Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome. A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. Alex has other plans for the remainder of the summer and a big idea of how to get him back.

This is my second Emma Cline book. I absolutely loved The Girls so when I saw this offered on NetGalley I had to try for an ARC. This was a tough book for me to rate. Throughout the story I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop for Alex. I found myself cringing at so many of the situations she got herself into but I kept wanting to read to find out how it would end for her.

Ultimately the ending wasn’t for me, but I didn’t want to hold that against the rest of the story. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this ARC!

The Guest is told from the perspective of a young woman named Alex who has been summering with an older man on Long Island. Alex has a history of working her way through affluent men, and her history is catching up with her. After a public faux pax, she is driven to the train station to go back to the city, when she decides to stay around town. She needs to stay out of site as she is being hounded by another man she has significantly wronged which will cause problems if she is found. The book follows Alex as she grifts her way through town, trying to bide her time. Alex is a deeply unsympathetic character. While I think this book will work for a lot of readers, I read the majority of the book with a deep sense of unpleasant dread in the pit of my stomach. Things cannot end well for her, and I felt more and more uncomfortable with the actions she took. It is not a poorly written book- I think it just did not work for me.

Thank you to Random House via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

Emma Cline has taken a grifter/possible....working girl and transformed her into someone who you can't look away from. Alex had a good thing going with Simon, an older man who took her out of the city and onto 'the island.' She spends her day swimming, tanning, and just generally doing nothing.

After a dinner party, in which Alex makes a slight social mistake, Simon has her taken to the train station to head back to the city. Alex, however, has other ideas.

This is the story of a young woman who is floating through life, hurting people to get what she wants. She doesn't care about anything or really, anyone. Her relationship with Simon is one of necessity, she needs him to survive, to have someone to be with, to have something pay off her mistakes.

This book is one week in the life of a woman who is still young enough to make dumb choices, yet old enough to know better. Every opportunity to be a good person, Alex will do the worst. It's a fantastic work of literary fiction.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

I previously read The Girls by Emma Cline and was looking forward to reading The Guest. I didn’t love The Girls but I saw a lot of potential in Cline’s writing. Similarity to The Girls, The Guest harnesses a unique female voice. The book is told from third person perspective which gives the story an impersonal feel, allowing the reader to see the unlikable qualities about Alex. The writing feels hazy and dreamlike in the languid summer setting. Slow paced and lacking plot it captures the essence of the main character.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. I really enjoyed 'The Girls' by Cline so I thought I'd give this one a chance. However, it just did not live up to my expectation. I couldn't get into it and I did not care for the main character or the story. Hopefully, next time.

Vivid, dark, and likely accurate novel from the perspective of a "sugar baby". This was psychologically apt and engaging, and I suspect will be the smart beach reach of 2023.

In this suspenseful thriller, Alex, 22, has been staying with an older man, Simon, at his home in a wealthy coastal community on Long Island. After he kicks her out and buys her a train ticket home, she elects to stick around. She has a week to kill before his Labor Day party. She has no home to return to in the city, just scorned roommates, burned bridges, and a violent man from her past whose threatening, persistent texts she's actively ignoring.

Cline masterfully ratchets up the tension from life’s understated, quiet moments like lingering stares from men on the subway and forced body language at parties. Alex's most useful skill is pretending she’s someone she’s not, navigating and catering to the desires of those around her; she spends the next few days ingratiating herself into strangers' lives, sneaking around rich people's homes, eating their food, drinking their booze, and charging their cards. Expelled from her home with next to no money, bouncing around from person to person, relying on her charm and wit, trying to find her bearings among a privileged crowd, Alex is like a Gen Z Barry Lyndon.

Cline's tone is corrosive and bitter, describing Alex’s world as one that’s scary and predatory, but hackable. And despite Alex's sophisticated manipulation skills, she still acts like a kid. It's telling when, later on, Alex is with a young boy at the beach, who eats ice cream and asks her: "Are you a good grown-up?" She considers the question, and replies, "I'm not even a grown-up."

In promotional materials, Cline cites Patricia Highsmith and the Safdie brothers movie Good Time as part of the book's literary DNA. Alex’s grift is an adrenaline rush, her lawlessness is a thrill ride. Thanks to Random House for sharing NetGalley access.

