3⭐️

This was wild. The Night Guest is a quick read, but things got dark pretty fast. I think this did a great job covering things like grief, medical neglect, and the paranoia around things like microplastics and location settings on your electronic devices that you hear from your conspiracy theory uncle on Facebook. And even though it covered so many things, it also made me regularly say WTF while reading it. The whole thought that you might know something is wrong with you that you can't explain and that things might be happening overnight that you have no control over is terrifying.

Massive trigger warning for animal death, especially if you like cats.

Thank you Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for providing this ARC to me!

This is an eerie story that starts off with what happens when a lady goes to sleep and wakes up with unknown injuries, messes, and loads of steps. Once she discovers a pattern to her sleep walking, she needs to determine why she’s doing this when she should be in her house sleeping. The ending with leave readers guessing.

Content warning: Animal cruelty.

The Night Guest is an unsettling story set in modern day Iceland about a woman who believes she might be sleep walking. Constantly tired and covered in cuts and bruises from nights before, Iðunn seeks help from a medical professional continuously dismisses her symptoms.

This is a quick and intense well written Horror Novella. It was super easy to finish in one setting. The Night Guest creeps under your skin and will make you wanting more. I will say I was disappointed in the ending, which is where my rating has dropped.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts and opinions.

The Night Guest is such a fast paced novella that I could not put down. You'll definitely be able to read this all in one sitting. Hildur's writing is fantastic. It sucks you in from the start. I wasn't sure where this story was going to go. It left me feeling very distraught. I really shouldn't have read this right before bed. It lingered in my mind for a while. Like other reviewers, I felt upset by the ending. I found myself reading that part a couple times and still haven't fully made sense of it. I do hope more of Hildur's work gets translated because I'd really like to read it.

Please note this book talks about death of cats. Thankfully you don't get any descriptions but it's talked about. :(

*Thank you so much to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.*

Oh this was spooky! Iðunn lives in Reykjavik and has been suffering from chronic fatigue that she thinks may be a sign of some form of disease, but all tests show there's nothing wrong with her physically. She eventually gets a watch to track her sleep patterns and discovers that she's been walking thousands of steps in her sleep. What happens after that kept me furiously flipping the pages to figure it all out! The only thing I didn't like was the ambiguous ending, but I'm not a fan of those in general and I like to have some kind of resolution.

This is translated, and while I don't speak the original language this was published in, I thought the translation was really easy to follow. I read this easily in one sitting, and I really hope there will be more translations in the future of this authors works!

Also, there is a huge trigger warning here for animal cruelty, especially with cats. Lots and lots of cats. Mostly off page but it's pretty descriptive.

First I have to say - this might be one of the smoothest works of translation I've read in a while! I have no idea of the fidelity to the original text, but the reading experience was excellent. Second, this was unsettling in the best way. This is such a short novella, I think you should just go in blind and see if you like the vibes, but nice and creepy IMO. A very ambiguous ending, though, if that is a no-go for you

The Night Guest is a short novella that is easily read in a couple of sessions, but I have mixed feelings about the novella itself.

The first 90% is excellent. As the main character becomes more and more disturbed by her nightly wanderings, the reader definitely feels the tension rise. The author uses a variety of chapters lengths to keep our attention and up the dread as the story progresses.

But the ending left more questions than answers, as the story resolved in a way that wasn’t at all satisfying or effectively explained.

I loved the story, but the ending left me wanting more.

The Night Guest is a horror story set in Iceland about a woman who believes she may be sleep walking. She consistently feels worn out when she wakes up in the morning, having logged many steps, but she can't recall anything that may have happened.

This horror novella has a fast-paced plot that is eerie and unsettling. I am completely enamored with this bizarre story. I was reading nonstop because I had to know what the was going on with her. Iðunn's panic was skillfully captured by the author on the page.
I'm not entirely happy with the finish, even if I can see the use of a rapid and abrupt ending. I do like endings that leave room for interpretation, but in this one I wanted more of my questions to be answered.

Hildur Knútsdóttir created a universe and people that I adore, so I would definitely read more of her work. This book is a great choice if you're searching for something spooky and unique to read.

Short but compelling! Iounn is constantly exhausted and fears she has a horrible illness. After she starts wearing a fitness tracker and finds that she’s putting on thousands of steps after she’s asleep an even more disturbing thought occurs- where is she going and why does she wake up with blood on her, bruised and aching? Also why do the neighborhood cats suddenly hate her…and why are they disappearing?
Thanks Netgalley for the ARC- my opinions are my own.

Talk about creeppyyyy. This book really had me sitting there in daylight checking behind me.

Not only was the use of chapters very well done, the lack of background made the book somehow more creepy? It was fruatrating at some points, but I enjoyed knowing very little other then what the author gave us.

I do think the build up to the end was sudden and I wish we knew more past the end.

