My thoughts: this novella was so eerie! There is something surreal and unsettling about not knowing what is going on with your own mind and body, and this book perfectly encapsulates that feeling. I ended it rating it 5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟! I will definitely be buying a physical copy for my shelves!

This book publishes on 09/03/2024!

Thank you @netgalley, @macmillan.audio, @tornightfire for an advanced ALC!

Author Hildur Knútsdóttir is a new favorite! The narration, as well as the translation, by Mary Robinette Kowal, was beautifully done, delivering the most creepy story in just over 2 1/2 hours.
I love the way the author nonchalantly tells the story as the sense of dread increases with every page.
The ambiguous ending to the story may not be for everyone but it works for me.
Trigger warning about dead cats. All of it occurs off page but may be a dealbreaker for some.
All in all I give this book 4.5 stars as I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Thanks a bunch to Netgalley, MacMillan Audio and author Hidur Knùtsdóttir for the ARC. It was one of my favorite listening experiences of 2024.

I was captivated from the opening line and stay engaged throughout. This is a short novella, and its very brief chapters made the story progress even quicker.

As the reader, you accompany Iðunn as she descends into paranoid and madness. It starts when she experiences extreme fatigue, weakness and lethargy of unknown origins. No medical professional can figure out what is wrong with her. She begins investigating by filming her sleeping, and the results are horrifying.

There was a pit of dread that formed the longer I read this, and I shared Iðunn's heightening feelings of panic, frustration and confusion. The author did an amazing job of creating a circumstance where I was constantly questioning if our narrator was reliable.

Without spoiling anything, the ending was very ambiguous. For people who like clean thrillers that have a neatly spelled out ending, this is not for you. But for people (like me) who are fans of Shirley Jackson and other authors who write with some ambiguity, this was not a dealbreaker for me.

CW: graphic depictions of animal abuse and death

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review!

Loved this one so much. This had me hooked from the jump and it was the PERFECT length. Shorter chapters like this are also enjoyable. My only wish/complaint is about something that I don't really want to say outright - it's a small enough thing that it's not worth the spoiler! The ending overall is outstanding; I just wish a certain aspect of it had been a bit vaguer because it would have hit harder. The narration was superb and definitely added to the reading experience. Loved it!

4.5 rounded to 5/5

I received this as an audiobook via NetGalley. Based on some of the names in the book I assumed it was written in a foreign country and language. I was pleased with both the translation and narrator. When things are translated sometimes sentences don’t flow the best, but it wasn’t the case with this book.
This book is short, at just over 200 pages and I listened to the whole thing within a few hours. I was pulled in right away, wanting to know what would happen next and what was actually happening with the main character.
I really enjoyed this book, but the ending has really thrown me off. It was sudden, and honestly I really don’t understand what actually happened. Looking through other reviews it seems others felt the same way. Definitely a bummer, as I really enjoyed it otherwise. Hoping a google search can help clarify for me.

What in the world did I just listen to!

What an absolutely chilling novella. Incredibly short audiobook especially when you listen at 2.5x speed like me!

I don’t even know how to describe this book. It creeped me out and definitely has some triggers you should check out if you’re an animal lover.
I don’t normally read books like this so I didn’t love it but it was written well! Narrator was great!

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for my ALC!

#MacAudio2024

Thank you to Netgalley + Macmillan Audio for providing me with an audiobook arc. This novella is out September 3! This novella was originally published in 2021 in Iceland and has been translated from the Icelandic AND read on audio by Mary Robinette Kowal.

When a woman wakes up every morning feeling exhausted, covered in bruises and sore all over she seeks medical help but she’s often dismissed and considered hysterical. Even friends seem to think if she’d just “do yoga” or “drink more water” it would be fine. But she KNOWS that’s not the case. After equipping herself with fitness watch she realizes that she’s walked 40,000+ steps in the night?! But she can’t remember a thing…

A psychological horror that reads as a (sometimes) eerie and ambiguous contemporary fiction, ‘The Night Guest’ explores what it’s like to navigate the world as a woman and the pressure to keep going, live life and fit in despite all of our unknowns. It feels like a very feminist read and I appreciated the acknowledgement of anxiety, guilt, health and patriarchy. I really loved that the translator also provided the audiobook narration. I haven't seen that done before and I quite enjoyed it. A very enjoyable listen, for sure.

