Emma Cline

A Novel

The Guest

sina (she/her) 

Maybe she was going crazy. At the same time, she knew she would never go crazy which was worse. She'd been almost jealous of the people she'd known in the city who'd totally cracked up, spiraled into some other realm. It was a relief to have the option to fully peace out of reality.

Isabella Agostino

Read more reviews on my website!: https://isabellaagostino.com/blog/ 

The Guest is a story set in an upscale beach town on Long Island. It follows Alex, twenty-two years old, who coasts in a drug, sex, stealing, sun, and sand-induced haze over a few days. Her objective? Passing time before making amends with middle-aged Simon, who abruptly ended their arrangement in Chapter 3. Ah, the plight of the 21st century woman, with her cell phone, pawned pills, and little black dress.

You might be left with some loose ends after reading The Guest. You may also feel a tinge of melancholy or dread, but, dammit, can Cline build a world. From the outset, she announces an inevitable reality and implicates the readers in Alex’s human-survivalist decision-making. It’s brilliant and tuned in with the times. We’re forced to reckon with Alex’s needs: food, money, sunscreen, and an outlet for her perpetually dead phone. We’re inclined to sympathize with her at the thought of sand getting into, god forbid, our jeans (!), and we relate to her desire for luxury. No alarm bells ring when Alex plucks a pair of luxury sunglasses from the home of one of Simon’s friends. I winced, me, who wears cotton blends and owns polyester, when Alex thought to use her designer dress as padding between herself and the forest floor. My brain received signals that told me to believe that Alex has earned it when she’s showered, the air conditioning is blowing, and she’s just scarfed down expensive salmon, a juicy salad, and many beers. After all, she made it happen with the sheer use of pretty privilege and manipulation of the rich’s implicit trust in their kind. There is a constant tension stemming from the fact that the reader is made to conflate fundamental human rights and luxury. It’s inevitable in a town where the only places to be, eat, and sleep are affluent. I wanted to root for her existence in the world of private beaches, catered events, and security systems, not because I felt sorry for Alex but because she gave me no other choice. Cline makes “the city” seem like a far-away dreamland; the distance one has to travel between it and the beach town might as well be lightyears.

I didn’t ever want to put it down. And yet, the plot lacks cohesion, the characters are underdeveloped (this was the biggest one for me), and the ending is underwhelming. Naturally, to be whelmed isn’t a requirement, but Cline initially sets up a mysterious and thrilling narrative that suggests at least a little whelm. Alex’s situation, with Dom, with the other men in her life, with the woman from her past she saw in the bathroom of the classy food establishment, all allude to a particular occupation. Readers are, frustratingly, never given the complete picture. Alex seductively totes her mysterious aura to attract the men and women she uses for food, shelter, showers, and petty cash. All while counting down to meeting Simon again at his party. Cline totes Alex’s mysterious aura, padded in the extra insulation of the 3rd person, to string our emotions through the pages.

The Guest ends up being a visceral read on money, mental health, and relationships without connecting the reader to the specifics: characters, plot, etc. Nonetheless, I found myself thinking of Alex’s sun-soaked world of waiting days after I finished and put The Guest back on my shelf. I found myself thinking, could it be? Is Cline making a connection to Camus’s short story? Is it all mystery and thrill, or perhaps more? Existentialism, absurdity? These questions begged a higher rating, ergo, four stars for Emma Cline’s The Guest!

Started off nicely, and then just...went on in the same vein. Not much happening, despite the suspense, except for you increasingly dislike Alex. Overall, I like the prose, the storyline not so much. 

armoni mayes

i genuinely think this is one of the best books i’ve ever read… EMMA GIVE US A SEQUEL PLEASE

the fact that this book has 3.3 stars is actually a criminal offense

was not completely satisfied by the ending but definitely believe it was intentional - emma cline does a great job at making the reader feel like they're waiting in line and are unsure what the line is even for. the deeper anonymity of the main character is fun for a long while but once i hit like.. two thirds into the book i wasn't sure how revealing what huge mistake alex made with dom - or any other big reveal - would effect the course of the plot at all? again, i think the vagueness of it all was intentional and meant to mirror how ghost-like alex can be in her day to day life with the random men she grifts from (and i can appreciate that) but it would have been really cool to dig deeper into how she learned to be that way!!! the small half-sentences the reader is allowed about her past is criminal, i wanted to learn more so bad. i also was very much into the water motif, i always love a good steady central theme that bleeds into almost every page!!

riss

A hit for a reason. Loved this desperate yacht girl‘a romp through the Hamptons. 

