The Guest by Emma Cline Review

Alex is the twentysomething girlfriend of an older wealthy businessman, enjoying the summer in a rich neighbourhood of Long Island. Following a faux pas, she is banished from the estate for a few days until the Labor Day party on Sunday. But Alex has burned too many bridges and can’t go back to the city - where someone she stole a lot of money from is trying to find out where she is. So she decides to hang around Long Island for the rest of the week, homeless, and attempts to get by, as she always does, on her looks.

The premise seemed potentially intriguing - maybe this is a commentary on the unsustainable way the wealthy elite live, or the strange relationships of modern life, or simply seeing someone who coasts through life having to deal with adversity for a change - but The Guest turned out to be the most tedious novel about nothing instead.

It doesn’t help that Alex is a douchebag of a main character, blindly stumbling through life wrecking other people’s because she’s such an inconsiderate moron, or that none of the other characters are much better either, so it’s not fun spending time with anyone here. Even basic things like establishing characters seems beyond the abilities of Emma Cline. It’s not really clear who Alex is - is she some kind of professional gold digger, or an escort, or… what?

But the narrative is also severely lacking in anything interesting happening. I’m wracking my memory to recall what happened in the novel besides Alex dossing about for several days but nothing’s turning up. And when she does do something - like crashing a car - there aren’t any real consequences. Any conflict, like needing a place to stay for the night, are more or less instantly and conveniently overcome with little to no effort. The guy she owes money to only ever texts her so that possible avenue of drama is a total deadend. Nothing more exciting than a tension-free narrative!

Cline’s prose was ordinary, the main character and narrative were both unbelievably vapid, and I was thoroughly bored every step of the way through this instantly-forgettable novel. Maybe Cline’s previous novel The Girls is good but I didn’t see anything special in The Guest to suggest it’s worth even considering picking up. This garbage book is one guest I definitely wouldn’t recommend inviting into your home!