Very very very good. The dread I felt building higher and higher while reading this was almost palpable. My favorite by Emma Cline yet!

The Guest by Emma Cline
Publication Date May 16, 2023

Alex has spent the summer on Long Island mingling among the upper echelon of the East End. An older wealthy man by her side and ritzy parties to attend. All is well until she messes up and is no longer accepted in this prominent circle. Alex can’t accept this. Now on a mission to fix this mistake because she can’t go back to the city. Her past is closing in and it’s easier to avoid it. Grifting from one situation to the next, trying to figure out her place in society.

Review
Emma Cline always creates a great cast of characters. I was invested in them, yet the story only gives the reader a slight insight to the problems that caused their internal conflict. The Guest was well written and descriptive, which kept me wanting to continue. There were times where the pace was a bit slow. Overall, I admire a character driven story with an unconventional ending.

Rating: 3.5

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first Emma Cline title I've read and I'm in love! Alex's exploits were engaging throughout. The reader knew exactly what they needed to know about her life. No more, no less. I'm looking forward to reading more from Cline.

After being forced to leave her older boyfriend's beach house, Alex has nowhere to go. For six days she drifts from place to place, leeching off others in exchange for sex and/or companionship... i.e. their unmet desires.

Alex is quite delusional and this really begins to shine through as the novel progresses. Her morals are questionable, but the people she uses to get by aren't blameless either. It's quite fascinating to read how she floats through life leeching off others. She is malleable and able to contort herself to fit into many settings, but this means her sense of self is hazy and undefined.

One huge disappointment for me was the ending, which was left quite ambiguous. After building so much suspense, I was looking for a bigger payoff, but the ambiguity made it feel anti-climatic and unresolved.

Still, though, this is worth the read for those who enjoyed the dizzying suspense of The Girls, which is on display here on a smaller, more subtle scale.

Rating: 3.75/5

This book was amazing! I couldn’t put it down. Absolutely terrifying and thrilling at the same time. One of my favorite books!!

I was a big fan of Emma Cline's novel The Girls when it was released in 2016 so I was very excited to see her latest, The Guest, coming this year. I love Cline's writing, the internal dialogue of her characters, the realistic detail of unrealistic and seemingly perilous situations. In The Guest, Alex is sent packing by her wealthy keeper Simon - with nowhere left to go at the tail end of a summer in the ritzy part of Long Island, she decides to wait it out for a week until his Labor Day party, when she's sure he'll have cooled off and will welcome her back (it also doesn't help that a recently wronged ex awaits her back in the city). We follow Alex as she kills time for a week, moving in and out of people's lives, picking up a few grifted souvenirs, swimming in pools, eating for free, and so on. I really enjoyed the novel until the very end. Alex is a terrific character you both sympathize with and dislike (or at least I did); however, I rooted for her most of the time and didn't blame her for any of her actions. I would recommend this novel to fans of Cline's previous work. Five stars!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Guest.

I didn't read the author's first book though I recall the rave reviews she received. That's why I was excited when my request was approved for The Guest.

The Guest is about Alex and not about Alex; a young twenty-two year old woman with no ambitions in life.

She is 'the guest,' a guest in the homes of the people she insinuates her life into. We don't know much about Alex except there's a bad guy named Dom after her because she stole his money, she knows to look pretty and go along with everything to maintain the status quo, and she loves to swim.

The Guest is a character driven story as we see Alex try to get through the long week before Labor Day to hopefully make amends with her sugar daddy.

There's some drama, but no suspense, or thrills, though the writing is great.

I'm not a fan of books like these because I can't help but wonder, "What's the point of this story?"

I didn't like Alex, but I did find her interesting since the author offers little to no exposition on her background.

Who is she? Where does she come from? Where are her parents? Does she have sibs? Has she always lived like this? What does she see herself doing ten years from now? Her pretty face won't last forever.

If you love character driven stories with no plot, this is for you, or if you're a fan of the author's, give this a shot.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to read The Guest before publication.

