Review by paronomaniac - The Guest List

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paronomaniac 's review for:

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

2.75

dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is the second book I've read by Lucy Foley. The first - The Hunting Party - wasn't great but I felt it unfair to judge an author on one book, especially since The Guest List was getting such great reviews. But not only is The Guest List not great either, it feels like a carbon copy of The Hunting Party.

There were some decent twists in the book but I saw most of them coming. As a whodunit thriller, there are plenty of red herrings but most are heavy-handed, like the reader is being beat over the head so they notice these clues and assume they know the killer. While I didn't figure out the killer, I found the final reveal underwhelming. And while Foley likes to write bad characters we're supposed to love to hate (or something), these characters felt very two-dimensional and I really didn't care about most of them. The only character I cared about was Olivia, but that's because

she has experienced some major trauma that no one seems to want to help her with and I just wanted to hug her and help her through things.

Content Warnings