The Guest

A Novel

By: Emma Cline

Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A young woman pretends to be someone she isn’t in this “spellbinding” (Vogue), “smoldering” (The Washington Post) novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls.

“Under Cline’s command, every sentence as sharp as a scalpel, a woman toeing the line between welcome and unwelcome guest becomes a fully destabilizing force.”—The New York Times

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Vogue, Glamour, Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Slate, Time Out, Chicago Public Library, Electric Lit, Bookreporter

“Alex drained her wineglass, then her water glass. The ocean looked calm, a black darker than the sky. A ripple of anxiety made her palms go damp. It seemed suddenly very tenuous to believe that anything would stay hidden, that she could successfully pass from one world to another.”

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.

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 rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day 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.

©2023 Emma Cline (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Cline’s writing at its very best—hypnotically propulsive, viscerally disquieting, and moving in the most unpredictable ways.”—Financial Times

“Sultry and engrossing, with a note of menace, [The Guest] [is a] gorgeously smart affair whose deceptive lightness conceals strange depths and an arresting originality.”—The Guardian

“Cline confirms her reputation as the literary prophet of women on the brink.”—Esquire

Why

Why did I waste my time and my money? So disappointing. Interesting story concept, but development of characters and ending were subpar.

Too Long.

Too long with a terrible ending. The narrator’s tone changes for male vs female were so distracting.

Ends on a cliffhanger

Enjoyed it right up until the few minutes. I couldn’t figure out how she was going to finish the story in such little time. She didn’t is how. Ends with multiple cliffhangers, and no resolution.

Great book with terrible ending

I can’t stand books that leave the reader hanging at the end. I feel like it’s not my job to finish the story. The story up until that point was fantastic but ended abruptly with multiple loose ends.

Bad ending

Why can’t modern novels end properly?! This is a bad fad. The ending is important!

Wasted time

I really get aggravated when I spend time and money on weak books. Who are these editors? How do these books get launched? Don’t waste your time on this one.

Started off good

Kept waiting for something to happen. Totally disappointed in the end. Didn’t quite understand it.

Unsympathetic characters, flat ending

An examination of economic classes, and maybe the reader was meant to feel sorry for the 22 year old Alex, but I didn’t. She could have gotten a job, or not lived in expensive NYC, etc. she used absolutely everyone she interacted with, so it was hard to muster genuine sympathy for her when she was treated callously. Disappointing ending. Over-used metaphor of Alex’s “sink or swim” mentality of all her time in water, pools, ocean, etc.

So very tired of writers who do half the job

This is an interesting take on social class and privilege- theoretically it could have been interesting. However, these mysterious endings are unforgivable. If I wanted to spend time imaging a story I’d sit quietly and meditate or something. If I writer can jot be bothered to bring a story to resolution they shouldn’t bother to write - unless they want to give a price discount for doing half the job.

Vapid

Nothing happens. I kept listening for the story’s acceleration, but it never got off the ground. If you want to be stuck in a deranged character”s mind, listen to this depressive, hopeless tale.