paperback, 320 pages
Published June 1, 2020 by William Morrow.
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.
But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.
And then someone turns up dead. …
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.
But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.
And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
Nice, this was a very exciting spin on the traditional closed room mystery. I want to read more of Foley's work now.
A very clockwork mystery. Isolated island, storm, people gathered for wedding. Lots of viewpoint characters gradually assemble the picture that one person has hurt just about everyone — so who’s going to kill them?
This murder mystery that takes place during an extremely pretentious, extravagant wedding, and surprise, the bride and groom are both thoroughly unlikeable. Also, some of this story is predictable, while other parts seem like wild coincidences. And yet, I enjoyed this very much. The manner in which each character's story unfolds, and then how they come together, is effective and satisfying.
This was fun, and I do recommend it.
Really well done. Not many books surprise me like this one did
Listened to this book so I think it helped keep track of the characters. Was a bit predictable in places but the final twist I did not see coming.
Fantastic premise and execution! I loved puzzling out how all the pieces fit together; relishing my accuracy, and delighting even more when the story twisted away!
There's a minor error in the first half of the book, which tripped me up and made me think there would be a supernatural twist later:
the morning of the wedding, when Hannah's legs are stuck and sinking in the peat, she clearly identifies Duncan and Pete as her rescuers.
A few chapters later, when the lads are venturing out during the power outage, Duncan remarks (to Pete, who is now stuck!) how he and Femi had unstuck Hanna.
...I was waiting for that other shoe to drop, a la bodysnatcher-cum-groomsmen.
Ah, well. Maybe in the next book ;)
A parade of engaging inner-monologues, Lucy walks us through a perfect wedding weekend where everything slowly unravels. Personal histories strain under the weight of the party, until it all comes to a breaking point. Or does it?
A predictable yet fast-paced suspense novel, The Guest List is my first and likely last book by Lucy Foley. Given all the hype here on Goodreads and elsewhere, this had been on my list for a while. Real life is stressful and busy at the moment, so I wanted a read that wasn’t too complex and would read quickly—this at least fits that bill. However, on the mystery/thriller front, this book left a lot to be desired. It is a solidly mediocre book for me—it could have been better, and it wasn’t terrible enough for me to quit it, but I can’t justify it winning a Goodreads award. It is no great novel, and had a lot of similar issues to The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, yet somehow did not annoy me as much. Maybe because my expectations were not that high to begin with.
All of the characters …
A predictable yet fast-paced suspense novel, The Guest List is my first and likely last book by Lucy Foley. Given all the hype here on Goodreads and elsewhere, this had been on my list for a while. Real life is stressful and busy at the moment, so I wanted a read that wasn’t too complex and would read quickly—this at least fits that bill. However, on the mystery/thriller front, this book left a lot to be desired. It is a solidly mediocre book for me—it could have been better, and it wasn’t terrible enough for me to quit it, but I can’t justify it winning a Goodreads award. It is no great novel, and had a lot of similar issues to The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, yet somehow did not annoy me as much. Maybe because my expectations were not that high to begin with.
All of the characters in the book are malicious, if not in intent, certainly in effect. Even the reader self-insert character, Hannah, is portrayed as kind and congenial to almost everyone (except her husband), and a lot of readers clearly empathized with her. She still has her flaws, though, and at times irked me. Olivia, the teen character, had passages that had me rolling my eyes with how cringe-worthy and overly dramatic they were. I know Foley is far from being a teenager, but Olivia’s portrayal felt too much like a caricature of an amalgam of soap opera characters rather than a real person. Other characters were similarly flat or even irrelevant.
That leads me to the ‘twists’. For the most part, there is no plot, just various descriptions of characters, and extremely obnoxiously placed character backstories. They make little sense in context unless you put two and two together. For that reason, I made up a bingo list for the book and had every twist figured out by the halfway point, so my enjoyment in the climax was partly knowing I was correct and partly seeing the final reckoning of the previous events. Besides that, I cared little for the characters and the ‘twists’ were quite cheesy, if not unrealistic at times.
There were a few inconsistencies in the book, and sometimes the drama was too overbearing. Mostly, I’m glad I am not part of the ‘elite’ this book portrays—they all seem like a miserable lot. The book occasionally attempts to make a point about class distinctions or racism, but it merely hints at such themes, without really digging deep into them. The mystery-by-numbers approach that Foley uses here and in her other books clearly has succeeded with some readers, but it’s not for me—nobody can live up to the great Agatha Christie.
P.S. Honestly though, readers who greatly enjoyed this book: do you just take people at face value? Do you never question appearances? A huge portion of the novel revolves around how no one is quite who they seem to be, and the overemphasis on appearances during a wedding is quite bluntly pointed out throughout. The ‘twists’ were also eye-rolling obvious to me, and I’m very curious as to how people were seemingly blindsided by them.
Edit: I saw this recap of Pretty Little Liars off the cuff, and now that I think about it, the mechanics of that extremely ridiculous and convoluted show map on almost eerily well onto this book. If you liked that style of ‘suspense’ or ‘thriller’ (and I use those words extremely generously here), then you will probably enjoy this book.
I really need to stop trying to read thrillers. Why have I not learned, yet, that I'm never going to like anything from this genre. As far as these stories go, this one was fine. I was parricularly enjoying the attention to the female gaze: towards make beauty, male aggression, and other women. That may have been interesting enough to bump this up to 4 stars but I also didn't really get engaged in the central mystery, even more so once ebeuthingbwas revealed. So this was probably a really good example of this kind of book, I'm just never going to be the audience for it.
I really enjoyed this. A lively, intriguing and dark tale of actions and consequences that cascade down the years. A satisfying closure of the circle right at the end.
Listened to this book so I think it helped keep track of the characters. Was a bit predictable in places but the final twist I did not see coming.
Really well done. Not many books surprise me like this one did
A very clockwork mystery. Isolated island, storm, people gathered for wedding. Lots of viewpoint characters gradually assemble the picture that one person has hurt just about everyone — so who’s going to kill them?
Fantastic premise and execution! I loved puzzling out how all the pieces fit together; relishing my accuracy, and delighting even more when the story twisted away!
There's a minor error in the first half of the book, which tripped me up and made me think there would be a supernatural twist later:
the morning of the wedding, when Hannah's legs are stuck and sinking in the peat, she clearly identifies Duncan and Pete as her rescuers.
A few chapters later, when the lads are venturing out during the power outage, Duncan remarks (to Pete, who is now stuck!) how he and Femi had unstuck Hanna.
...I was waiting for that other shoe to drop, a la bodysnatcher-cum-groomsmen.
Ah, well. Maybe in the next book ;)
This book has a promising premise, along the lines of Agatha Christie meets Gone Girl. Unfortunately, it goes right off the rails. My first issue: I'd figured out one of the major revelations easily within the first few chapters. My second issue: the number of absolutely bat-shit coincidences and reveals in this book is well beyond anything plausible. My third issue: the author has bitten off more than she can chew, and as a result there are a number of inconsistencies and minor plot points.
This author can write, but her storytelling needs work. If she wrote for Scooby Doo, the final scene where they unmask the villain would involve not one mask, but seven pulled off in rapid succession.
If you don't believe me (and don't mind having the entire plot spoiled), read this summary to see how ridiculous it is: the-bibliofile.com/the-guest-list-summary-synopsis-spoilers/#quicksummary
