Troubled 22-year-old Alex drifts from house to house, from party to party, from man to man, doing whatever she needs to, being whoever she needs to be, in order to fit in amongst the rich and privileged on Long Island, anything to escape what we can only presume is a dysfunctional past. An expert at posing, she nevertheless never quite fits in, and try as she might she’ll never be one of “them”. She’s not a likeable character, but the book manages to evoke sympathy for her, for the vacuous, empty life she leads, for her amoral use of everyone in her path, because it’s obvious that her desperate attempts to succeed will always end badly. I found this a gripping read, never knowing how Alex is going to get out of her latest escapade. When we meet her she is living with her wealthy older lover Simon, but after he disapproves of the way she has acted at a dinner party he throws her out, and for the week of the narrative we follow her as she waits out the time until she thinks she might be able to go back to him. It’s a sad tale, a depressing one, but a well-written and well-paced novel, insightful and perceptive and one that that I very much enjoyed.

I was a huge fun of The Girls by Emma Cline so I knew that this would either be a new firm favourite or a disappointment, but luckily for me I LOVED this.

Emma’s writing is some of the best out there right now in my opinion, the way she told this story was so gripping and intelligent - I enjoyed every minute of it.

@currentlyreading__
Book 50 of 2023

Half way point for my target of 100 books in 2023! I received this from @NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion and I must say I wasn't too sure about this at all. I felt a little disappointed that nothing really seemed to happen. It has the words deception and desire in the synopsis so what's not to like about that?! When pausing to think about what I'd just read, I wasn't actually sure I knew what HAD just happened.

The story follows a week in the life of twenty-two year old Alex on Long Island after an issue with older boyfriend Simon. We have pretensions, drugs, violence and weirdness. Sorry to say it wasn't for me but I wouldn't let it put me off Emma Cline's first novel which is on my TBR.

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Alex is an escort on the run after stealing money and drugs from a client, Dom, and a falling out with her flatmates when she meets Simon and he whisks her away to his beach house but once Alex crashes his car and causes embarrassment at a party they both attend he kindly asks her to leave. Alex doesn't believe Simon really wants rid of her so decides to stay on the island flitting from person to person until his labor day party.

This is written in third person and spans the week of Alex's life leading up to labor day. This was unlike anything I normally read but was so engaging and kept me gripped I couldn't put it down and read it in a couple of hours. The ending was a disappointment as I don't really like an open ended ending which is why my rating isn't higher. Overall a good read.

Strange book. The first 25% I really struggled then I got to the main part after that. I’m not sure if I missed something but I had no idea why the party was something she had to get to and couldn’t speak to Simon before then.

Maybe the book is just about someone who uses people with not much remorse?

The end was sudden, confusing. I didn’t really get the point of the whole book.

Many thanks to Netgalley for this ARC

The Guest is a slower paced thriller. A quirky read which will certainly leave you feeling uneasy. Without giving anything away the ending wasn’t what I was hoping it was building up to be and felt it let the book down. Overall enjoyable.

I see so many people loving this and totally get why. Alex is a fascinating protagonist, a true grifter trying to get by. Unfortunately I struggled to find my way into this one. Maybe it just didn't have that hook for me, it's definitely character driven rather than plot driven. Watching Alex get herself out of a myriad of sticky situations while simulataneously stumbling into the pitfalls of social etiquette was interesting though. She's a complex character and everything really hinges on how engaging you find her attempts to navigate the small society she finds herself in.

I was a huge fan of Emma Cline’s The Girls, and after a long wait I was ready to read whatever she wrote next, so I dived right into The Guest.

And, it’s a very different novel, but it’s clear this book is from the same author – perhaps even that she’s honed her craft further. This story doesn’t have as strong a hook or as complex plot as her debut, but it allows the beautifully descriptive, reflective and poignant style of writing to shine through even more.

This story is all about Alex. An unlikeable but strangely fascinating character, Alex arrived in new York city at age 20. Now, at 22, she’s struggling to keep up her clients as an escort, she’s losing her rental apartment after disagreements with her flatmates, and she’s slipping into a life dazed by alcohol, painkillers and whatever else she can get her hands on. She’s a grifter, but she’s surviving. And she’s just met Simon, who might just be her ticket to a better life.

