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Nilufer Ozmekik's Reviews > The Guest
The Guest
by
by
After her sensational, provocative novel "The Girls" I was expecting something unique, intelligent, and unconventional from Emma Cline. Thankfully, her new book, "The Guest" satisfied my high expectations!
Cline achieved something impossible: I found myself becoming attached to a character I knew nothing about. I didn't know her past, her background, her motives, or the reasons for her actions. She could even be considered an anti-heroine: numbing her mind with pills, hanging out with older men to be taken care of, not working a decent job, and not having a proper plan for the future. She is even written in the third person.
You can become frustrated by the lengths she goes to survive by manipulating, using people, and taking advantage of them. But there is also another side to the truth: the people she interacts with are not blameless. They are privileged, snobbish people living in their own worlds. They are ruthless and selfish enough not to care about her. She is like a ghost, a parasite secretly existing in their beach houses. I don't know which side is more despicable: Alex, a 22-year-old looking for a suitable candidate to financially support her but also looking for someone to care about her, or the men who date girls half their age and kick them out as soon as they see something they don't like about them.
Her last lover was Simon, who seemed like a catch. He was in his mid-fifties and took her to his beach house. He introduced her to his showy, elite, and pretentiously rich circle of friends. All of those so-called friends looked at her like an insect they wanted to crush. Alex steals, lies, cheats, and uses sex as a weapon to get her way. But the people she deals with are not innocent either. Simon didn't pity her. He told her to go back to the city and charged his assistant to send her away with a train ticket. Before judging Alex's actions, you learn to look at the events from her perspective. And after absorbing everything objectively, you just feel sorry for her.
The ending of the book is foreseeable from the beginning, but you keep turning the pages to find out if there's a chance you might be wrong! You keep following her as she self-sabotages and tries to find a way out. But like all liars, she believes her own lies.
Overall, this is a fascinating, intelligent, and riveting read! I loved the story's development and the author's engaging writing style.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.
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Cline achieved something impossible: I found myself becoming attached to a character I knew nothing about. I didn't know her past, her background, her motives, or the reasons for her actions. She could even be considered an anti-heroine: numbing her mind with pills, hanging out with older men to be taken care of, not working a decent job, and not having a proper plan for the future. She is even written in the third person.
You can become frustrated by the lengths she goes to survive by manipulating, using people, and taking advantage of them. But there is also another side to the truth: the people she interacts with are not blameless. They are privileged, snobbish people living in their own worlds. They are ruthless and selfish enough not to care about her. She is like a ghost, a parasite secretly existing in their beach houses. I don't know which side is more despicable: Alex, a 22-year-old looking for a suitable candidate to financially support her but also looking for someone to care about her, or the men who date girls half their age and kick them out as soon as they see something they don't like about them.
Her last lover was Simon, who seemed like a catch. He was in his mid-fifties and took her to his beach house. He introduced her to his showy, elite, and pretentiously rich circle of friends. All of those so-called friends looked at her like an insect they wanted to crush. Alex steals, lies, cheats, and uses sex as a weapon to get her way. But the people she deals with are not innocent either. Simon didn't pity her. He told her to go back to the city and charged his assistant to send her away with a train ticket. Before judging Alex's actions, you learn to look at the events from her perspective. And after absorbing everything objectively, you just feel sorry for her.
The ending of the book is foreseeable from the beginning, but you keep turning the pages to find out if there's a chance you might be wrong! You keep following her as she self-sabotages and tries to find a way out. But like all liars, she believes her own lies.
Overall, this is a fascinating, intelligent, and riveting read! I loved the story's development and the author's engaging writing style.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.
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The Guest.
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Reading Progress
November 3, 2022
–
Started Reading
November 3, 2022
– Shelved
November 7, 2022
–
Finished Reading