I love meeting the characters in Emma Kline’s books. They’re risk takers, strong but unwise, savvy but loose with their morals. These are the characters we love to live vicariously through, taking risks, sleeping around, and making mistakes while we remain in the comfort of our favorite reading chair.
Meet Alex, a grifter of lower expectations. As long as she has a roof over her head, someone to take care of her, and nice trinkets, she’s happy.
Currently, she’s living off of Simon in a beautiful home on the coast of Long Island. Her days consist of floating in the ocean, then the pool, then going to nice restaurants. Her abuse of chemicals and alcohol is an acceptable hazard, but this is what makes her judgment blurry. Suddenly she’s out on the street again. Slinking from place to place, sleeping out in the elements, and showing absolutely no respect for herself, Alex slowly spirals down. She also has a debt to pay to Dom, a previous victim, and he’s getting closer. This is such a tense read, you’re constantly amazed at how little Alex cares about protocol, rules, and herself. I love this author and anxiously await her next amazing read.
Thanks to Random House Publishing Group- Random House for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The publishing date is May 16, 2023.

Alex is a drifter. Put up in an older man named Simon's glamorous New York estate, her every need is seen to, so long as she can maintain the role that is expected of her. When an otherwise unassuming dinner party at Simon's takes a turn, Alex is suddenly turned out back onto the streets with nothing but her broken phone and a history of long-burned bridges behind her.

For Alex, it's not just a question of where she'll go next: it's who she'll be next. And that, to put it simply, is whoever she needs to be to get by.

Set against the backdrop of summer on the East End of Long Island, "The Guest" was utterly spring-loaded with potential, but sadly failed to make anything imaginative out of Alex's story. Her drawn-to-glamour, morally-grey character felt very been-there-done-that, and despite the story being overall easy to fly through, by the end not much had happened from my perspective.

Cline introduces peripheral characters throughout the story that also had potential but fell flat and felt largely "unfinished" by the end of the story: what was their purpose for Alex, what were they after? Unfortunately, "The Guest" leaves these and--no spoilers here--another enormous question left wholly unanswered with subpar execution that left me wondering if Cline intended a deeper meaning in the story or not.

Overall lacking in the ingenue or explosiveness I was looking for in a story like Alex's, "The Guest" holds onto some nice pieces of suspense and makes for an easy read. Having not loved "The Girls," I'd say my reading journey with Cline's books likely ends here.

As a fan of Emma Cline's work, I was excited to read The Guest. It is a story about 22 year old Alex, a grifter, a thief, a likely call girl, who was kicked out of her latest partner Simon's home after a faux pas at a high-class evening party. She spends the next week using manipulation, street-smarts, and an acute ability to read people to cause havoc, despite her plan to force her way back into Simon's life.

Emma Cline is a master at writing a story without really telling it, enabling the reader to grasp what is happening through description and dialogue. And, she certainly does it again in this book.

If it were not for the writing style, I likely would not have finished it. It is not easy to read a novel that moves slowly, feels cold with largely unlikeable characters, and still maintains interest. A true testament to an author's gift.

Thank you Net Galley and Random House for the ARC.

I would read 'The Guest' for Emma Cline's tone and writing alone. I was glued to the page and engulfed in the story before knowing much about our main character at all and even when she wasn't doing much of anything. It was interesting simply to be an onlooker in her world.

In fact, the feeling of looking in onto an unseasonably melancholy beachside summer fits perfectly with what the main character is going through. She's hiding in plain sight and pretending to be whomever she needs to be to get by. Even when she really is making things happen for herself, it feels passive because of her lack of connection to any wider motivation that we know about. It's fascinating and kind of heartbreaking to watch her do it and to watch her exist in a community without any meaningful connections to it, and only even attempted connections in precarious ways to meet her own basic needs. There's no real sense of urgency in moving towards anything - only hiding away.

If you like reading books for vibes alone, you'll find an intriguing albeit melancholy story here. There's not a ton of character growth or resolution to the plot, but I found myself drawn to the page nonetheless.

**Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review**

(will post on @__joyreads and tygreperl.com for pub day or am happy to post earlier if you'd prefer)

Alex is the definition of an unhinged female narrator: she’s young and hot, cool and emotionless, she gets out of messes by creating even bigger ones, she uses men and lies and cheats and steals and deludes herself into thinking all of this is okay. But what set this book apart from other hot girl lit/unhinged female narratives wasn’t necessarily a great plot twist or a jaw-dropping ending or a completely reinvented premise: what this book nails is tension, slow and steady, that makes your shoulders tense and your eyes race to the next page.

