I’ve always found Emma Clines books to be compelling and challenging and this book was no exception. Her writing creates a very tense atmosphere that you can’t help but be entranced by. It’s hard to root for any one character and this but that often makes the best books.

To start as always, thank you to NetGalley for this arc! As someone who really enjoyed The Girls by Emma Cline, I really was looking forward to this one. However, I really feel like The Guest fell flat for me. This book felt like it was dragging the entire time. There was just no uptick or climax at any point. Alex, our main character, is just so incredibly unlikeable it’s astonishing. I just felt like there was zero point to this story. I bounced between boredom and secondhand embarrassment for the entirety of this story. Cline just really failed to draw me in with this one. Alex may be the type of character that will attract people who enjoy a morally grey type of character, but even there she lacks. She’s a drifter with no redeeming qualities and spends the entire novel making terrible choices. I hate to say it, but The Guest definitely was not for me.

The Guest introduces us to 22 year old Alex, a girl who makes a living off of using men. They, who are usually middle-aged and have wives they’re stepping out on or have children older than she is, fund her high-end lifestyle. In return, she is anything they want her to be. Alex is a master chameleon, changing herself to manipulate situations and people that she think might benefit her, stealing money, things, and drugs from them as she goes. In her wake, however, is a sea of people who, at best, don’t want anything to do with her, and at worst, will stop at nothing to track her down seeking retribution.

When her boyfriend dumps her and tries to send her back to the city from his swanky home in Long Island where she’s been staying, she panics. The city is full of people she has wronged, betrayed, or simply irritated. She doesn’t want to give up this life she’s manipulated her way into, this version of herself she has crafted. And so, she doesn’t leave. Instead, she decides that the boyfriend will take her back— he must— and that she just needs to give him time. A week, to be exact. All Alex has to do is survive on Long Island for a week until she goes back to her charmed life of being the pretty girl on a middle-aged man’s arm. How will she manage to this? By doing what she does best: reading people to understand how to get what she wants from them, and then adapting herself to become it.

I struggled with this book— it’s difficult to like a book while disliking the main character. I found Alex to be incredibly unsympathetic and I wasn’t able to relate to her at all… but I think that was the point. More than anything, I pitied her. Her life wasn’t this romanticized notion of glitz and glamour. More often than not, it was sleeping in a stranger’s bed, rifling through medicine cabinets, and changing her clothes in a beach bathroom. She viewed others as tools to use to get what she wanted, which is, in my opinion, a really sad way to look at people. But what made me the most sad about Alex was how muddled her sense of self seemed— how can you truly be happy if you’re always pretending to be someone you’re not? And once you’ve been doing it a long time, do you even remember what your true identity is?

Overall, I’d give this book 4 stars. While I didn’t like the main character, I know I wasn’t necessarily supposed to. It was well written, and stirred up complicated emotions for me about my perceptions of a ‘good life’, and the idea that my opinions on this aren’t universal— even if I don’t agree with Alex’s way of life, maybe it’s okay that our outlooks are different.

I found the character of Alex very compelling as she felt like someone everyone had come across in their life. Alex as a protagonist made my perspective as a reader different than other books because I didn’t find myself rooting for her, but I did want to keep seeing what would happen next with her! By no means is Alex a villain, but she’s definitely no hero. This book kept me hooked until the very end! Great beach read!!

Moody & atmospheric.
Creates palpable tension as the story unfolds.
The storytelling was almost unsettling yet compelling.
First that I've read of the author--the writing was captivating.

