The Guest List
The Guest List
By: Lucy Foley
“It’s a strange thing when you consider that the dead on this island far outnumber the living.”
This is a very popular book and my first from Lucy Foley. A local librarian recommended it to me for the reading challenge I’m participating in with the library. (I know… how many different reading challenges can I do at one time?!)
Um. I think this was a pretty average book for me. Add to that the profanity and crudeness and it was not my favorite. I had her book The Paris Apartment on my TBR but I’m debating if I read that one or not. [Update: Read it, slightly better but still not my fav]
First the premise of this book and then my thoughts on it.
The back of the book reads: “The bride. The plus one. The best man. The wedding planner. The bridesmaid. All have a secret. All have a motive. But only one is a murderer.”
The entire book takes place between two days. The day before the wedding through the wedding night.
A wedding of celebrity proportions taking place on a remote island, accessible only by boat and purported to be haunted.
During the wedding reception and festivities a big storm encompasses the island and presents the perfect opportunity for murder.
What was meant to be a happy celebration is surrounded by grudges, fear, shame, rage, and reputations to keep intact.
Who was murdered? And who was the murderer?
Foley gives us our list of suspects:
Jules, the bride: “I have to keep a handle on my temper this weekend. Mine has been known to get the better of me. I’m not proud of the fact, but I have never found myself able to completely control it, though I’m getting better.”
Hannah, the plus-one: “I’m shocked by how much this place has already made me forget myself.”
Johnno, the best man: “Being back together with that group of blokes again… We were all bonded by that place. When we get together there’s this kind of pack mentality. We get carried away.”
Aoife, the wedding planner: “A wedding day is a neat little parcel of time in which I can create something whole and perfect to be cherished for a lifetime, a pearl from a broken necklace.”
Olivia, the bridesmaid: “I look out through the window at the boats approaching: closer now. It feels like they are bringing something bad with them to the island. But that’s silly. Because it’s here already, isn’t it? It’s me. I’m the bad thing. What I’ve done.”
I usually enjoy a whodunnit/locked room mystery. But this wasn’t quite that.
For one, we don’t even know who was murdered until the book was almost over. There was no murder victim and scene to consider as we try to figure out who murdered them. How are we to know what clues we find?
There really were no clues. All the suspects have motive, secrets, and opportunity so this book is more of a ‘you have to read to the end to know so let me jerk you back and forth as I throw suspicions at you’ read.
As many reviewers have mentioned, it’s a slow start. We go back and forth from the perspective of each suspect throughout the day gathering information about their background, their mental state, and their feelings about the day.
The last 30% or so picks up more pace and the sections chop down to 1-2 pages each which creates more suspense. But it’s quite a bit into the story. Not a fan of such a late start.
The characters. Oof. None of them are very likable. Possibly Hannah, but I don’t know if that’s just because I can relate to the whole, I’m a mother of kids now and I don’t have as much fun as I remember having.
But really the characters all kind of suck.
The book teases that it’s a guest list people would kill to be on. But man, I basically got to go to the wedding and I really would have rather been anywhere else. I can’t imagine being around those people!
Take me off the guest list please!
I mentioned before the profanity and crudeness. Let’s add in drugs and alcohol. It seemed like what created the mystery of this book, besides everyone having motive, was that everyone was drinking the whole time. Of course, when alcohol is involved, anyone could do anything! Mystery!
Not my kind of mystery.
Do we even really know the characters? Or just the alcohol-infused version of themselves?
Why is drunkenness so acceptable?
I know this is a book. But in real life, drunkenness is acceptable. Anticipated. Celebrated.
But what’s the point? Fiction and non-fiction alike, what follows excessive drinking is usually regret, pain, destruction- physical, emotional, sexual, mental.
Sure, we have a murder mystery when any drunken person could get ‘carried away’ amidst a bunch of other reckless partyers who aren’t paying attention to anything. But if we take away the drugs and alcohol… do we still have a story?
When it comes down to it, this is not a book for me.
If you don’t care about profanity and recklessness and a chance to solve the mystery yourself (yeah, you could guess and be right, but that’s all it would be, a lucky guess) then you might enjoy it. Lots of other people did.
But if your threshold for f-words is low and you want likeable characters and a chance to prove to yourself how good of a detective you are, maybe pass on this one.
Sidenote: Trigger warning for self-harm and suicide.
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