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The Guest  By  cover art

The Guest

By: Emma Cline
Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
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Publisher's summary

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

What listeners say about The Guest

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good book, terrible ending.

Good book, terrible ending. I feel ripped off. It wouldn't have taken much effort to wrap it up.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Realistic, I’m sure, but no purpose

Emma Cline is a great writer. And I’m sure Alex is realistic in her grifty nihilism for an addict/sex worker, but the world is full of realism I don’t want to read about. Yet I did. I knew the ending would have no resolution- there was just no way after the meandering plot- yet I finished it. The book felt a little like a French film from the 60s-aggressively blasé.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Don’t waste your time

Strong start. Boring plot. Nothing happens. Then it ends abruptly. Should have collaborated with someone. Anyone!

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Disappointed

I was excited for this book because The Girls was so brilliant. This book was well written but depressing without much character development of Alex. To be honest I didn’t finish it.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Disappointed in the end

Love Emma clines writing style and descriptions so much but was left hanging at the end… didn’t need entire story wrapped up but would have enjoyed a culminating moment with Simon or the boy or Dom?

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Bleak

Awful. Horrible. Successfully sucks all the glamour and allure out of The Hamptons or even summertime in general. There's nothing likeable in the main character. No pluck or charm. Just pitiful.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

What a dumb book

Waste of time. And bad bad ending. The story had no purpose. I kept my waiting for a plot. Don’t bother.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Mediocre at best.

Horrible character development. I kept waiting for the author to provide some background on this poor woman. Horrible ending. If there was some implied metaphor I missed it.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Eh

Eh…main character lacking complexity. Reader knows nothing about her. Story os not resolved. Not very good.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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Why

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

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1 person found this helpful