Alex is starting to settle into life with Simon, a wealthy older man who whisks her away to his beach house for the summer. Alex luxuriates in the elite lifestyle and tolerates his pretentious rich friends. But then she makes an error at a party, and finds herself turfed out and alone again.

She decides not to take the train Simon pays for back to the city, but to stay in the opulent area of beach life and summer houses. There, she floats between people and places, easily slipping into social situations using her youth, beauty and charm to her advantage, but quickly losing her place as she consistently makes some sort of error in etiquette, losing her grip on her place in this society.

It’s a fascinating look at the lifestyle of the rich on vacation, and Alex’s detached, delicate third party narrative is the perfect vessel for this expose.

“Most everyone preferred the story. Alex had learned how to do it, how to draw them in with a vision of themselves, recognisable but turned up ten degrees, amplified into something better.”

She somehow maintains an air of continuously seeing herself as above others she meets, whilst also using them for anything they offer her and eventually falling out of their favour. There’s a dreamlike atmosphere throughout as our protagonist floats between people and places, with the sea making a striking backdrop, calm and dangerous in equal measure. And there is unease and danger in the air, as Alex struggles through this elite world, beginning to lose her grip on society and herself.

“A familiar feeling, a dim feeling she could conjure too easily. The times she knew, with certainty, that she didn’t exist.”

This is a strange novel, in the way that not much happens. But it’s absorbing, engrossing and unnerving anyway, skilfully narrated in a manner which maintains detachment, while dripping with an atmosphere that blends seaside vacations with foreboding tension. The ending is abrupt and a little unsatisfying, but I understand why it has to be that way, and the writing throughout is enough to carry this discombobulated story through to its conclusion which leaves the reader and the protagonist unmoored.

In the Guest we meet Alex, a rootless 20 something who latches on to older men to enjoy a lifestyle that would otherwise be unavailable to her. As her relationship ends with her current partner Simon things look bleak. It looks as though she may have to return to the city where she has fallen out with her friends and owes lots of money to an ominous sounding character called Dom.

Alex decided to hang around in the Hamptons for another weekas Simon has been planning a lavish summer party and she hopes to win him back.  We follow her as she she uses the people she meets to survive for another week, stealing, squatting and taking advantage of a vulnerable wealthy teenage boy.

I found it hard to get into this book at first as it.was difficult to work out what was going on, but I was soon drawn in! I found myself gunning for her....with a sense of foreboding. I dont think any of my questions about Alex are answered as the story develops and the reader is left to make their own conclusions. Is she a victim or is she just a chancer? I must admit I was a little frustrated by the ending as it was so abrupt but it did make me think. Perhaps things can never be cut and dry for Alex!

I was hooked from the very first page and couldn’t put it down! Great story with enjoyable characters.

The Girls was always going to be a tough book to follow for Cline, but I think she triumphs with The Guest. The characters are so nuanced and intricate and I just couldn’t look away.
I couldn’t put it down.

Alex is drifting through life on a cocktail of pills, stolen money and older men who pay the bills. Her latest target has put her up in his Long Island beach house where she swims and provides sex until she messes up at a dinner party and she is coldly dismissed. Deciding that she cannot return to the city where she has to face the consequences of her previous actions, Alex chooses to stay by the beach.
I really enjoyed Cline's last novel and this continues that style of writing which is sun-drenched, hazy and hypnotic. Alex is a deeply unloveable person who grifts and uses her way through life but Cline makes her seem almost sympathetic viewed through this filter. A really wonderful read.

Having read The Girls some years ago and enjoying it, I was looking forward to seeing what this new novel was like.
Brilliant is what!
I really enjoyed reading this. Hypnotic is the word I would use to describe this new novel from Emma Cline, it has such a hazy summer, dream like feel to it, which I really enjoy in a summer read.
Wonderfully described characters, not necessarily likeable but I couldn't help but care for them and the ambiguous feeling to some of the story and most definitely the ending, instead of frustrating me, just made me like it even more.

Just as excellent as the girls. Vivid characters and intense story telling. A really compelling and enjoyable read.