The Night Guest was a quick and entertaining read overall. The first 95% of this book I was completely hooked and all about the disorienting atmosphere the main character is put in. As we get closer to the end though I think it became a little too ambiguous and I personally would’ve enjoyed an ending with some of the loose ends tied up neater. All and all I do recommend this for a quick unsettling horror read. Thank you to the publisher for the free digital copy of this novel.

This was an excellent psychological horror about a woman’s descent into madness. The constant impending sense of doom was stressing me out, so I’m glad this was a short read 😂

I absolutely loved 98% of it. The translation was SO good. I feel like humor and emotion can sometimes get lost in translation, but I loved the dry humor/sarcasm of our main character. I also liked that the author touched briefly on societal issues related to women (healthcare, misogyny).

Despite that, I feel like the last 2% kind of came out of left field? No spoilers, but basically I thought one thing was going on… and it didn’t make sense for what showed up in the end. But a descent into madness can cause WILD stuff to “happen,” so I’m gonna chalk it up to that. I just have so many unanswered questions:

Like was the dirt on her body and under her nails from digging up her sister’s corpse!?
Before she turned GPS tracking on, was she digging up her corpse!?
Were the spirals necessary for a ceremony to reanimate her corpse?
Did the sisters hate each other or did they love each other?
Was the sister murdered by our main character because she could sense that she was evil!?
Who gave her the black eye? Herself? The reanimated corpse?
Was there EVER a reanimated corpse or was the body in the end just a figment of her imagination????

4.5/5 stars
What a ride! A story about a single woman with parents who could honestly do better by her. She has a love for cats and is very honest with herself, to a point. On discovering she is exhausted from unknown causes, she seeks help. I have met so many patients like this main character, and the author writes her spot on and completely believable. She is a feminist who wants to be responsible and well informed. She wants to be taken seriously and wants actual care. The things this woman experiences are bizarre, sad and so very disturbing. I could only imagine finding out that when I sleep, I completely lose control over my body no matter my efforts. The ending was truly bittersweet. You finally get the reveal and the cause still can be left up to the reader, but part of me yearned for an epilogue.

Despite this being a translation, the novel was fun and very easy to consume. There’s a bit of comedy that relieves the darkness. I will share a few things that stood out to me:

Because there is nothing worse than having unexplained symptoms. Feeling like there’s something terribly wrong- but nothing can be measured in exams, and you know the doctor thinks it’s all in your head. Ch2

I come to the realization that it’s not just twinkling stars ahead of me. There’s also the dark between them. Ch 17

He may sound like a domestic rooster, but this is not his domain. Ch48

Iðunn is a captivating character with incredible depth. It appears the author intends for the reader to psychoanalyze Iðunn in order understand the open ended last scene. With help from my fantastic friend, Katie, I believe we worked out the deeper meaning. If you are interested in her analysis, it is hidden in her comment below. I have updated my rating, as I knew I would when I finally understood it! I will be reading this one again!! The Night Guest would be a terrific book club read.

Like many people, Iðunn feels like she's not getting enough sleep. She's constantly exhausted and falls down a health anxiety spiral trying to figure out what's wrong with her. Despite reassurances from physicians that there's nothing wrong with her, Iðunn's sleep-deprived state continues. Soon she wakes with aches, pains, scratches, bruises, and substances under her nails. A smartwatch tracks her nighttime activity, showing she's walking thousands of steps. What is happening? Where is she going and why?

Iõunn has mysterious symptoms which doctors are ignoring. She wakes up so tired and sore. When she falls asleep one night with her watch on she realizes she walked over 40,000 steps in the night. What is happening while she sleeps?

The good news is that this book is very short and a super fast read. The bad news is that I ended with too many questions and not enough answers. If you like thrillers with a little ambivalence and open ended to interpretation, you should try this one but personally I need the conclusion spelled out more. Also bummer for the animal cruelty that completely blind sided me.

The Night Guest comes out 9/3.

Short and sweet - well, short and terrifying.

A woman has been suffering fatigue for weeks. Doctors fine nothing wrong. One night, she falls asleep with a step-counting watch and wakes up to see that she's walked 40,000....when she should have been asleep.

It's the terror of the unknown that makes this scary. The buildup and then.....an open-eded ending.

I loved it.

The cover and title are initially what drew me to read this novella.
It was very fast paced, quick chapters, very to the point. A bit more description would have been nice because I found myself having a hard time picturing the story as I read.

Thank you NetGalley, and Tor Publishing Group for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

4.25 stars

I really enjoyed this one!
It was short and sweet. The story jumped right in with atmosphere and tension. I enjoyed the character selections the author made. Everyone felt fully developed with such few pages, and the situations our main character found herself in felt authentic.

Speaking of our main character, her fear and confusion were palpable. I enjoyed being in this perspective. The author wasted no words; every observation and thought our MC has is significant. This is my first time with this author, but I would definitely read more from her in the future. My only negative is that I found the ending a bit underwhelming, but that will be subjective.

I would recommend this to fans of books like Come Closer by Sara Gran.

This book keeps you on your toes. It's such a different concept than what I expected, but I enjoyed it.