So this wasn’t what I thought it was going to be and it sounded so interesting! It started out well and then it just went disturbingly odd and I’m wondering if something was lost in translation. Also there should be trigger warnings on this, it caught me off guard and I wouldn’t have read it if I had known certain things. This has no real ending and you don’t really find out anything. I still don’t know what to make of it and I was really looking forward to this novella. I enjoyed the narrator and thought she did well with the story and names.

*Provided an ALC (advance listening copy) audiobook from the publisher for review. All opinions are my own.

I will update Goodreads with my review once when I settle on a star rating.

The Night Guest by Hildur Knitsdottir translated and narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal was a fast listen. I enjoyed the narrator’s voice. This is a novella. Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this audio book.

The book is set in Iceland. We meet Iounn who is waking up exhausted, bruised, blood under her finger nails and cannot figure out what’s going on. Medically she is checking out healthy. She gets a watch to track her steps. She thinks she is sleep walking. Intertwined in the novella we learn about Iounn’s life, her friends, family, ex and love life. The ending left me very confused. I’m not sure what was happening or what was being alluded to. Very abrupt with no explanation.

This novella needs a trigger warning and I’m so mad there was not one.


BIG SPOILER AND TRIGGER WARNING (so others don’t get sucked and then absolutely horrified):

Violence, abuse and murder of cats.

What I the hell did I just read (negative connotation). This book was pretty bizarre in the worst ways… all of which would be very spoilery, so I won’t go on about them but wtf! The story wasn’t really horrifying or even slightly creepy or suspenseful at all in my opinion. Also I was listening via audio and thought I zoned out on the last few chapters as the acknowledgments and end credits started rolling, BUT NO, it just ended quite abruptly for seemingly now reason!

All in all, this book clearly wasn’t the right book for me. I’m really glad I listened to it on audio because it was a really fast and pretty painless and I appreciated the short short
chapters!

1.5⭐️

Special thanks to Macmillan Audio for the gifted copy of this ALC!

Iðunn is at another doctor, and when they dismiss her symptoms, she tries to follow everyone’s advice. Eat better. Exercise. Take vitamins, etc. One morning after falling asleep with her smart watch on, she wakes to find she’s walked 40,000 steps during the night. She starts waking with injuries, and no one believes her that something weird is going on. She can’t remember the nights, but she’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

I knew this book was short, but I didn’t realize how close I was to the end until I finished it. It went so quickly and had me engaged in the mystery the whole time. It’s paced well and holds the tension perfectly. I was invested in Iðunn and honestly could have kept going with her for a bit to see more fallout from the twists and turns. Definitely recommend for a summer, popcorn thriller.

I have never read anything quite like this. The formatting and extremely short chapters made this an absolute breeze to get through. It was almost like I blinked and it was over. It was definitely an eerie tale. I think the ending was a little bit of a let down but overall, I really enjoyed it!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of The Night Guest!

Thank you to Tor Nightfire and MacMillan Audio (#MacAudio) for the ALC!

“The Night Guest” is such a bingeable horror novella. I listened to the audio in less than a day and it was a fun one in between my usual thrillers. It was easy to relate to Iounn, desperate to feel better, and her search for answers on what was wrong with her. The intense feeling of dread permeated the entire story and, without giving any spoilers, the whole idea of what Iounn was going through scared me! I did feel like the ending was a bit abrupt, but given the subject matter, it fit the story. This is one I won’t soon forget!

”The Night Guest” releases September 3, 2024. This review will be shared to my instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottle) shortly :)

A very interesting and eerie quick read. It was pretty messed up, poor cats. Well written. Thanks NetGallery!

To say the least this was a very interesting novella. I think that is important to note that it is a rather short story and on par with most it ends incredibly abruptly.
Iounn is waking up exhausted, with strange bruises, and sometimes smelling the metallic scent of blood on her person or clothes. She decides to buy a watch to track her steps and accidently keeps it on overnight. She wakes the next morning to discover a couple thousand steps have been recorded overnight. At first she believes this is a glitch and her watch must be broken, but as she wakes in the morning she begins to find herself in even stranger circumstances as time goes on.
I found the story compelling until the end. There were quite a few loose strands that I felt could have been better handled.

Before I start my review, thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan audio for access to this ALC.

Performance: Mary Robinette Kowal did a great job. Her voice perfectly matched Iðunn's characterization.
Also, before I get into my discussion of this novel (BIG SPOILER), a trigger warning needs to be addressed: off page cat death/murder. If the description of a dead cat sits hard on your sensitivities, please do not read this novella.

On to the review!

Story: I was prepared to give this novel a full five stars until I got to the end. I listened to the ending twice last night and then once more today. I was tired last night, so I figured that I might have missed something due to sleepy mental fog. I think I did to an extent.

There is a certain amount of ambiguity allowed in an ending that lends itself towards great works of literary art. People talk, people debate, people feel strongly one way or another. <-- That last part is the key for me, the "one way or another." If the ending of an author's book is too ambiguous, readers struggle to find their footing. I lost a good amount of my footing in the narrative with the ending. I have worked through my own interpretation of the ending, which seems sound in my mind, but I think the author might have held too much back.