With great thanks to NetGalley & Random House Publishing for this e-ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the advance reader copy of THE GUEST by Emma Cline. I couldn't stop reading this book once I started. It was written in a very hypnotic fashion about a young woman, Alex,, spending the summer on Long Island, the guest of Simon, a very wealthy man she met in the city. Slowly you come to see she's no innocent, but is actually on the run from someone she stole a lot of money from. The suspense in the book builds like dread as she gets asked to leave by her boyfriend after an incident at a party, and proceeds to wind her way through the affluent community, hanging on to various fringe groups of people. In her mind, if she can make it to Labor Day, she plans to go back to her older boyfriend and win him back at his annual Labor Day barbeque...if only she can make it. The book was a fascinating piece about an imposter down to her barbecue. I really enjoyed the compulsive pace of the book, the characterization of the people Alex encountered, and the overall mood which was set at the beginning of the story and repeatedly highlighted in every scene she went through.

Emma Cline has done it again. After reading and loving The Girls, I was excited to delve into Cline’s new novel, The Guest, and I was not disappointed.
One thing that kept me engrossed is Cline’s writing. It reminds me a bit of Ottessa Moshfegh, but I find myself more connecting to Cline’s writing and characters much more. Cline’s protagonists are complex and unlikable, but she has a way that makes us quite like her main characters.
As much as I do find this book compelling like The Girls, I also believe that it will raise questions to readers, and provide discussion among readers.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House for a copy of this book and a chance to review the E-ARC!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for the copy of The Guest. I could not put this book down because the writing was so wonderful! I think I missed the Dom storyline, and it was alluded to throughout the book which was frustrating. I liked how Alex was able to infiltrate various social groups so easily and how well she lied. While I couldn’t relate to or like Alex, she was so interesting I wanted to see how the book ended and if she would get her comeuppance or continue her life of leeching off of people. Unfortunately, the end was abrupt and begged for an epilogue. It was such a letdown! 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because the writing was exquisite.

Elusive and beautiful. I was frustrated with the main character a lot, she was difficult to grasp and understand, but I liked her anyway. I think fans of the author will like this one.

So I honestly don't know how to review this book. I was very engaged, and read almost the entire thing in one day. And there were some bits I found really insightful and well-written. However, overall it was pretty stressful and dissatisfying. It kind of reminds me of The Catcher in the Rye in some ways, except I liked that book more.

I don't know. I did enjoy it in a way, and it was compelling, and I found myself rooting for Alex in spite of myself. But I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone. Maybe it's just not my kind of book. I'd love to hear someone argue for why it's good/what its purpose is beyond just being tense and stressful and somewhat entertaining.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the chance to read and review this ARC.

The Guest by Emma Cline follows the life of Alex, a very confused young woman. She has floated through life stealing from the wealthy men he hooks up with until she goes too far and is kicked out by her wealthy, older lover. She convinces herself that she will be able to get back with him and fills her time until she feels she can go back. In the meantime, she leaves a path of destruction as she hooks up with a vulnerable young man. While things don’t work out the way Alex would have liked, I would have liked to see why she did some of the things she did. There was. Line saying she didn’t know, but I felt this could be explored further. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see what lengths she would go to to get what she wanted.

4 stars. I really enjoyed this book, despite my doubts. The premise of this book gives off similar vibes to My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Odessa Moshfegh, but better. The pacing of the book is much faster than MYORAR, and I found Alex to be a much more likable(while still unlikable) character.

E mma Cline always write such gritty, unlikeble (but yet I do!) main characters. I think at some point in every early adulthood we have all felt this way. Unsure of what to do or how to be. In this case we have a narrator who makes you want to scoop them up and protect them as well as sHake them to make better choices.

The Guest
A Novel
by Emma Cline
Ahhh, I just could not really see any Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Emma Cline’s The Guest is a spellbinding literary achievement.
It was pretty much a slow, and not very entertaining book for me. Alex was very used to using people for her own gain. It was slow and when I finished... I seemed to miss what the ending was.