No doubt about it, Emma Cline excels at creating an atmosphere. Her style, her grasp of form and language, is exemplary; she is an objectively fabulous, immensely talented writer. That same dark and languid summertime haze quality which made THE GIRLS so unforgettably brilliant was on full display here again, like a Lana del Rey song in novel form -- hauntingly beautiful and poetic, with an eerie, unsettling deeper meaning that gets right under your skin and just stays there, forcing you to pick at it until it bleeds.

That said, while I can't deny the intensity of the vibe, this one fell short for me in other significant ways.

THE GUEST is essentially a character portrait of a twentysomething grifter named Alex, set over the course of a single week at the end of summer in Long Island. Mostly unlikable and unabashedly manipulative, she is chaos and destruction in human form, yet not nearly as sympathetic a figure as I suspect her creator intended her to be. As the subject of a relatively plotless, character-driven novel, I found her difficult to access on a deeper level than what readers were given here and feel that some context for her actions and behaviours would have bolstered my understanding of her; as such, an unknowable MC is an untenable position for me in a story like this.

An impulse towards self-destruction is fascinating if you're going to explore why that impulse exists. If the impulse just is, day after day, with no explanation for it and no effort towards overcoming it, then inevitably over time (and certainly over the course of a 150+ page book where not much else is going on) it's going to start reading as tedious. Alex was exceedingly tedious.

That, combined with the deeply unsatisfying ending, unfortunately means THE GUEST has been relegated this to my hypothetical category of "completely forgettable novels by authors I really like". Hopefully, Cline's next outing will land better.

Incredible and propulsive. This story creates anxiety and spirals completely out of control and the payback is absolutely worth it. Jaw-dropping!! Everyone will be reading this novel this summer, huge potential to go viral on booktok in the 'unhinged woman' subgenre.

A different variety of summer beach read. Cline’s latest embraces a survivor who uses sex to supply her needs and gives the reader an object lesson in how the mark is groomed. Of course, it only works if you look young and attractive, as our narrator does. This is fresh and done readably, against a context of endless wealth and entitlement, easy target. So far so good. Cline has a good eye and appealing style. But having set the wheels in motion, there’s nowhere much for it all to go. The ending, long and eventually tiringly heralded, is a disappointment. Perhaps there was no easy conclusion outside of cliche. Nevertheless, the novel deserved something better.

The Guest is a great second novel from Emma Cline. It follows a young woman named Alex who finds herself on the outs of a relationship with an older man while hiding out in Long Island. She then attempts to bide her time hopping from home to home while having to deal with spiraling situation.

I loved the way Cline manages to paint a picture with her words. You can really feel the anxiety and chaos brewing inside the main character. It does have its moments where it paces a little slow, but overall the book is definitely worth a read.

Alex is one of those characters that you may not like, but you desperately want her to find contentment. You can feel her constant need to move toward her goal and it's exhausting.

Beautiful and heartbreaking

Man I am glad NOT to be in my 20s. This book was a superficial look at seeing what a character can get out if others and not enough of what she can get out of herself.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced copy.
A young woman pretends to be someone she isn’t in this stunning novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls.
If you love a book where you love to hate and hate to love the flawed protagonist, this book is it. If you like to feel uncomfortable within a story, this book is it. If you’re looking for tidy conclusions and resolutions, or answers to the question “why”, this book is not it. The Guest put me on edge the entire time, in a good way. I could have read 200 more pages of the main character Alex try to avoid and will herself out of every horrible situation she put herself in.

I read and loved The Girls, so I was very excited to receive this ARC. The Guest did not disappoint. A novel about a listless, penniless, self-destructive 22-year-old woman who gets kicked out by her sugar daddy. With nowhere to live and no money, Alex finds herself latching on to anyone she can use to keep herself afloat.

I found myself wanting to yell at Alex for being so completely self-destructive and immature, but at the same time I was like, this sounds kind of fun… I miss being a dumb 20-something whose biggest enemy is herself. Cline beautifully illustrates the feeling of being "other" and the feeling that you exist merely to serve others. That your needs come second to those you're working for.