Jess Rez

Hannah Yoon

I was hooked but for what?? The ending was disappointing. I’ll say, Emma Cline’s prose is beautiful and captivating, but what did I just read? Nothing really happened and we never learn much about our main character. I understand not wanting to tell the reader everything but I needed some more info!

Alexis

Leagues ahead of "The Girls" in premise and execution and polish of the prose. I particularly liked the leitmotif of water and swimming and drifting, as well as the build up of unease and suspense. Not the best that has done it but definitely /one of/.

A signfican drawback is that you can tell Emma Cline comes from money. The critique of the strange opulent lives of the rich that exist in a reality of their own never quite hits once you catch a whiff of that, even before knowing for sure.

Leagues ahead of "The Girls" in premise and execution and polish of the prose. I particularly liked the leitmotif of water and swimming and drifting, as well as the build up of unease and suspense. Not the best that has done it but definitely /one of/.

A signfican drawback is that you can tell Emma Cline comes from money. The critique of the strange opulent lives of the rich that exist in a reality of their own never quite hits once you catch a whiff of that, even before knowing for sure.

Lennie Roeber-Tsiongas

Favorite sentences:

“And now a membrane would close over the summer, sealing it off”

“They would leave here Monday night, imagining they had gotten close to something, some rarified experience. The truth was that the world they were imagining would never include them”

A unique insight into being an interloper. Alex is pursued by a feverish knowledge that she does not belong but she physically bears enough resemblance to the world she is inhabiting to pass for a member…at least for a while. Her power is in resemblance, undercut by her recognition of her status as an outsider. This seeps in in the moments she notices herself being observed; by a housekeeper, or after she scratches a priceless painting. It is not her own recognition, but the recognition that she has been outed as an ‘other’ that drive her from each place she temporarily resides, from any sort of permanent belonging. Another theme is desperation: which Alex toes the line of. Sometimes, she cannot help but exude it, and sometimes, she is close enough to someone who is more desperate, more in need of recognition than she is, that she becomes the one who can bestow rejection. This happens with both Margaret and Jack. Ultimately, Alex is pursued by the knowledge of her own disjointed belonging; her appearance as a thin, white, almost-pretty woman grants her access until her personality and uninhibited desires reveal her as an interloper. 

Another thing I liked: Cline switches nouns and verbs often, mobilizing a word that might be used in a passive context to action in another. A woman is seen ‘worrying a phone’ in her hand (the hand does the worrying for her). An unwashed pan is ‘scabbed’ with burnt food. Alex passes a group of ‘milky Europeans.’ This blending mimics thought – the way we form links between unlikely objects, just by proximity. A man’s head resembles an egg, simply because both are smooth. Misfortune hurtles past, felt as a physical presence.

Hannah

“It was a relief to have the option to fully peace out of reality” 
an immediate addition to my forever favorites list this book is so good, it’s odd it’s compelling the protagonist is kind of off putting but just wants to find a safe place to be as she bounces around places. It leaves you with questions without answers and the ending, guys the ending- I can’t say anything cause spoiling it would ruin the magnitude of it but so well done. I don’t have the words to give this book justices I would say it has a touch of a catcher in the rye feel to it it’s absurd, you’re questioning the protagonists motivations and thought processes nearly constantly. It’s such a good book and I will be purchasing my own copy because wow.
There’s a sense too it that Alex is keeping things away from the reader on purpose keeping us at arms length as she does the people she knows, alluding to things and pasts “the other girls” etc. but never laying out the details fully it’s guarded in a way that is authentic to the character which was really cool too me 
I realized I give almost all my books 5 stars which takes away the wow factor of the 5 star but i’d give this book 10 stars if I could

Straight up NOT what I thought this book was about but had me sucked in from the get go. Solid character-driven story that I could not put down. 

Jacque

I love this book with all my heart, finished it in two days and felt so furfilled afterwards. Storyline is very special and in a lot of ways quite relatable. Thought provoking, touching masterpiece!

Hannah 

Captures a bit of that Gone Girl energy, but sleeker and cooler. Love how Alex's profound self-deception is slowly revealed over the course of the story. 

