This was a pretty good book. It was such a chilling read, it had my attention from the very beginning. I love thrillers that you can read in one sitting which I could’ve. The only thing I hate was the animal cruelty which took out the enjoyment for me.

What an interesting novel. I enjoyed the mystery of it - where does she go at night? Where do all those bruises and injuries come from? Why do the animals shy away from her? There were some really creepy moments that I enjoyed immensely and I know some readers have said that they wanted more from the ending, but I kind of love that some things were left unexplained. This book would make a great movie adaptation. Really liked this one!

Did not get to read - have way too many books on the shelf. Need to clear some out. Hope to get to this one in the future though.

Spooky, suspenseful, and totally gripping! The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir is a haunting Icelandic thriller that pulls you into a fog of eerie happenings and unsettling secrets. With its creeping tension and moody atmosphere, it’s the kind of book that’ll have you checking your locks and peeking over your shoulder long after you’ve turned the last page.

A quick, intense read. It was interesting and I was captivated by the main character and trying to piece together what was happening to her. Overall this was a bit chaotic, but it added to the atmosphere of unease and horror for me. Definitely a unique voice!

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I love a possession book and The Night Guest was no exception.

When Iounn keeps waking up exhausted and her doctors can’t find anything wrong with her she decides to wear a smart watch to bed and finds she’s walking in her sleep! She is determined to find out what is “possessing” her to do this and she’s not happy with what she finds.

I was HOOKED on this book!!! I had to know what was happening with Iounn. Such an amazing literary horror.

This was an arc sent to me by the publisher but as always reviews are my own.

Iðunn awakes with unexplainable aches and bruises. We follow her investigation into her newly developing medical issues, eventually tracking them down to a sleep condition. Missing hours, missing pets, and missing people follow in the wake of this revelation.

I enjoyed the prose, the writing style, and the internal monologue. There were several moments that I really related to the main character, take this quote as an example:

"This always happens. Everyone will be having a good chat until I say something wrong and feel as though I’ve been exposed as the alien in the group. Ta-da! Did you think I was one of you?"

Moments of this also feel adjacent to the "good for her" category of books, of which I'm a big fan.

However, I think this book really struggles from the short length, both in character and plot. Even considering all of the relatable bits from the main character, there is an overall lack of depth. The moment of escalation to the final act of the plot is exactly the moment the book cuts off and ends. I enjoyed my time in the story but ultimately left unsatisfied.

My main takeaway, though? My opinion that cats should be indoor-only pets is 1000% reassured.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. The Night Guest is a creepy novel exploring what our subconscious does when we sleep. If our subconscious becomes mobile, what would happen? What terrible things could transpire? The ending is a little ambiguous.

4.5/5 star

A middle aged woman struggles with health issues and a persistent sleep problem. She strives to understand how/what is happening as her mental and physical health continues to decline.

This was an enjoyable and compelling read that does a great job creating an unnerving atmosphere with a look at a woman struggling to hold on to what's real.

I could not put this slim book down and ended up finishing it in an evening. It is imaginative and truly creepy.

The story takes place in Reykjavik, and it introduces readers to a young woman who notices something strange about her sleep patterns with her new smartwatch. While she only remembers going to sleep the night before, her watch is logging miles being covered. Shortly after that discovery, she begins waking up with strange dirt under her nails or blood on her hands. When she seeks treatment, she is not taken very seriously by her doctors or her family.

Using the tracking device in her watch, she discovers that she always ends up in the same location, but now she must figure out why.

This book was weird and horrific in all the best ways. There is some violence towards animals which was hard to get past, but I understand why it was part of the story. I'm glad I didn't put it down because of that.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of this book. This was a very quick and easy read! The story was creepy and a bit dark but well done.

cw: cat death (heavy on this)

The Night Guest is a hard one to talk about without spoiling it, and unfortunately, I don't know how to spoil it with my normal review format, so I'm going to try something different.

Pros:
1. Short chapters. It made me feel like I accomplished something each time I finished one, and when some were just a sentence, I truly felt like I was the best reader around.
2. Suspenseful enough that you want to keep going. Between the short chapters and this, The Night Guest isn’t really a book that is really easy to put down. It made me want to know what was going on, so I kept flipping.

Cons:
1. The ending. With thrillers and horror novels, I am pro open ending. There is something delicious about wondering what might be going on afterwards, especially with a narrator like this one, but this was too open. Now, I will say one pro about this ending is that I do think it would make an excellent book club book. That open ending would provide plenty of discussion and theories, which I do think is part of my problem because I want to discuss this with someone!
2. The cats thing. It is hinted at all along. One thing that was clearly coming but still upsetting and had me fighting the air nonetheless.

For me personally, I think I would enjoy this more if I had someone to talk about it with. That incredibly open ending is one I’m begging to discuss and I think doing that and finding the depths in this story that I’m not connecting by myself would really make it come alive.

So yes, pick this up. It’s a quick read that won’t take long, but make sure you have someone to discuss it with.

