The Guest List: A Novel

I blew through this one! It’s a quick read and it kept me invested guessing throughout. Lucy Foley really said “lemme put a bunch of insufferable characters on an island to celebrate the wedding of two wealthy and famous and equally insufferable lovers and see how all the characters pasts connect together and unravel.”

The story is about an exclusive wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland that results in the murder of one of the characters there for the wedding. We see the events leading up to the murder play out from the POV’s of:
Jules, the Bride
Aoife, Wedding Planner
Olivia, the Bride’s half sister/bridesmaid
Johnno, the Best Man
and Hannah, the wife and plus-one of Jules’ childhood best friend, Charlie.

I initially found myself not liking the sheer amount of varying POV’s the story was told from at first, but when all the paths crossed and the major climax came to the forefront, the payoff of it all changed my mind. Some of the twists were predictable and easier for me to figure out, but the biggest plot twist of all came out of left field and was very well executed. I read the Paris Apartment earlier this year, and I vastly preferred the Guest List over it. It felt almost like a modern Agatha Christie mystery and it was a quick read for me. I liked it!

I absolutely loved this book. One of my first mystery/thriller books ever, and it made me a huge fan of the genre. I adored the atmospheric, ominous setting. I loved the mood shifting once people started to turn on one another. Some people say that this book has too many characters but I disagree. I think that the shift in characters really helped to maintain the quick pace of this book. I had a very hard time putting it down because I was desperate to see what would happen next! I will definitely be reading more books by Lucy Foley after this one.

I enjoyed the setting and the characters’ backstories but overall this book didn’t really keep me engaged. There were too many POVs and the pacing felt very slow. A lot of the story was made up of conversations and people thinking about past events rather than things actually happening or characters actively trying to solve problems. I also saw some of the twists coming, which took away from the suspense. The reactions from the characters who supposedly wanted revenge on Will felt underwhelming too

3.5 out of 5 ⭐️

I tend to enjoy “locked room mysteries,” but I never seem to love them.

I enjoyed the characters, but figured things out pretty quickly. It was still a decent read.

At about the 20% mark, I stopped reading this book b/c none of the characters seemed to have any redeeming traits. When I finished a different book, I picked this one back up just to see if I'd like to continue, and this time it held my interest. By about the halfway mark I started to care for some of the characters and to see how they're all more complex than standard good or bad guys. But ultimately, this is a thriller, and what kept me going was the page-turning suspense that kicked into high gear! I predicted who would die but not who did it, and while I'd prefer that justice be dealt through the proper channels, I totally understand the killer's motivation (and why the person blamed accepted the blame).