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A review by woahshereads
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
2.0
I saw this book all over TikTok & it was readily available at my library so I decided to give it a go! Overall, I enjoyed listening to this book & thought the different narrators for each POV was genius. With so many, I felt that it really helped me keep track of which storyline I was following. The setting of this book was magical. I could easily concoct an image in my head of this moody environment and thought it was the perfect place for two miserable rich people to get married. The plot had so much potential and the dynamic between each character was set up so well. But, the play out of this story just fell flat in so many ways.
Personally, Aiofe, Hannah, Johno & Olivia were the only characters with any sort of substance but were also the only characters who got shit justice at the end. Aiofe reveals it was her sister who was on the video so she kills the groom. Hannah’s husband cheats on her and is in love with the newly widowed Jules. Johno has taken the fall for every wrong doing of Will & then ends up taking the fall for Aiofe’s murder (is she any better than Will in the end then?), and Olivia is a teenage hot mess who went through something no one should have too. By the time you find out Will is the victim - you just don’t care! It wasn’t a shock to anyone that he ended up with a knife to the chest, in fact you find yourself thinking “how has anyone not left this asshole high and dry yet?!”.
Overall, I am just disappointed with how this all played out. If we knew it was Will in the beginning and then got to hear more in depth about each characters dark personal history that tied them to Will, this review would have been ending on a different note (think like Only Murders in the Building style). But the long built up version that felt like it was 100 pages too long about nothing but “frat boy” drama just wasn’t it.
Personally, Aiofe, Hannah, Johno & Olivia were the only characters with any sort of substance but were also the only characters who got shit justice at the end. Aiofe reveals it was her sister who was on the video so she kills the groom. Hannah’s husband cheats on her and is in love with the newly widowed Jules. Johno has taken the fall for every wrong doing of Will & then ends up taking the fall for Aiofe’s murder (is she any better than Will in the end then?), and Olivia is a teenage hot mess who went through something no one should have too. By the time you find out Will is the victim - you just don’t care! It wasn’t a shock to anyone that he ended up with a knife to the chest, in fact you find yourself thinking “how has anyone not left this asshole high and dry yet?!”.
Overall, I am just disappointed with how this all played out. If we knew it was Will in the beginning and then got to hear more in depth about each characters dark personal history that tied them to Will, this review would have been ending on a different note (think like Only Murders in the Building style). But the long built up version that felt like it was 100 pages too long about nothing but “frat boy” drama just wasn’t it.