SERIOUS SPOILER AHEAD:
Iðunn's sister is no longer possessing her, but is now a separate external entity? Here is where that could make sense: Iðunn had head trauma in the final chapter. Her sister is not there. Instead, the gothic appearance of her sister is both a combination of and manifestation of the evil deeds Iðunn completed during the sleepwalking as her sister. Here is where I feel that I am missing something... why the cats? Because they were important to Iðunn? Maybe I would need to read the whole thing again, but there wasn't much in the novella that would lead me to believe that Iðunn's sister hated her or that there was a need for Iðunn's sister to punish her. There was the letter that was found after her sister's death, but no clear connection to Iðunn's involvement - as we never found out what it said. I don't know. Maybe I didn't want to expect to think this hard once I finished the novella and it is affecting my feelings about it in entirety.

3.5 rounded up to 4.

This was a good novella up until the abrupt and confusing ending. It’s well written and kept me interested.

I’ll start with a positive, I love this cover! Love it! Pink covers are the best. But overall this book just absolutely was not for me! Maybe next time.

This was fine. I will say I do need to ease up on novellas because I am particularly harsher on them. I do think I needed more information on what was actually going on at night, but I LOVED what it eluded to towards the end. The ambiguous ending was also pretty top notch. Overall though, I wish this was a bit longer with some more context on what was happening in the nights.

Iðunn is tired. More than tired. Exhausted.
Shes trying out a new doctor. Her former pcp dismissed her symptoms. Her experience was relatable. The wish for some answers and a reason for the way she feels. Everyone has auggesgions. But still, she’s no closer to a fix. An answer.

I can see how her behavior could have been viewed as hysterical or that of a hypochondriac but the 40,000 steps that appear overnight on her new step tracker changes that. That’s when the story turns. She grasps at straws. She must be sleepwalking? She begins doing what she can to keep her sleeping self confined to her apartment. Where does she go when she sleepwalks? How can she prevent it? The cats are afraid of her. Come to think of it… the cats are disappearing. Is that a coincidence?

I liked the short chapters. Some as short as a sentence. It gave me the feel of someone missing time.

I enjoyed this audiobook, performed by Mary Robinette Kowal. She did a beautiful job making it feel as though I was in conversation with her. I could absolutely find myself talking to Iðunn.

The final chapters (approximately 5 minutes to the end) I completely lost the plot. I listened to it 5 times, thinking I must have missed a big point. But no. It was vague, leaving it open to interpretation. Also, do not read this if you haven’t already problem with animals being harmed.

So, the first 2 hours and 40 minutes? A 4 star. The final minutes? 1 star. I’d even it out to 3 stars.

Thank you Hildur Knútsdóttir, NetGalley, Macmillan Audio and Mary Robinette Kowal for providing the ARC for an honest review.

𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
4 🌟
-
N O V E L L A! I love a good, quick, easy read novella that will keep your attention the entire time and also have you wanting more. When it comes to novella, the pacing of the story for me can either make or break the storyline, and for The Night Guest, the pace was FAST and straight to the point. I loved it!

The narrator | translator Mary Robinette Kowal did a great job, and I enjoyed listening to her tell this story.

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. Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .
𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬:
•mystery | horror
•contemporary Reykjavik
•missing | murdered cats
𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 Sept.3
Thank you, Netgalley, and MacmillanAudio for the audiobook for my honest review

#bookreview #audiobook #novella #mystery #horror #Reykjavik #missingcats #suspense #thriller #booklover #bookworm #mustread #highlyrecommended

I found the initial parts of the story engaging, but it lost my interest as it progressed. The ending deviated significantly from what I anticipated, which affected my overall engagement with the narrative

A quick little horror / mystery novella that will keep you guessing. We follow our main character into her descent into confusion and paranoia. She's found herself incredibly fatigued, without answers to her symptoms from her doctors, and at a loss for explaining how her watch has tracked her taking 40,000 steps in one night. Does she have some rare disease? Is she sleepwalking? Is she possessed? Is this all just in her head?

This was a very quick read, with the audiobook coming in at a little of 2 hours. Although short, I still felt confused and disoriented along with our main character, desperately wanting to know what was happening on these night walks and why.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

This was a dnf for me. Just didnt make sense. No rating. Could have been the narrator but it was very hard to follow and the main character was very unlikeable.

This one was a mixed bag for me. Maybe it had too much intrigue and open ended details? I felt like if I had read this book instead of listening to it, I may have had different feelings about it. I listened to this book in one sitting on a road trip home. I have to say between the traffic and the kids in the backseat I may have been a little too distracted for the pace of this book. It was fast moving and I felt myself missing key details or character development if I was distracted at all. I feel like I could've got a lot more out of this book if I had read it. I only gave it a two star review, but I hope to have a chance to listen to this one again at a later date. Maybe I'll have different feelings after a second listen. Thank you, McMillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to the ARC of this audiobook.

This novel read like a short story. Not heavy on background, dialog or description, but rife with tension and dread.

I struggled to appropriately tag and describe this book because I couldn't come up with the right words I needed. It's creepy, it's tense, it's troubling, and it's disturbing.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this ALC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I think if it had been any longer, I likely would have given up, but since this novella was quite short, I powered through. I wish there had been more clues about what was really happening. There was a description of the map and where she was sleepwalking, but there was never any indication of why that place may have been important to the main character. She just kept saying that she didn't want to know what was there. I think it could have added another layer to the story if there had been some connection to, who I'm assuming is the sister she thought was dead, and the location where the men were found.

I was pretty disappointed by the ending, and I won't likely recommend this book. I've read some other books that are by Nordic authors, and I haven't loved those either, so I think maybe this style of writing isn't my cup of tea. I do hope it finds its audience!