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A review by abby_gail_noel
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
5.0
4.5
This book really, really impressed me. I read it immediately following The Hunting Party and I definitely enjoyed this one more. The Hunting Party was great, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and the conflict more in The Guest List. I just love Lucy Foley’s style of writing and how she concocts these mystery/thriller masterpieces.
Like in The Hunting Party, you don’t even know who the murder victim is until pretty far in. You find out who the murderer is shortly after, but by that point, the tension has built so much that every person has a motive and you’re just itching to find out what happened. Foley has such a way of drawing you into these atmospheric, locked room mysteries. In this book, it’s not necessarily a locked room, but a tiny remote island only accessible by a boat that is not even available in a huge storm is close enough.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Let me just say this: Will had it coming. Like holy crap. This book was concocted so well, in such a way that the victims of all of his misdeeds are gathered in one place.
- The sister of a girl whose life he ruined, to the point that she took her own life
- The jealous best friend of his fiancé who he abandoned cold and naked on an island at the bachelor party
- The maid of honor, the bride’s sister, who he deceived, knocked up, and abandoned before he knew the bride
- The best friend whose life he ruined when they were children by involving him in a murder and when they were adults by ruining his career
- The mother of the child he killed
- And his own bride, who finds out about his hideous deception and, even then, only knows the half of it
There may have been more that I’m not thinking about right now but you get the gist. It was inevitable that a gathering of all these people would end badly.
What I especially loved was the deeper message that “when boys will be boys,” it only stands to hurt people, especially women. The book revolves around this group of men that just never grew up and used that excuse to cause so much real damage in the world.
The thing that really put this book over the edge was the ending. It was almost poetic that a victim of the incident that started it all was the one to end it. I felt like Aoeife was entitled to it. I do not condone murder obviously, but it’s just a book and Will got what he deserved. I also thought it was fitting that she was not arrested and Johnno was. Johnno was better than Will, but he was complicit and he was not a good person either. It really felt like justice was served, like all the people Will had hurt in life were avenged by his death.
This book has my jaw on the floor more than once and I can’t wait to move onto the next one.
This book really, really impressed me. I read it immediately following The Hunting Party and I definitely enjoyed this one more. The Hunting Party was great, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and the conflict more in The Guest List. I just love Lucy Foley’s style of writing and how she concocts these mystery/thriller masterpieces.
Like in The Hunting Party, you don’t even know who the murder victim is until pretty far in. You find out who the murderer is shortly after, but by that point, the tension has built so much that every person has a motive and you’re just itching to find out what happened. Foley has such a way of drawing you into these atmospheric, locked room mysteries. In this book, it’s not necessarily a locked room, but a tiny remote island only accessible by a boat that is not even available in a huge storm is close enough.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Let me just say this: Will had it coming. Like holy crap. This book was concocted so well, in such a way that the victims of all of his misdeeds are gathered in one place.
- The sister of a girl whose life he ruined, to the point that she took her own life
- The jealous best friend of his fiancé who he abandoned cold and naked on an island at the bachelor party
- The maid of honor, the bride’s sister, who he deceived, knocked up, and abandoned before he knew the bride
- The best friend whose life he ruined when they were children by involving him in a murder and when they were adults by ruining his career
- The mother of the child he killed
- And his own bride, who finds out about his hideous deception and, even then, only knows the half of it
There may have been more that I’m not thinking about right now but you get the gist. It was inevitable that a gathering of all these people would end badly.
What I especially loved was the deeper message that “when boys will be boys,” it only stands to hurt people, especially women. The book revolves around this group of men that just never grew up and used that excuse to cause so much real damage in the world.
The thing that really put this book over the edge was the ending. It was almost poetic that a victim of the incident that started it all was the one to end it. I felt like Aoeife was entitled to it. I do not condone murder obviously, but it’s just a book and Will got what he deserved. I also thought it was fitting that she was not arrested and Johnno was. Johnno was better than Will, but he was complicit and he was not a good person either. It really felt like justice was served, like all the people Will had hurt in life were avenged by his death.
This book has my jaw on the floor more than once and I can’t wait to move onto the next one.