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A review by jullietteh
The Guest by Emma Cline
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I was so entranced by this book. Alex moved throughout the beaches of Long Island as a ghost. Her ego and entitlement is often intolerable. She’s quite awful and it’s hard to find any redeeming qualities about her.
SPOILERS BELOW:
It’s clear that she is incredible lost. She never reveals her true identity to other characters and the narrator never reveals it to us. Clearly, she is some kind of kleptomaniac who feeds off of taking what doesn’t belong to her.
At times I questioned if she might be a psychopath. She so easily blends into these random people’s lives and then leaves them in ruin. She’s like an orphan and a parasite; an expert at taking advantage of other people. Nothing she gets is ever earned.
The way she uses the teenager was probably the most disturbing and fascinating relationship dynamic in the book. It made me so interested in each of their own ideas of love and how those understandings came to be based on other relationships in their lives. I’m left wondering if Alex has ever really truly experienced love? At one point she says she loves Simon, but it isn’t convincing. Her life isn’t living—it’s survival. She is always a “guest,” leeching off of other people’s lives.
The ending made me angry. I wanted more. I think I wanted a confrontation between her and Simon. I wanted to know if Dom would find her. I wanted to know if Jack was okay. I feel that the car crash is everything coming to a head. Her not being able to keep up the lies any longer. It similarly echoes the moment she almost drowns in the ocean in the beginning except she recovers. So am I supposed to assume that by the end there is nothing left of her to recover? It seems that maybe she even knows that as she tosses the phone in the trash and can’t seem to bring herself to move towards Simon.
SPOILERS BELOW:
It’s clear that she is incredible lost. She never reveals her true identity to other characters and the narrator never reveals it to us. Clearly, she is some kind of kleptomaniac who feeds off of taking what doesn’t belong to her.
At times I questioned if she might be a psychopath. She so easily blends into these random people’s lives and then leaves them in ruin. She’s like an orphan and a parasite; an expert at taking advantage of other people. Nothing she gets is ever earned.
The way she uses the teenager was probably the most disturbing and fascinating relationship dynamic in the book. It made me so interested in each of their own ideas of love and how those understandings came to be based on other relationships in their lives. I’m left wondering if Alex has ever really truly experienced love? At one point she says she loves Simon, but it isn’t convincing. Her life isn’t living—it’s survival. She is always a “guest,” leeching off of other people’s lives.
The ending made me angry. I wanted more. I think I wanted a confrontation between her and Simon. I wanted to know if Dom would find her. I wanted to know if Jack was okay. I feel that the car crash is everything coming to a head. Her not being able to keep up the lies any longer. It similarly echoes the moment she almost drowns in the ocean in the beginning except she recovers. So am I supposed to assume that by the end there is nothing left of her to recover? It seems that maybe she even knows that as she tosses the phone in the trash and can’t seem to bring herself to move towards Simon.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship