A review by meaghanslibrary
The Guest List by Lucy Foley

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Compared to the Paris Apartment, this book had a more keeping me on my toes feel. It reminded me a lot of how big little lies the tv show starts where you know there is someone who has been hurt you don’t know who and the book flashes backwards and forwards in time across different viewpoints to give you pieces of the puzzle.

The fact that Will was Steve, the same person the younger sister used to date and got her pregnant - that was a huge twist that I didn’t see coming! The twist was also great because it explained so much of the younger sisters actions. Compared to the big reveal in the Paris Apartment that they were all a family that didn’t make me reflect so much on the characters past actions in the book as the big twist in the guest list did. Once that big reveal happened, and I think because I just read the authors other work, I realized that other parts must be connected - for example I had a eeey feeling that Hannah’s sister dated Will who spread the horrific video. Then the rest of the pieces started to click together. I didn’t fully piece that Aoife was the main killer for her brother, I still feel like there could have been more backstory with her and the connection to the island. Her slaying came and the motivations came about very abruptly. So that knocked off points for my rating. Most of my rating is bumped up from the big sister reveal. I thought that was very clever. Also the fact that the best man was supposed to be on the show that became more obvious as a secret once the sister reveal. That’s why I liked that reveal so much it gave me a sense of what was happening but still kept me on my seat to figure out who died and who the killer was.
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