Andrew

Grace M

4.5! WOW this might be the most stressful book I’ve read all year. I’m confused as to why so many reviews of this book claim nothing happens, when this is essentially a modern day survival story. At no point could I predict where this story was going. Alex uses only her ability to be a social chameleon and adapt herself to any situation that will help her make it through another day avoiding homelessness or worse. 
Cline’s prose completely sold this one for me. Her writing style is high brow but approachable and completely addicting. The water themes were a very strong through line that made the story very atmospheric and added a nice layer to the existing tension. 
She wrote Alex in such a way that made me unabashedly root for her the entire time. I know she’s flawed but I couldn’t help myself, I wanted this delusional girl to WIN. How can I hate a character who rejects sincere connection at every turn but clearly wants it more than anything?
Can’t wait to read more from Miss Emma Cline 🫶

this took a sightseeing tour through all the little compartments in my brain and reminded me how neatly separate they all are: here is the room where you love the diet soda fizz of the prose, its economical beauty, its trust in simplicity and letting observations breathe and land that much harder for it. here is the room where you admire how dexterous emma cline is in how she threads plot, location changes and inner psyches together across a listless, lonely milieu of wealthy characters, all of them so hollow yet so real. here is the room where you know you absolutely cannot stand someone like alex, where you know exactly what quiet, firm, cold, vicious things you’d be capable of saying to her if this was a real life situation. here is the room where you understand her and the ways she has effectively become a ghost as a survival mechanism, belonging neither to her hazy past nor her over-idealized future, both out of reach to her in what you can assume is due to an internal wiring from having to ensure the present is even possible. here is the room where you feel for alex, tenderly and sincerely, and for the people that cycle through her life across the novel, just as alone, just as empty, just as parasitic. 

and here is the room where you still just do 

 care, bc there’s only so much of a five-star execution to applaud before an act overstays its welcome and undoes everything you willingly offered it just the same. but that’s probably the exact intention, and there is brilliance, too, in being just one more person to have the alex experience.

3.75 ⭐

this took a sightseeing tour through all the little compartments in my brain and reminded me how neatly separate they all are: here is the room where you love the diet soda fizz of the prose, its economical beauty, its trust in simplicity and letting observations breathe and land that much harder for it. here is the room where you admire how dexterous emma cline is in how she threads plot, location changes and inner psyches together across a listless, lonely milieu of wealthy characters, all of them so hollow yet so real. here is the room where you know you absolutely cannot stand someone like alex, where you know exactly what quiet, firm, cold, vicious things you’d be capable of saying to her if this was a real life situation. here is the room where you understand her and the ways she has effectively become a ghost as a survival mechanism, belonging neither to her hazy past nor her over-idealized future, both out of reach to her in what you can assume is due to an internal wiring from having to ensure the present is even possible. here is the room where you feel for alex, tenderly and sincerely, and for the people that cycle through her life across the novel, just as alone, just as empty, just as parasitic. 

and here is the room where you still just do not care, bc there’s only so much of a five-star execution to applaud before an act overstays its welcome and undoes everything you willingly offered it just the same. but that’s probably the exact intention, and there is brilliance, too, in being just one more person to have the alex experience.

I really wanted to love this as much as I Loved The Girls by Emma Cline, but it was ok. 

Kyra Cracchiola

I hated this book at first but I actually ended up liking it. The writer is a great writer.. the character Alex only cared about herself and what she wanted.. lol sis was determined to get back to Simon.. lol she stressed me out with her lies but I will say she made sure to have a place to stay.. also the ending needed to give more I felt like there was more to be told 

Jordyn Walker

An entertaining beach read fit for the era of the anti-hero 

alexi gunner

Well-written account of a parasitic drifter who ingratiates herself among the wealthy when she’s cut off by her middle-aged boyfriend. However this failed to grip me in the way that The Girls did, possibly because all the characters are so unlikable.

Laura Dobie

Alex has burned a lot of bridges in NYC. But she’s met Simon, an older, wealthy man, who has taken her to his vacation home. Things are looking up. Until Alex makes a mistake and is sent away. She decides that if she can drift among the wealthy people here until Simon's Labor Day Party, maybe she can win Simon back.

This was my first Emma Cline story, and it was interesting. Alex is unlikeable, pitiful, and hard to understand. Watching her life is like watching an oncoming train wreck. But I enjoyed the writing and the ride.

Cheri McElroy

Alex has burned a lot of bridges in NYC. But she’s met Simon, an older, wealthy man, who has taken her to his vacation home. Things are looking up. Until Alex makes a mistake and is sent away. She decides that if she can drift among the wealthy people here until Simon's Labor Day Party, maybe she can win Simon back.

This was my first Emma Cline story, and it was interesting. Alex is unlikeable, pitiful, and hard to understand. Watching her life is like watching an oncoming train wreck. But I enjoyed the writing and the ride.

Kelci

The Guest was incredibly fascinating, made me slightly anxious, and I was stressed out by the decisions made by the main character, Alex. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book where the main character lies and manipulates so well. I couldn’t put it down! This left me with so many questions and thoughts, I’ve never read anything like it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for sharing an advanced copy!

The Guest A Novel

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