Iounn’s exhausted all the time, but doctors say she’s fine—until she wakes up one day to find her smartwatch logged 40,000 steps while she thought she was asleep. From there, things spiral: lost time, strange injuries, and no one taking her seriously.
This is a fast, creepy read with a strong psychological horror vibe. The ending might divide readers, but at under 200 pages, it’s definitely worth checking out if the premise hooks you. Hildur does a great job putting you in Iounn’s shoes—you feel her isolation and paranoia the whole way through. The whole time I was reading, I was filled with a sense of dread and discomfort-what a vibe!

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Publications and Tor Nightfire for the #freearc in exchange for an honest review.

This was the perfect creepy, quick palette cleanser I needed. I literally felt the mounting dread in every page. The thought of sleep walking terrifies me and now thanks to this book I’m even more terrified 😂 The thought of waking up injured or in a completely different place is just so creepy to me. No wonder our FMC just decides to not sleep. Also these doctors?! Why aren’t you getting this poor woman help?! Even though this is a novella it included just enough back story to keep me intrigued until the very end. I was expecting something very horrific at the end…but it just kinda ended? While the ending wasn’t satisfying for me, the rest of the book more than made up for it

honestly was on its way to being a five star read and then i’m sorry what in the fuck was that ending?? girl bye. maybe i’m dumb but i don’t think that’s it

3.5
The Night Guest was a very short but interesting book. This was the first book that I read by the author but I enjoyed it so much that I’d be willing to read her other works. The story follows a young woman who is experiencing unexplainable fatigue. She’s sleeping through the night but she doesn’t feel rested. As the story progresses, she starts experiencing muscle soreness, bruises, and worse. She visits multiple doctors but none of them can seem to find the root of the problem. She tries different solutions but to no avail. It’s only when she buys a watch that she begins to realize that something is not right.
There’s much to like about The Night Guest. It’s short but entertaining. You can read it in one sitting. The writing style is very engaging. The short and sometimes fragmented chapters keep your attention while building up tension as we reach the big reveal. It’s also a translated work. The Night Guest not only wants to tell a creepy story. The book also touches on themes such as societal expectations for women, misogyny in the medical field, mental health, and grief. I also found the main character’s habit of anxiety-driven googling very relatable.
Yet, while the story is entertaining and engaging, I feel that its ending leaves you hanging. You can make an inference but there’s really not enough information to do so in a way that feels satisfactory. (Without spoiling anything), One wonders if the ending is merely a hallucination and is the result of the main character’s lack of sleep, a symptom of unresolved grief, or something much more real. We never learn the real reason behind her sleepwalking.
I think the unclear ending allows readers to make what they will of the story. Each reader can decide what is literal and what is metaphorical. Perhaps that was the author’s intended purpose all along.

The Night Guest" is a super short novella, it's something like a horror,, suspenseful. I liked its premise - the idea of ​​a character taking tens of thousands of steps at night, and not being able to remember anything the next day. I think the idea of ​​something terrifying happening during sleep was spot on and is a very terrifying thing in a horror. There were also a few really uncomfortable scenes, a bit creepy. It was also a quick read! This short novella has 100 chapters, so you just fly through it, I love such short chapters that make it impossible to tear yourself away from the book. This book leaves you with a feeling of anxiety. The ending seemed a bit confusing and disappointingly fast unfortunately, and a bit strange but. horror genre have their own rules.

I loved the idea of this novel more than its execution. The beginning of it I was really intrigued, but as it went on and got to the middle and end of it, it didn’t really satisfy me.

I do really like the aspect of it where she’s a victim of strange happenings and unable to control her body. I also found certain scenes to be intriguing like when she wakes up after having tried to look herself up in her own home only to find that she hurt herself trying to leave.

I also like the commentary the story gives about how often women are dismissed by their doctors. The reality of being a woman is that people will often say that the issues you are experiencing are simply due to being emotional, anxious, or stressed. A lot of underlying health conditions in women go under-diagnosed.

Unfortunately the story lost me towards the end and left me feeling lost and confused. The escalation was there only to kinda just abruptly end and be kind of nothing. The questions I had throughout the story were never answered. In the end I just felt like the book was ok.

Thanks so much to Macmillan Audio for an advance listener copy of The Night Guest.

Iounn is suffering from constant fatigue and knows that something is off in her life, despite doctor’s insistence and blood tests revealing that there is nothing wrong. Then she falls asleep with her smartwatch on and wakes up to find she’s walked a whopping 40,000 steps when she thought she was sleeping. From there she is thrown into mental turmoil trying to discover what is happening when she’s losing time, why is she finding mysterious bruises and injuries, and how can she convince anyone to listen to her concerns?

This was a really intriguing quick horror read, perfect for people who enjoy psychological terror. It will be polarizing in terms of the ending, but overall at just shy of 200 pages, it’s totally worth picking up if the premise grabs your attention.

The entire time I was reading, I was filled with a sense of dread and uncertainty.

Hildur does a great job at bringing the readers along on Iounn’s mind trip and helping us to sympathize with her feelings of loneliness and questioning her own sanity.

What I enjoyed:
-The eery and unsettling tone
-The themes of women advocating for their healthcare
-The concise writing style and short chapters

What I did not enjoy:
-Animal harm (check TW)
-The slightly convoluted turn the story took in the second half.

Read if you like stories like Delicate Condition but beware of some serious gaslighting.