Review: The Guest by Emma Cline

The Guest by Emma Cline

Blurb from Goodreads:

A young woman pretends to be someone she isn't, determined to inhabit a world of privilege, in this stunning novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls.

Summer is coming to a close on 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.

With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways and sun-blasted dunes of a rarified world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to the end of the holidays moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.

Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Emma Cline's The Guest is a spellbinding literary achievement.

 I've read both a novel and short stories form this author and I have to say that this is my least favorite of everything I've read from her. The MC is as aimless as this book, which is probably the intention but I was left wanting more.  Don't get me wrong, I still think the writing was good but I was wanting more... at first it felt a bit like The Swimmer but I don't think it achieved a bigger purpose than the immediacy of wandering.  Still, I will continue to look forward to this author's work and definitely recommend her. 

The Guest comes out next week on May 16, 2023 and you can purchase HERE.  

When Simon had first taken her to the beach, he'd kicked off his shoes at the entrance. Everyone did, apparently: there were shoes and sandals piled up by the low wood railing. No on takes them? Alex asked. Simon raised his eyebrows. Who would take someone's shoes? 

But that had been Alex's immediate thought--how easy it would be to take things, out here. All sorts of things. The bikes leaning against the fence. The bags unattended on towels. The cars left unlocked, no one wanting to carry their keys on the beach. A system that existed only because everyone believed they were among people like themselves.