The Guest List : A Slow-burn to die for
Long-time lurker, first-time poster ;-)
Anyways, I finally decided to get out of my long-lasting Reader’s Block and read this novel when I was travelling. And I certainly have thoughts about it. So this is pretty much a “rant” instead of a “review” but hope y’all can bear with me.
Normally I have a very specific taste regarding the books or movies that I watch. I am not a person who tries new things, which is probably why I am currently on my nth run of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But, I finally decided to give something new a go, and I am so glad I chose to.
Just a brief synopsis in case you haven’t read, the story revolves around the wedding ceremony of Jules Keegan, founder of an online magazine The Download and Will Slater, the star of the fictional TV Show The Survival. It contains the events of 2 days- the day before the wedding and the day of the wedding, with POVs of different guests in both the events.
One thing about The Guest List by Lucy Foley is the confinement of the location, which reminds me of The Five Survive by Holly Jackson, except that the former is very slow-paced in comparison to the latter. This might be the reason why the book seems to start off fine, become somewhat dragged in the between and extremely fast towards the end. All the 6 characters (The Bride Jules, The Bridesmaid Olivia, The Plus-One Hannah, The Wedding Planner Aoife, The Best Man Johnno) don’t seem like fictional people anymore. They seem very real and there might be a slight chance you know/have met characters similar to them in your vicinity. But throughout the book, I have not been able to pick a character that is my “favorite” of sorts but there most certainly are times when they start to hit close to home.
Talking about the plot might be hard to do without giving the spoilers, so I’ll try to do the same without spilling something. For a moment, this might seem like a horror story, given how the story starts with the mention of the “dead outnumbering the living” and the constant sightings of the local cormorant bird, which is the “Bird of Evil” in local folklore. The mentions of ghosts and that constant state of panic the characters find themselves in is a constant throughout the story. A part of it does play a small but a somewhat significant role towards the end of the story. Overall, the horrors of the Inis an Amplora, combined with the horrors of the characters involved, each harboring a secret that may or may not be the motive to murder gives a beautifully unfurled picture to this story.
Overall, the book was a breath of fresh air to me (very much unlike the characters who were stuck in the sea). The characters were very well developer, the subplots making sense individually as well as regarding the story as a whole. The lack of a Epilogue addressing some of them was a bit of a disappointment, as there was room for them. This might be the reason why I felt a bit dissatisfied. But it was overall an amazing read.
Now, enough for today. Hopefully, I’ll be back with something different to report. Buh-bye now ❤