The Guest List Review

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Adult, Suspense, Fiction

Style: Physical (hardback)

Page Count: 313

Trigger Warnings: Cutting, mention of suicide, suicidal ideation, revenge porn, abusive relationship, mention of cheating, abortion, alcohol, bullying, hazing, murder, points in the direction of one of the characters having an eating disorder

Summary:

The bride. The best man. The bridesmaid. The plus one. The wedding planner. One victim. All there to gather to celebrate the life of two people coming together as one on an island off the coast of Ireland.

But the more that comes out about the suspects the more it becomes “who would want to kill the victim.” They all have their reasons for wanting the victim dead. The resentment and petty jealousy begin to mingle with things that they shouldn’t. Next thing you know, you have four people finding the victim during a power outage.

But who is it? Who’s the victim? And better yet, who has the guts to finally pull the trigger and become a murderer?

Thoughts:

I think that this book was greatly written and I think that Lucy Foley did a great job making the reader feel like they were there when everything went down. But I did have my problems with it.

Even though I enjoyed the writing style I did find this to be predictable. I had a feeling on page 24 (when we get introduced to the best man) who the victim was going to be. And as the story went on, I had a feeling about who the killer was going to be. I wasn’t expecting the killer to get away with it. But it felt predictable just based on how the book was set up.

The book was set up to make you think that it had to be one of the three obvious choices. But I think I’ve read too many mysteries and thrillers where it’s the person you least expect. Especially when you are given the suspects beforehand like in this book.

I think that this book just fell flat for me. There were parts of this book that I found boring to be fair. I think that this was done great and maybe I am not the right audience for Lucy Foley. But I did think that this was written well.

Also, the characters in this story were written flawlessly. To where even the people who couldn’t be the killer gave you a reason to believe that it could be them. And the reasoning behind why they could have killed the victim was amazing. I think that even though the killer was predictable, I still had a fun time learning about the characters and wondering why they would have wanted the victim dead.

I do find some of the characters relatable. Maybe not on the same scale as “I want to kill someone” but just how they were written. To make me feel like I can relate to them on some level because I see myself in them. I can see myself being that character who was in that place that they were in. I can see myself being that character who is making everyone else happy but is dying inside. And I think that is why I related to those characters. Because I see myself in some of them.