Name: The Night Guest
ISBN: 9781250322043

Hildur Knutsdottir

The Night Guest is an eerie and ensnaring story set in contemporary Reykjavík that’s sure to keep you awake at night. Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause. When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same — have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps. Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . . What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?

The Night Guest

I liked this a lot! Especially because of the ambiguous ending and, tbh, ambiguous everything. The author drops some clues here and there but never enough for a definitive picture to form, which makes for an interesting reading experience. I ended up rereading previous chapters to see what I missed.

Iðunn is experiencing pain in her body that can’t be explained by a blood test. She seems interested in recovery, but we soon find out that she constantly engages in self-sabotage and self-destructive behaviour. She eats poorly and would rather take pills than improve her lifestyle. The doctor recommends a psychiatrist, but she refuses to make an appointment. When she makes contact with one out of desperation, she chickens out at the last moment and lies to him. She lies to her coworkers, her parents, her friends, the guy she’s seeing. She has no one to rely on, no one who actually likes and supports her. And it all boils down to one traumatic thing that happened in her past: her older sister died in the water when she was a teenager, presumably by accident, and only she knows what was left behind under her pillow. Her existence is an alienated one, a shadow of her sister who she looks so alike to (how gothic).

Iðunn soon realises that the reason why she wakes up exhausted and sore every morning is because her body engages in rigorous physical activity while she’s unconscious. She has no memories of what happened. The cats in her area are disappearing. Her ex is harassing her again but she has bigger problems—Is she possessed? Is her sister’s ghost enacting some kind of revenge on shitty men via her vessel (like in the film ‘Malignant’)? Or is she schizophrenic and this is a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde situation whereby her ‘evil’ unconscious bypasses the barrier while she is asleep? Has her sister’s spirit returned but requires fresh blood to gain strength? Is she depressed and all this is an expression of her suicidal ideation? I’d love to hear some theories.

What on earth did I just read?! This was a deeply disturbing psychological horror story, but I absolutely loved the way the author used chapters to create suspense and tension! I did a lot of mental gymnastics to try to piece together what happened in the end, but maybe the beauty of it is that we get to imagine our own ending.

TW: Contains animal cruelty and violence, specifically with cats.

Cynthia

What on earth did I just read?! This was a deeply disturbing psychological horror story, but I absolutely loved the way the author used chapters to create suspense and tension! I did a lot of mental gymnastics to try to piece together what happened in the end, but maybe the beauty of it is that we get to imagine our own ending.

TW: Contains animal cruelty and violence, specifically with cats.

The Night Guest

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