Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Thursday, 28 August 2025

"The Guest" by Emma Cline

An audio book.

Alex, a women, 22, with debts, exploits people (male clients in particular) to get from day to day. She's with Simon (about 50, rich, divorced with a daughter) but ex Dom (who she stole from) keeps calling her. Simon tells her to get out of his house. She takes his watch and decides to stay nearby until his party in 7 days, expecting a reconciliation. She gate-crashes parties, befriends childminders, steaals from handbags, meets Nicholas who (in contrast to her) is paid to be nice to people. She quickly assess those she meets for their usefulness to her.

She meets Jack, a 17 y.o. who falls in love with her. He's on meds and has taken a year off school (perhaps because of emotional trouble with a girl who ditched him). He offers to steal money from his father's safe so she could pay off Dom who has tracked her down and is threatening to tell Simon about her. She likes the idea, planning to dump Jack after and return to Simon. But Jack was lying about the safe. The book ends as Alex approached Simon at the party.

I liked

  • She takes "pills to stitch the loose hours together."
  • With Simon it was "her responsibility to enjoy things so he didn't need to."
  • Someone "decided to call what he had a 'life'"
  • Someone talks "as if reading from a script"

but not

  • "make him visibly recoil"

I think there are 4 occasions when she notices clothes stuck between people's buttocks.

I didn't see much in it. Alex seems to learn nothing during the book, leaving damaged paintings and people in her wake. I don't find the episodes interesting.

Other reviews

  • Arin Keeble (Cline uses the metaphorical possibilities of water, pools and beaches deftly. These are conspicuous leitmotifs that, because of their symbolic richness, never feel overdetermined. )
  • Liska Jacobs (a deceptively simple story)
  • Rob Doyle (Sultry and engrossing, with a note of menace, it’s a gorgeously smart affair whose deceptive lightness conceals strange depths and an arresting originality)

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