Emma Cline's follow-up to The Girls is a tense psychological thriller about class, invisibility, and what it takes to survive. Written in Cline's lucid, shrewd prose, The Guest follows the increasingly desperate Alex through the Hamptons where she disguises herself among the rich and grapples with the ramifications of male desire and female power.

If you love thrillers you will most certainly want to pick this one up. I couldn't stop turning the pages and there was plenty of twists and turns. This was my first Emma Cline book so i am looking forward to picking up other work by this author.

The Guest is a moody and atmospheric novel draped in a shroud of foreboding. It follows Alex, a young woman in a relationship with an older man and when their relationship is threatened, Alex will stop at nothing to try and fix it.

Alex spends her time at the beach, flitting from group to group, mooching off of others and making bad decisions. She is the ultimate unreliable and unlikeable main character.

There were some interesting dynamics at play, especially when it came to class and privilege and her relationship with Jack was probably the part of the novel I enjoyed the most.

However, the ending of the novel left a lot to be desired and ended abruptly, leaving a lot of unanswered questions which brought the book down.

Alex lived life on the edge, she hustled to make the next rent cheque, made friends with the wrong type of person. An ill judged decision meant life became just that little bit more difficult and she needed an out, perhaps out of the city. Enter Simon, the opposite of all that, older, wealthy, and gave apparently provided everything she wanted, or did he.? When she made a mistake she was out stranded, a bust back to the city not an option. Maybe if she went to his lab or day party he would have her back, but how to and where to spent the intervening days.
Alex became the guest you really didn’t want, opportunistic, reliving her hosts of money, of trinkets and medications. as she searched for a place she fit, her real self, musing on her past of which we knew little.
She used people for what she needed, a survival instinct that kicked in, but Cline also showed us her vulnerabilities, the occasional guilt, perhaps the need for love and acceptance.
I loved the ambiguous ending, felt I was watching a dream, a walk into the unreal and unknown.
First class writing.

Reminiscent of a Sophia Coppola movie

I would describe *The Guest* by Emma Cline as atmospheric and quietly upsetting (in a good way).

I read *The Girls*, Emma Cline’s first novel, when it came out in 2016. I loved it, so I pounced on *The Guest* as soon as it appeared on Netgalley. The plot, time period, and subject matter are very different, but *The Guest* keeps the same vibe of dark shadows lurking just out of view on an otherwise [seemingly] sunny day that *The Girls* had. The main character, Alex, is spending her summer in the Hamptons with her wealthy, older boyfriend, but finds herself adrift when she makes a social faux pas at a party. Cast out of the relative safety of her boyfriend’s house, Alex tries to evade the wolves of her former life while also contending with her new homelessness and pill addiction.

Though nothing objectively “bad” happens to Alex during her ghostly sojourn around the staff entrances of the Hamptons, the entire narrative has a feeling of dark foreboding and quiet destruction. I felt so deeply unsettled by all ~300 pages of *The Guest*, and after a brief perusal of Goodreads and Twitter, I’m happy to see I am not alone. Alex makes poor decisions at every turn and manipulates (or at least attempts to) everyone with whom she comes in contact. I found her irritating, cringey, frustrating, and completely captivating. I am sure, if I were to meet her in real life, that she could manipulate me into low-key move in with me for a while, so I found this book slightly terrifying. I love unsettling atmospheric stories and *The Guest* sits well in this genre. Next time I want more upsetting banality, I will return to Emma Cline’s work.

Cline’s follow-up to ‘The Girls’ is an interesting follow-up with its well written passages as we follow Alex though her myriad of difficulties.

The book felt disconnected to myself but I maybe the wrong audience for this book so on one level this review is troubling because of this. If I look at the book from the main character’s point of view that its disconnected narrative is a triumph as it mirrors her main character.

I did find it interesting but I did lack empathy for the character in a lot of ways but this is down mostly to me as the reader and my point of view. The book is very well written and it will be a triumph to a lot of people who will give this book a chance. As the author drifts from one day to the next, I felt I was drifting along with her but I was not totally invested.

As above, again, this is excellent writing because this tells the story brilliantly and like the main character the plots drifts. I hope the point comes across but to score this book, I am going to highly recommend it but as I enjoyed it as a three star book, from the author’s writing style and purpose I would give it a solid five so I will rate this a four.