The Guest List
Ratings628
Average rating3.6
I really enjoyed the audio production as it helped give all the characters a little more personality. Classic Christie-style mystery with an ending that satisfied me even if it didn't surprise me.
Character motivations fell flat for me. The ending was also too abrupt. I went into this book thinking I'd get a Knives Out murderous romp, especially judging by the summary and tagine, but I was wrong.
A Page Turner
On an Irish island all the threads of intertwined lives come together in an unexpected manner. A real whodunit right up to the end.
Классическая история - заброшенный остров, огромный таинственный дом, десятка гостей, классический злодей и мрачная, давящая атмосфера.... Герметичная история, однако не совсем детектив. Скорее, истории жизнь нескольких людей, связанные между собой единой ниткой. Отмечу, что ниточку эту вычислить непросто; несмотря на мнимую очевидность решения, для меня был неожиданностью данный факт.
В целом, книга понравилась, однако я ждала все же герметичного детектива. Вопрос ожидания, но в целом эта книга автора мне понравилась даже больше первой (“Охотничий дом”)
Nie tego oczekiwałam. Strasznie się wszystko ciągnęło a zakończenie nie było dla mnie satysfakcjonujące.
I enjoyed it. Especially the ending. I'm a sucker for Agatha type scenarios. I like the way this author lets you know someone is murdered but you find out at the end who's dead and then who did it.
This book was excellent in weaving so many character's lives together seamlessly, and I truly was caught off guard by the twists. This made me stay up late so I could find out what happened- and I finished it in one day. Quick, suspenseful read that's worth it for the character building and the suspense.
This one is superior to the Hunting Party. However, the same formula is used in both and this one was very predictable. The story is entertaining, but it's not going to knock your socks off with the reveal.
Enjoyable and mysterious read. A critical and interesting commentary on “posh” folk, which I can't say I disagree with, but I don't know that I know any “truly posh” people, so...but I enjoyed this twisty/turny adventure. Reminded me a bit of a Ruth Ware novel.
Enjoyed this book immensely! Particularly the writing style...
Telling the story from every characters pov was what made the read enjoyable.
I am someone who enjoys a good plot twist and the various plot twists throughout the book fulfilled my expectations.
Highly recommend this book
I am only knocking off stars because I feel like this book had too many point of views with too short of chapters in the beginning. It was hard to really get a feel for each character and the significance their story brought
I really didn't enjoy this book. I liked the atmosphere/writing but I couldn't care any less about the characters and mystery.
Amazing build-up and suspense!!
A gripping murder mystery that starts to converge so quickly from the second half and keeps you on the edge, wanting to know, so eagerly, who the killer is.
What happened? And who did it? Each character (guest) tells their own story of the wedding weekend. This was an interesting story, with just the right amount of details. I already recommended to others.
Definitely a nice break from the really serious and depressing great literature I've been reading lately. It was a bit contrived, but that made it easier for me to detach emotionally. By the end, though, I was hooked. I stayed up late to get to the ending, which was mostly satisfying and a bit surprising. I enjoyed the description of the island. I would read her again.
This wasn't a great book. It wasn't even a great mystery. It was, however, a fun read. I was never bored with the ridiculous drama of rich, awful people who are painfully heteronormative. This is pretty much the same shtick as The Hunting Party, but the toxic friendship is male this time around. And it's a wedding, obviously. But it all tracks exactly the same, just with different details. I don't really get the love; but at least I was entertained, even though I kinda guessed what was going on way before the end. It was bad but fun, so it gets three stars, rounded up from 2.5 or so.
Yes! I gotta say, this is one of those books that took me completely by surprise in the end because when I first started reading it I did not think I would end up giving it five stars. The beginning was a bit slow but once it got going it completely won me over and I totally think that this book deserves all the hype that it has gotten. It's a really terrific “closed island” thriller mystery with a murder at the center and the reader trying to figure out, first of all- who is dead, and then- who killed them. Wow, there are not enough good things that I can say about this novel and will be recommending it for years to come.
