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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
Alexa, play He Had it Coming from the Chicago soundtrack
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I listened to The Guest List on audio - highly recommend! Each character is narrated by a different voice actor, all with British or Irish accents, which made it extra fun. This whodunit keeps you guessing until the very end, with no shortage of suspects along the way! It’s beautifully written and deliciously tantalizing. I’m not usually a murder-mystery type of gal, but this one hooked me. You can definitely tell it was written by a woman, as the men are all realistically dubious (haha).
A predictable yet fast-paced suspense novel, The Guest List is my first and likely last book by Lucy Foley. Given all the hype here on Goodreads and elsewhere, this had been on my list for a while. Real life is stressful and busy at the moment, so I wanted a read that wasn’t too complex and would read quickly—this at least fits that bill. However, on the mystery/thriller front, this book left a lot to be desired. It is a solidly mediocre book for me—it could have been better, and it wasn’t terrible enough for me to quit it, but I can’t justify it winning a Goodreads award. It is no great novel, and had a lot of similar issues to The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, yet somehow did not annoy me as much. Maybe because my expectations were not that high to begin with.
All of the characters in the book are malicious, if not in intent, certainly in effect. Even the reader self-insert character, Hannah, is portrayed as kind and congenial to almost everyone (except her husband), and a lot of readers clearly empathized with her. She still has her flaws, though, and at times irked me. Olivia, the teen character, had passages that had me rolling my eyes with how cringe-worthy and overly dramatic they were. I know Foley is far from being a teenager, but Olivia’s portrayal felt too much like a caricature of an amalgam of soap opera characters rather than a real person. Other characters were similarly flat or even irrelevant.
That leads me to the ‘twists’. For the most part, there is no plot, just various descriptions of characters, and extremely obnoxiously placed character backstories. They make little sense in context unless you put two and two together. For that reason, I made up a bingo list for the book and had every twist figured out by the halfway point, so my enjoyment in the climax was partly knowing I was correct and partly seeing the final reckoning of the previous events. Besides that, I cared little for the characters and the ‘twists’ were quite cheesy, if not unrealistic at times.
There were a few inconsistencies in the book, and sometimes the drama was too overbearing. Mostly, I’m glad I am not part of the ‘elite’ this book portrays—they all seem like a miserable lot. The book occasionally attempts to make a point about class distinctions or racism, but it merely hints at such themes, without really digging deep into them. The mystery-by-numbers approach that Foley uses here and in her other books clearly has succeeded with some readers, but it’s not for me—nobody can live up to the great Agatha Christie.
P.S. Honestly though, readers who greatly enjoyed this book: do you just take people at face value? Do you never question appearances? A huge portion of the novel revolves around how no one is quite who they seem to be, and the overemphasis on appearances during a wedding is quite bluntly pointed out throughout. The ‘twists’ were also eye-rolling obvious to me, and I’m very curious as to how people were seemingly blindsided by them.
Edit: I saw this recap of Pretty Little Liars off the cuff, and now that I think about it, the mechanics of that extremely ridiculous and convoluted show map on almost eerily well onto this book. If you liked that style of ‘suspense’ or ‘thriller’ (and I use those words extremely generously here), then you will probably enjoy this book.
All of the characters in the book are malicious, if not in intent, certainly in effect. Even the reader self-insert character, Hannah, is portrayed as kind and congenial to almost everyone (except her husband), and a lot of readers clearly empathized with her. She still has her flaws, though, and at times irked me. Olivia, the teen character, had passages that had me rolling my eyes with how cringe-worthy and overly dramatic they were. I know Foley is far from being a teenager, but Olivia’s portrayal felt too much like a caricature of an amalgam of soap opera characters rather than a real person. Other characters were similarly flat or even irrelevant.
That leads me to the ‘twists’. For the most part, there is no plot, just various descriptions of characters, and extremely obnoxiously placed character backstories. They make little sense in context unless you put two and two together. For that reason, I made up a bingo list for the book and had every twist figured out by the halfway point, so my enjoyment in the climax was partly knowing I was correct and partly seeing the final reckoning of the previous events. Besides that, I cared little for the characters and the ‘twists’ were quite cheesy, if not unrealistic at times.
There were a few inconsistencies in the book, and sometimes the drama was too overbearing. Mostly, I’m glad I am not part of the ‘elite’ this book portrays—they all seem like a miserable lot. The book occasionally attempts to make a point about class distinctions or racism, but it merely hints at such themes, without really digging deep into them. The mystery-by-numbers approach that Foley uses here and in her other books clearly has succeeded with some readers, but it’s not for me—nobody can live up to the great Agatha Christie.
P.S. Honestly though, readers who greatly enjoyed this book: do you just take people at face value? Do you never question appearances? A huge portion of the novel revolves around how no one is quite who they seem to be, and the overemphasis on appearances during a wedding is quite bluntly pointed out throughout. The ‘twists’ were also eye-rolling obvious to me, and I’m very curious as to how people were seemingly blindsided by them.
Edit: I saw this recap of Pretty Little Liars off the cuff, and now that I think about it, the mechanics of that extremely ridiculous and convoluted show map on almost eerily well onto this book. If you liked that style of ‘suspense’ or ‘thriller’ (and I use those words extremely generously here), then you will probably enjoy this book.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Loved to hate the charcters, ending was good but could have been more satisfying
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
fast-paced