In this book, we follow Alex through a scorching week at the end of summer as she tries desperately to stay floating around the affluent East End of Long Island, even though she’s been asked by the older man she was staying with to leave and go back to the city. But she can’t go back to the city… she has no choice but to drift around and find a way to stay, regardless of what it might take.

The contrast between the languid, slow suburbs that Alex navigates through and her desperate situation is pure gold — picture being under a blazing sun, woozy from heat, edges of your vision blurry, hair knotted and salty, yet trying to stay sharp and cool and collected. Also, whether intentional or not, the nod to John Cheever’s The Swimmer was genius… from her endless dips through endless pools on endless, massive properties to the warped sense of time to her slow but steady disillusionment with the myth of suburban bliss.

This comes out in May and I’m counting down the days until I can buy my own copy and walk to the beach and re-read this in the SUN which is 100% how it deserves to be read

I finished The Guest although in some parts reluctantly. I was intrigued by the characters especially Alex, but I could not get to like her. I assume this is the point of her character and she is well written.
I read through the book wondering what might happen and in the end not much did, but the snapshot of a life with the flaws and decisions (usually bad or terrible) made for an interesting read.

Really enjoyed this book. it's set on Long Island- and I always like reading books that are set in my area. I read this first before reading the Girls, and I think she topped herself in this one. My only complaint is that the ending was so vague.

Emma Cline always sucks me into the story quickly and leaves me deeply immersed. You don't read her stories you live inside of them. Vivid and compelling. I have a book hangover. Thank You NetGalley and Random House for the Arc of this wonderful book

Sad that I finished this. I wish I were still reading it. Empathetic and exacting, a real vivid look inside the mind of someone whose identity is in flux, by design.

Emma cline has done it again I absolutely love the girls so much and her short story collection daddy and the guest was no different I wait for may so I can get my own physical copy thank you net gallery for the review coby

Alex is a young woman, living with her very wealthy boyfriend on Long Island for the summer, escaping an ex boyfriend and life of near poverty as an escort in NYC. She's an unlikable character, and unreliable narrator from the beginning. In The Guest, we see how she hops from situation to situation, attempting to manipulate others to allow her safe places to stay after her boyfriend kicks her out of his home shortly before his big end of season Labor Day Party. Illogically, she is convinced that crashing his party will convince him to allow her back into his life.

I don't mind an unlikable narrator, and certainly don't need to like the main character to enjoy a book, and for a good bit of the book I was curious how Alex managed to successfully con person after person, if only for brief periods of time, in her scheme to stay on Long Island. That said, eventually the book lost steam for me, and I was left questioning what the message behind this book was, what was the point of all the trouble Alex went through. The ending comes on rather abruptly and very unsatisfactorily as well. Which left me with my rating of 3 stars overall, it was a strong beginning to middle, but the end severely detracted from my overall enjoyment of the novel.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

This is hard to get into. I feel like there’s no anchor point. This could be a short story? I feel very adrift in this and could tell from the beginning that the point of this is there is no point. Hard pass for me.

Told solely from a third person point of view, this story of the homeless 'grifter' and chancer, in her 20s, Alex, who had a really good thing with an older rich dude on the island (a US mainland retreat for the elite), when a faux pas results in him summarily dismissing her. Alex does not - want to give up on the 'relationship' / leave the island / accept reality; the book follows her time on the island as she tries to carve out some sort of existence, creating different tailored personas to be 'the guest' in the lives of people that maybe able support or protect her, while she decides her next steps. Alex is a young woman teetering on the edge, but one who is very capable at using her experiences, intelligence and guile to survive.

Like in The Girls Cline creates a unique (female) voice and despite obviously not being particularly a nice or rational individual, still had me the reader, completely immersed in her stories of survival, being an outlier and being a guest in others' lives. Some parts psychological thriller, some parts sensual suspense, for me this book meets one of the most critical criteria for a good read, it's genuinely 'fresh' and innovative, and at no point did I have any idea where the story was going, yet every twist and turn sat well with the protagonist and her reality.