I read this book in little more than one day. I usually don’t feel empathy for female characters who use their bodies and have sex to get their way, but Alex, our wayward protagonist, had me wholly on her side as she struggled to survive.
I think I know how the book ended, but I can’t wait to discuss the ending with others who have read this fast paced novel!

i really wanted to enjoy this because i appreciate the facade of listlessness that emma cline infuses into her female characters, but it turns out that without the captivating facet of historical fiction/cults, there's really not much substance :/

i wasn't quite sure what this story was trying to get at or what i'm supposed to take away from it. nothing is ever really explained or stated explicitly, it's a book built up of tiny rushes of rising action and no climax.

cover is sick though

After her sensational, provocative novel “Girls”, I was expecting something unique, intelligent, unconventional from Emma Cline and thankfully her new book satisfied my high expectations!

She achieved something impossible: I found myself get attached with a character I knew nothing about her past, her background, her motives, the reasonings of her actions. She may also considered as an anti heroine: numbing her mind with pills, hanging with the old men to get taken care of, not working at a decent job, not having a proper future plan! She’s even written through third person narration.

You can get frustrated how the lengths she may go to survive by manipulating, using people, taking advantage of them. But there’s also another side of the truth: the people she gets interacted are not blameless. They are privileged, snob people living their own worlds, are ruthless and selfish enough not to care anything about her. She is like a ghost, a parasite to them secretly existing a place in their beach houses. I don’t know which side was more despicable, Alex: 22, looking for a proper candidate to get financially attached but also looking for someone to care about her or the men who are dating with a girl in their half age and throwing her out as soon as they see something they don’t like about her.

Her last lover was Simon who seemed like a catch, in his mid fifties, taking her to his beach house, introducing her to his show off, elite, pretentiously rich friends circle. All of those so called friends look at her like a insect they want to crush under foot. Alex steals , lies, cheats, using sex as a weapon to get her way but the people she deals with are not innocent as well. Simon didn’t pity on her, telling her to return back to the city, charging his assistance to send her away with train ticket. Before judging the actions of Alex, you learn to look at the events from her perspective and after absorbing everything objectively you just feel sorry for her.

The ending of the book is foreseeable from the beginning and you just keep turning the pages to find out if there’s chance you might be wrong! You keep following how she self sabotaging, trying a way out but just like all the liars who believe in their own lies!

Overall: this is fascinating, smart and riveting reading! I loved story’s development and the author’s engaging writing style.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

Since The Girls by Emma Cline has remained in my mind and one of my favorites since reading last year, my hopes for the Guest were tremendous. This book follows Alex, a twenty-two-year-old solely dependent financially and emotionally on her much older boyfriend, Simon. When she is suddenly kicked out of his beach home, Alex has to find a way to fend for herself by attaching herself to anyone she finds on the way. She morphs into different friend groups and families by lying her way out of everything to survive this beach town and a crazed friend to whom she owes a large chunk of money. Alex is determined to right her wrongs and find her way back to Simon at any cost necessary, which means taking advantage of those trying to help.

I read this book from start to finish without putting it down. It was an addicting read that felt almost claustrophobic to get through in the best possible way. Emma Cline describes Alex as a distant and detached character shown through the third-person narration while still being able to connect the reader to her struggles. Alex is entertaining herself in random citizen's lives to stay close to her boyfriend, who she may or may not know secretly hates her. You see the lengths she will go to hold onto something she thought was unique.

I absolutely loved this book, constantly craving more but understanding the intentional purpose of being held at arm's length with the main character. It's the perfect quick and addicting read that any unhinged women's literature fan would devour and enjoy. I need this in my physical possession to read over and over again.

Thank you Penguin Random House and Netgalley for this ARC.
The review will post posted on https://www.instagram.com/cherryreads/
Mid November to early December

This was my favourite of Emma Cline's books. It perfectly captured the feelings of chaos and listlessness of being a young woman without a home. Of scraping by using your wits and your beauty and the generosity of bad men.

My heart was pounding the entire time, the desire to protect Alex was real and overwhelming.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for the e-arc.

Was my copy missing a real ending? I don’t know what to do with this book. I feel like another person Alex has played. We learn nothing about her and she learns nothing about herself.