The Guest List: A Novel
Written by Lucy Foley
Narrated by Jot Davies, Chloe Massey, Aoife McMahon and
4/5
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About this audiobook
A Reese's Book Club Pick
“I loved this book. It gave me the same waves of happiness I get from curling up with a classic Christie...The alternating points of view keep you guessing, and guessing wrong.” (Alex Michaelides, number one New York Times best-selling author of The Silent Patient)
"Evok[es] the great Agatha Christie classics.... Pay close attention to seemingly throwaway details about the characters’ pasts. They are all clues.” (New York Times Book Review)
A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie from the New York Times best-selling author of The Hunting Party.
The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner – The bridesmaid – The body
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?
Editor's Note
Reese’s book club…
Reese Witherspoon picked “The Guest List” as one of her June/July 2020 book club picks, along with “I’m Still Here” by Austin Channing Brown. “A very stormy seaside destination wedding is the back drop for this thrilling June book pick. … Get ready for so many twists and turns as you try to figure out the who, what and when of this mystery. It reminds me of some of my favorite mysteries from Agatha Christie,” Witherspoon wrote in her Instagram announcement post.
Lucy Foley
Lucy Foley studied English literature at Durham University and University College London and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry. She is the author of five novels including The Guest List and The Hunting Party. She lives in London.
Reviews for The Guest List
4,790 ratings242 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5It was easily Predictable. The built up landed on a starved ending.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Most of the characters are unlikable. However, if you can get through past half the book there'll be a point when shit just starts happening and the secrets will begin to unfold. Some of them I guessed just before they were revealed, so that's what I consider good writing as the writer led me well enough that I could get there at the same time as everything happened.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Very over-hypted! Throughout the vast majority of the story, most of the conversations are just shallow, small talk amongst the characters. And it takes nearly the entire book to get any idea of what's actually going on and the problems that have been caused. Most of the book is just a story about a shitty elitist wedding. By the end you figure out that one of the guests has done horrible things to multiple people and instead of any sort of actual resolution they're just killed off. It doesn't make the story feel resolved. Everyone's still left with all the shit that they have just endured and found out about. All the problems that the person caused are still there. And that person dies in a way that makes everyone still think that they're the great person they always tried to convince everyone they were. It's infuriating. Killing off a horrible character is not really a resolution in this case. Because no one gets any cathartic end to what's happened. It just ends abruptly with their death. Multiple characters are left to deal with the horrible things the antagonist did but no one will likely ever know about. Which is incredibly frustrating and not really justice for the victims. So much about the wedding could have been cut out. Because frankly the wedding itself was pretty boring. The climax coming at the very end of the book should have happened more in the middle and there should have been an ending with a better resolution than just killing off the antagonist.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good writing and I really enjoyed the different points of view. The only thing I would have liked more is for there to not be such an abrupt ending. Otherwise awesome read!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Really engaging and very tragic. You stay hating the MMC.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Too a million years to find anything out and when you finally did it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be.