The tone is absolutely sublime. I love the hazy, summer feel the book evokes. I can easily imagine this being turned into an A24 film. I want this movie to be made, and I’m sure it’s already been optioned. It’s not very plot enough, but there’s enough forward momentum that it didn’t bother me. I also connected with the main character, so plot wasn’t as important to my enjoyment of this book.

I will note, there is a lot of white woman privilege on display. Alex wouldn’t have gotten away with 90% of what she does if she wasn’t an attractive young white woman. So heads up if something like that will drive you crazy!

The Guest is more of a character study than a plot driven story. It follows Alex, a twenty two year old spending the summer in a wealthy coastal town. While the word escort is never expressly used, it’s clear that Alex has spent a significant portion of her life seeking out arrangements with rich, older men.
After a few careless mistakes, Alex’s comfortable arrangement with wealthy Simon is ripped out from under her, while at the same time a violent man from her past seems to be closing in on her. We watch her over one week, while she tries to survive using only her wits and manipulation skills.
Cline’s first novel, The Girls, was one of my favorite five star reads last year, so when I saw this book was available I knew I had to have it. Once again, Cline has proven that she is a master of women’s fiction. The story, while largely lacking in action, crackles with tension. When I read The Girls, what really struck me was the hazy, almost muted summertime feeling. One that makes you nostalgic for warm nights, wet skin and sand, an ocean breeze.
If you’re looking for action, this may not be the book for you. The plot, while intriguing, is not the central point. We spend time in Alex’s head and ask ourselves what her motivations are, why she needs to seek out these arrangements. We see how her past experiences have shaped her into who she is, and her increasing desperation as she starts to miscalculate her next moves.
This is a great book for fans of morally gray main characters. I couldn’t help but root for Alex, but it was also clear that she didn’t mind hurting other people if it could benefit her. However, there are several trigger warnings I would be remiss not to mention here, including physical and sexual violence, drug abuse, and mental illness. If this is something you’re comfortable reading, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

An intriguing character study of a young woman struggling to find her place in the world. Alex is already world-weary and older than her 22 years when she spends the week leading up to Labor Day drifting around the Hamptons. She has no money, no home, and a barely working phone, but manages to squeak by. She realizes that she ruins everything she touches, both literally and figuratively, but she still can't help herself by making decisions that make her situation worse. Close to a five-star review, but I wasn't sure about that ambiguous ending. This was a quick read - I read it in one sitting in just about three hours.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the eArc!

In theory, this book is everything I go for in a contemporary novel. I always gravitate towards the unlikable young woman main character trying to navigate her life; I think it’s interesting and fun, and I especially was drawn to the premise of this one where she jumps from place to place after a “breakup”.

Unfortunately, this is a rare occurrence where a book like this wasn’t for me. In the beginning, I was a little bit confused about Alex as a character. I personally prefer character driven stories, and Alex’s character sounded interesting, but I felt like throughout the book I only got to know her on a surface level, and therefore wasn’t really rooting for her. It felt more like a vibey book than either character or plot driven, which I actually like, but there were so many unknowns that I grew restless. The pace is slow, and with neither characters I loved, nor thick plot to move me forward, I felt it was hard to get through. I love the cover and the blurb so much but this one didn’t work for me.

3.5 stars

This is my usual type of book. A lost 20-something, usually morally gray in their thought processes, and we follow them through their daily lives. I would say this one is more character based than plot based. It’s a bit of a character study into the mind of the main character after a specific event. She’s a guest at all of these different places, which provides insight into her personality based on the kind of guest she is. I think this one just failed to grasp me in the beginning. I enjoy it overall and felt I would’ve just enjoyed it so much more if my attention was just taken by the book and I felt the urge to read it.

I read Girls a few years ago and while I don’t remember much about the plot I do remember how Cline’s writing made me feel- uncomfortable? Anxious? I don’t know how to explain it, but her descriptive language just does something to me. From anyone else I think it would be pretentious but it just works for her.

This book was a bit of a rollercoaster in that I never quite knew where it was going. It felt like the big plot twist or climax was just around the corner the entire time, and while the ending certainly didn’t give me that satisfied feeling (I flipped ahead and back three times), it still worked for me.

It has Elin Hilderbrand vibes but dark.