There was one specific line that really stood out to me, in this regard and I have to share it; “The patriarchy speaks with my mother’s voice.” …come on. Yes.

This is very ambiguous, throughout. There are short, tense chapters— some only a sentence. While this didn’t land every time, overall it effectively added to the spiraling feeling. It may not be satisfying, for that reason, to all readers but it worked so well for me, and specifically in the novella form. What’s real? Can she trust herself? I do encourage you to check the trigger warnings and will include one at the bottom of this post if you don’t want to see it, don’t read on:




[there is animal cruelty, specifically directed at cats and while it is more implied than shown there is one description that might be very upsetting]

This was such an interesting and fast-paced read, which was much needed for me right now. The concept of the book intrigued me the second I read it and kept me hooked the entire time. Definitely needed a trigger warning for murdered cats though. I really enjoyed when the author did “chapters” that were just a sentence long, those always keep me hooked.

CW: animal cruelty/death

A quick read of a thriller that makes you question what exactly causes you to wake up absolutely exhausted. The ending felt rushed and was very confusing to read. I wished the ending had been better planned out with more detail.

The consensus seems to be that the ending ruined this book. I thought the end was pretty solid. It's cryptic, but clear enough if you know how cold the North Atlantic is. I just wanted more from the whole story. It covered a lot of ground for so short a novella. I never got a chance to connect with the characters, and there were a lot of important scenes that ended too quickly. Ultimately, I think this would have been better as a full length novel.

This was really engaging and creepy and weird (in the best possible ways) right up until the end - when it lost me... I still don't entirely know what happened or what (if anything) it all meant. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is rather unsatisfying nevertheless. I found this an odd listen, but enjoyed it (mostly). The narration definitely sold the oddly off-kilter feel of it all, and really intensified the dramatic tension. But the ending - eek. It left so many unfinished elements that I can't give it more than 3 stars, despite really enjoying it to that point... It was abrupt and random and felt unfinished.

This was a very quick and suspenseful read. With this one, the build up was very intense and had me a little spooked. The ending felt a bit anticlimactic at first but overall it was a great quick chilling read.

The narrator was excellent for this one. She portrayed the FMC’s distress and anxiety wonderfully.

Completely mesmerizing - I read it in one sitting. Mary Robinette Kowal perfectly captured the wit of Iðunn's voice and increasing desperation and dissociation as the story progressed. This is true horror so look at content warnings before reading. Highly recommend!

This was such a quick novella and an easy audio listen! I found that even though it’s a short story, it definitely packs a punch! The entirety of the book had me on the edge of my seat with suspense and unease. I felt a looming sense of dread as Iounn raced to find answers about her startlingly distressing situation! It’s also set in Reykjavík, which was such an intriguing setting for me to read about! The ending is one that leaves the interpretation open for discussion, which I personally enjoy! I will note that there is a major content warning for animal cruelty/death which does happen off page but you get a very visual description of the aftermath which was difficult to read. Overall this was a very compelling fast paced read that I thoroughly enjoyed!
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for this #gifted ALC!

I did enjoy THE NIGHT GUEST. The beginning started off great! I had suspected what was happening but, after the last chapter, I was totally lost. The novella was spooky but not scary to the point you wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Many thanks to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for my gifted ALC.

This review will be shared to my Instagram (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.

The Night Guest is a super short horror novel. This is what happens when sleep is lost then found. You might hear warnings of dead cats, which there are many, but very brief descriptions so that if that’s a trigger you can skip it. Your narrator is alone throughout the tale except at the end where their twin’s body of grief is found. At the heart of the tale, there is grief and if you’re not accustomed to it then you may miss it. The horror of the story is the loss of something that can never be found. ALC was provided by Macmillan Audio via NetGalley.