First of, The Guest List is about a wedding on a secluded island and following all the main individuals involved in it as things transpire and secrets are revealed which leads to a murder and trying to figure out who committed the crime. I have been reading lots of closed-in, murder thriller mysteries lately and I gotta say, this one is probably my favorite so far. Even though this plot has been done countless times, the characters were just so sinister and flawed and messed up, that it was fascinating watching as things came to a head and secrets about how they were all related were revealed. I thought it was clever and very intriguing and I loved every moment of it.
Further on, the characterization was superb, there's no other word for it. I love messed up people doing messed up things and this novel delivered exactly that. Not only were the characters super complex and intricately complicated, but they also had complete backgrounds that really explained how they got to be who they were at the time the novel took place. Even though it was a bit of a slow burn in the beginning, the backgrounds really brought the characters to light even more and made them bigger than life. There were no cookie-cutter characters here, even if they tried to give off that persona in the very beginning. Also, the different characters' perspectives were done incredibly well.
Finally, the writing was flawless and I was able to breeze through this novel without having to go back and reread sections of it to make sure I wasn't missing anything important. I loved that the chapters were so short but even aside from that, the writing painted clearly what was transpiring in the novel and built up to a crescendo at the end of the novel, the climax. The ending of the book was my absolute favorite part because it was mind-blowing and spine tingling and part of that had to do with the extraordinary writing choices that the author made with this novel.
In conclusion, I believe that anyone who loves thrillers and murder mysteries would love this book. I shy away a bit from hyped up novels but this one definitely turned me into a believer and I will be reading Lucy Foley's other works very soon. I love finding favorite authors and she has definitely become one of mine. Don't skip this book, it's well worth a read!
»The lights go out. In an instant, everything is in darkness. The band stop their playing. Inside the marquee the wedding guests squeal and clutch at one another.« These are the strong, foreshadowing first words of this guilty pleasure of a book... There's a wedding on a deserted island, several dark (slightly convoluted) mysteries from the past and on this brightest of days, a severe storm is brewing... This, with a small omission maybe, could have been the blurb to this often-reviewed Goodreads Choice Awards winner of 2020. This slightly Agatha-Christie-inspired setting lent itself to some good whodunnit murder mystery and I fully expected one. Unfortunately, that wasn't quite what I got: What I got was an attempt at showing me the true characters of the bride, the groom, their families and friends, down to Hannah, the Plus-one. That attempt wasn't even bad and rather entertaining. It was slightly marred by the fact that everyone basically “sounded” and “felt” alike. We spend much time “in the head” (or rather: the thoughts) of our heroines and heroes and all their thoughts are expressed similarly. Plus: Only on its last pages does the book finally reveal the actual murder victim. It took us “only” about 75% of the book to get to the “main course” - but at least the voyage was pleasant. From that stems, this is not a fast-paced or true whodunit book at all: The victim wasn't exactly likeable and most of their guests would have had a reason to kill him. And we know all that at this point - so it kind of doesn't matter who the culprit is. The ever-changing perspectives were actually interesting, well-implemented and clearly marked, which, I think, is important to avoid potential confusion. Less helpful were the annoying jumps between “now” (the night of the wedding day) and a day or a few hours before. Such a classically-inspired mystery would have probably benefited from a chronological order. And despite all these flaws I felt mostly interested, entertained and wanted to keep turning the ‘pages' of my Kindle. The brief, fast-paced chapters leading to the finale were a very entertaining feature as well. Of course, this is literary fast food but at least it's good fun. All in all, I had a truly pleasant time reading “The Guest List” and will take a look at the further works of Foley. Four of five stars. Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram
If you want an easy, mindless read that builds up suspense, this book is for you! It's not great, it's got a lot of issues (and far too many coincidences to tolerate), and all the build-up fizzles out to nothing, but it's entertaining, and sometimes that's all we need.
I just need to vent that the Hannah/Charlie storyline is absolutely useless to the story, and the book would have been better without them.