The Guest

Alex is running from something and has found fleeting refuge with a rich man at his summer house on Long Island. One night she does something to annoy him and he sends her packing. She's not ready to go back to the city so she spends a week drifting from party to beach to house.

I loved this. A lot of the blanks aren't and don't end up being filled in which makes it all feel like a daydream, or like you spent a little too much time in the sun. Alex isn't particularly likeable but you do want her to catch a break and find some solid ground.

I don't think this will be for everyone but it 100% was for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Vintage for the opportunity to review this book!

I was hooked and couldn't stop reading! Following Alex on her week of waiting around for that party was quite a ride! I couldn't believe the things she could do, and how she managed to get away of all the situations she got into. Loved it!

Incredible novel. I hadn't read The Girls so came to this one anew. I was instantly hooked even though I didn't really like Alex but you feel for her. It seems that she is running from someone but the fact that you don't know why adds to the tension. There are themes of observations and trust - as the narrative builds you are not sure who to trust, and Alex becomes more and more invisible, a glass wall, perhaps representing her depression. Such a clever and gripping novel!

HUGE fan of Emma's writing. She manages sparse yet richly embroidered narratives that entangles the reader into knots of appreciation and anxiety. From the first page of The Guest, I knew that all was not well and that Alex was a deeply disturbed young woman. I could relate to her on so many levels. Her desperate attempts to do the right thing as opposed to her painful, neurotic lived her experience that was generally framed around the 'wrong thing'. Alex is vulnerable, messy, baffled, frozen yet fluid. She has so much to offer but hasn't found a way to give it on a level that functional people can relate to. She is a character who is both blessed and damned. A woman who juggles two distinct personalities within herself. Jumpy, hypersexual, risk taker and a second glacial, dissociated woman who watcher her life dismantle from a place of greater safety - a slow-motion breakdown.

This is a genuine page-turner and I read the book in about 4 hours. Highly recommended - I loved it.