The dead on this island far outnumber the living.
The Guest List
by Lucy Foley
Genre: Mystery Thriller
About: Jules is getting married, and she's choosing to do it on a remote island. Close friends and family only. No paparazzi, which otherwise might intrude as she isn't marrying just anyone: her fiancé is a TV star. Nick is as handsome as he is charming, and he went to the right schools. He's perfect. She's making the right choice and no anonymous note, warning her to call the wedding off, is going to dampen her big day.
The Good
The structure is very unique and very gripping. We know something terrible has happened from the get go, but we don't know what exactly. This creates a great atmospheric opening (a storm outside, lights out and a terrified scream pierces through the crowd) and it then cuts to the events of the previous day. Slowly we get closer and closer to discovering what's happened as the novel keeps shifting from present day to past events, until finally - at the end - we find out what exactly caused the scream. I also like that their are lots of different POVs, that worked really well to show different eyes on the events and slowly feed us information.
The Bad
There's one character who is just completely irredeemable and it feels lazy when compared to the other characters who are all quite grey and layered for the most part. I really don't think this story needed a stereotypical psychopath, something a bit greyer would have definitely been more interesting. Also the chapter endings were sometimes a bit over-dramatic. While I loved the present day chapters being full of drama, some of the POVs ended unnecessarily on micro melodrama.
The Somewhat Iffy
The coincidences. I hate when there are too many coincidences and I think this novel is verging on ridiculous with some of them. The end reveal was brilliant, but a lot of the other 'twists' relied on coincidences, or a truly very small world.
Overall
The characters and the premise are what keep you reading, and the ending didn't let me down, as can easily be the case for a lot of thrillers. What I didn't like were the smaller twists throughout. They might interest some readers, but I personally could guess most of them and I didn't like the reliance of coincidences or the psychopath troupe.
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