Spoiler-Free Book Review: The Guest List by Lucy Foley
I decided to get The Guest List as an add on for my Book of the Month subscription this month. It was one of the New York Times best thrillers of 2020, a finalist for Book of the Month’s Book of the Year, and a Goodreads Choice winner in the Mystery & Thriller category. I love a good thriller so all of those accolades made me really want to give this one a try.
The book takes place at an island off the coast of Ireland where guests are gathered to celebrate a wedding. Magazine founder Jules is marrying reality TV star WIll and their wedding is not one to be missed. The story is Multi-POV and we see it unfold from the perspectives of 5 characters. They are:
Jules - The bride. She is very accustomed to getting her way and she won’t let anyone come between her and her perfect wedding day.
Hannah - The plus-one. Hannah’s husband Charlie is longtime best friends with Jules. She has some concerns with how close they seem to be with each other.
Johnno - The best man. Johnno is an old school friend of WIll’s, but there maybe more tension in their relationship than it seems at first glance.
Eoife - The wedding planner. Eoife lives on the island and she’s offered Will and Jules quite a discount in order to convince them to have their wedding here.
Olivia - The bridesmaid. Jules’s teenage sister who is suffering from a big secret she won't tell anyone.
The tagline from the back of the book reads “All have a secret. All have a motive. But only one is a murderer”. We know from the start that something bad has happened to someone, but what exactly happened and to whom is revealed slowly alternating between different perspectives and different days (the day before the wedding and the day of).
I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish. I felt that the setting and the characters were all immediately intriguing, and the pacing was incredibly well done. Most of the characters were incredibly flawed and unlikeable, but that was intentional and they were fascinating enough that it didn’t bother me.
When I read a thriller I’m not often trying to solve the mystery before it’s revealed. I like to just be along for the ride. However; I do always find it annoying when a book has a big reveal that never could have been figured out by the reader in advance. I don’t know if this will be true for every reader, but I felt this book found a perfect balance between shocking the reader and letting them work things out themselves. I found the ending satisfying in how everything came together while still leaving me wanting to know more and I’d happily read more books from Lucy Foley in the future. 4.25/5 stars.
