The Guest

Finished April 2

The Guest by Emma Cline

I grabbed this book from the library to fill a challenge. I would say that it's a book that made me feel kind of like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion.

The main character Alex is very unlikeable. She behaves very much like a narcissist, and tries to manage the relationships, but doesn't necessarily put a lot of work into it. She moved to New York City as a young woman and lives with roommates. She has been in the city for a while as the book opens, and it appears that she worked as an escort, but never made a lot of money at it, and now is finding it more difficult to draw the men that she wants to. She has also missed rent payments and her roommates have kicked her out. 

After an encounter at a bar, she has decided to go in a different direction, beginning a relationship with an older man with the expectation that it will be long term. He doesn't pay her, but he does buy her things like clothing and accessories. She has traveled with him to his vacation home on Long Island, and accompanied him to various dinners and parties. When she makes a misstep at one of the parties, she finds him distancing himself from her and the sending her back to the city. His assistant buys her a train ticket and leaves her at the station. 

But Alex has another issue. She has got on the bad side of a man who doesn't suffer fools, and he is looking for her to return something she's taken from him. We do eventually find out what that it, but he has been calling her and trying to get her to meet him, so she is wary of taking a chance and going back to the city.

As she maneuvers herself into various living situations through meeting people and pretending she knows them, she has a plan to go back to the man who has sent her away, timing it for a party he has planned for Labour Day. 

Alex is desperate, but also very manipulative. She looks for opportunities to ingratiate herself into others' lives for her own benefit. She can be charming, but also cold and uncaring. I found myself wondering what crazy thing she would do next. 

An interesting and unique look at a life situation beyond anything I could imagine.