Thanks to @randomhouse for my copy of The Guest by Emma Cline. Everyone was talking about this book this summer, and I felt like the odd one out for not liking it at all. What am I missing with her writing? I like it at a sentence level, but I haven’t liked either other books.

This one follows Alex, a girl with a murky past who is floating through life in the Hamptons, bankrolled by a rich older boyfriend, but she knows her time is running out. She’s running away from some trouble in the city - her ex-boyfriend is after her for money, she has no place to live, and she has no friends left there. When her situationship ends, she decides to stay anyway, deceiving her way into people’s homes and lives. But they are rich and privileged and bad people, so that makes it okay, right?

Idk, I found that Alex was incredibly dull. The lack of any insight about her past or how she got to where she is made it impossible for me to feel sympathy for her situation. The lack of personality made it impossible for me to care about her. She treated people poorly, lied, did a lot of drinking and drugs, nearly kidnapped a child… but yet somehow her choices weren’t interesting, it was like she was just making every bad choice to drive the book forward. I like stories of people behaving badly, and bad people getting their due, but Alex was such a bore that this book was an absolute slog, and she treated everyone like shit, and because of the lack of info about her past, it was very unclear to me why she wouldn’t just get a job, or move home. And why she had 0 real friends, and nobody from her past to go to got help. Maybe because she had addiction issues, but it seemed like her drug use was only a minor problem and not totally out of control, so I didn’t think that explained much. I needed some insights on her motivations, but didn’t get them.

I obviously don’t recommend this one - I didn’t like it. This was a vibes book - unsettling, sure, with a strong sense of place (very atmospheric), but the characters and plot were lacking.