The Guest List - Lucy Foley

 

This isolated mystery follows a wedding party on a remote island off the coast of Ireland.  The bride - Jules - is a lifestyle influencer turned magazine publisher.  The groom - Will - is a wilderness survival TV show personality.  It is a pretty high profile wedding and when they gather with their friends and families on this island, long buried secrets get revealed. Any of those secrets could ruin the weekend, but one might be big enough to kill over.

TW/CW: self harm, hazing, suicide, revenge porn, infidelity 

The pacing in this book was phenomenal.  The whole story takes place over about 36 hours.  We start the afternoon before the wedding and then the main plot ends on the wedding night.  The book is a pretty tight 330 pages, which felt perfect for the amount of action and reveals that we had.  The story is told by jumping POVs (discussed later) as well as jumping back and forth in time between the lead up to the wedding and the events after the body is discovered.  So while there is only one body drop, this sort of back and forth really ramps up the tension.  The chapters after the death are told from the POV of a third party narrator so it isn't immediately apparent who died so when we would jump back into the 'past' events, it was really fun trying to find clues and see how the different interpersonal conflicts were building.  I think Foley has a really good grasp on when to change POV/timelines because almost every time a chapter would end, I just needed to keep reading.  Not every chapter ended on a cliffhanger, but there were enough new breadcrumbs introduced that I really wanted to keep following them.  I also think the way the characters were so interconnected also helped keep the pacing up because, as the plot developed, we started to see how these characters (and their secrets) were connected so even if we changed POV for the next chapter, some of those same plot breadcrumbs were in the new chapter so it often felt like we were still continuing on with the same plot.  The reveals were spaced out really nicely and grew in severity so I was constantly being pulled along in the story trying to figure out what the rest of the secrets could possibly be.

The characters were fantastic.  I think Foley does a great job at writing characters that I love to hate.  I love watching rich, entitled characters bicker and fight for perceived social dominance.  I was a little bummed that only one person dies because I could see reasons why multiple characters would be disliked enough to be murdered.  I read Foley's The Hunting Party and it was a very similar sort of friend group but The Guest List added the extra element of celebrity which only complicated the dynamics.  We hop between 5 main POVs - the bride, the bridesmaid, the best man, the plus one, and the wedding planner - and most of them had their own mystery plot thread.  I liked how the wedding planner perspective was used as a more objective, outsider view of the wedding party.  I also thought the interactions between the different characters were really well crafted and we got to see most interactions from both perspectives.  I found all the POV characters to have really strong voices and were easy to identify, even in other character's chapters.  I also found it fascinating how the characters could have such well developed arcs when the story only takes place over 36 hours. The events and revelations on the island mean everyone is leaving a different person and I loved it. 

 This was a home-run of a read for me until the ending. The plot points and reveals were fine, but this had a pretty abrupt ending that I didn't find to be satisfying.  The reader does know the details of the murder but the way the events play out on page, it felt like there should have been more confusion or speculation amongst the characters.  There are multiple characters who have motive to kill the victim but once the body is found, the narrative basically tells us that X character was arrested and charged with the murder and I was really looking forward to maybe some more pointing fingers before the killer is revealed.  I think one of my favorite aspects of an isolation mystery is the fact that the characters are cut off from help so they need to self-police, in a way.  This story had the perfect set up to have the police be delayed by a storm so it is up to the wedding party to keep tabs on everyone and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.  However, it didn't take that route and I think the overall impact of the ending is really dampened by the choice to have the ending wrapped up so quickly.  There was also an attempt as a resolution with some of the characters ass they're leaving the island the next day but those few chapters really left me with more questions.  We didn't get to see any of these resolutions play out, but suddenly characters know the full truth that other characters were keeping secret?  I wanted to see those scenes play out (which I think would have worked really well along side my previous point). If we had maybe 50 more pages with some amateur investigation/secret reveals before the police show up, this could have easily been a 5 star read for me.  I'm sure some readers won't be as bothered by the ending, but I just can't get past it.

I liked the setting of this island off the Irish coast, but I do wish we would have gotten more from it.  I think this is a very character-driven mystery and as a character-focused reader, I loved that choice. However, because of it being so character-focused, it did feel like it could have been set anywhere slightly secluded.  I didn't feel like anything was really gained by it being set on the island.  And I know we are shown why it was on the island from a plot perspective, but I wanted the island to be a bigger character in the book.  We get a little bit of the danger and creepy aspects but so many of the scenes were indoors or not impacted by the setting at all.  I love in isolation mysteries when the setting is an antagonist to the characters solving the mystery.  There were some aspects of the setting I loved - like the cave - and I thought were used to great effect.  However, most of the time I found the setting to be just sort of in the background and not impacting the plot a whole bunch.

Overall, this was a fantastic read but really flopped at the end for me.

Hello, Transcriber - Hannah Morrissey

 

This mystery/suspense follows Hazel as she starts her new job as a transcriber for Black Harbor's police department.  Her duties are to sit in a room five nights a week and type up and file any reports that the other officers have dictated and uploaded into the system - basically a perfect job for an aspiring author who can type 111 wpm.  Soon after starting, however, her next door neighbor confesses to hiding a body of an overdose victim and Hazel gets pulled into the case both by the close proximity of her neighbor and also by the handsome lead detective - Nik Kole.  As the investigation unfolds, Nik and Hazel grow closer and cross lines they can't uncross.  As more bodies turn up, Hazel starts connecting the dots and finds the link to the deaths may be closer than she thought.

TW/CW: suicide, drug use, drug overdose, child death, animal death, infidelity, domestic abuse

[I'd also like to note that one of the characters in this book is transgender and there is scene where another character is remembering the trans character before they came out as trans and used the trans character's deadname when referring to that character in the past.  They never say the deadname aloud, it is all in their internal monologue. The characters have a healthy and accepting relationship in the present day so the deadnaming isn't done with malicious intent but I did just want to mention it because it could be triggering for trans readers.  Also, I did read an ARC so there's a chance this might be fixed for the final copy.]

 The atmosphere and setting for this book is absolutely the star of the show.  The story takes place in Black Harbor, Wisconsin - a fictional place that is described as being Wisconsin's most crime-ridden city.  The descriptions we get of the city are centered on the high crime rate, high rate of drug abuse, and run-down infrastructure. It is not a hopeful place, especially not in winter when this story takes place.  Hazel's life at home isn't much better - living with her husband in a rundown duplex that she often dreads going home to.  The descriptions we get are gritty and despondent and it is mentioned multiple times that Black Harbor is not a place people want to be.  Morrissey does a really great job of giving us a good amount of description and world building while not dragging down the pace of the story.  This story taking place in Wisconsin, in winter, and with Hazel working the night shift means we see very little sunlight (actual and metaphorical).  The setting and atmosphere feel like they're ready made for a limited TV series on HBO. Fans of the Nordic Noir subgenre would feel at home with the atmosphere of this book.

I really enjoyed the character work Morrissey does with Hazel, but found the secondary characters to be a little flat.  Hazel is our main character and the story is told in first person POV so we are really settled in her head as the plot unfolds.  I found Hazel to be a very well rounded character who felt like a real person - she's flawed in realistic ways and has a pretty in depth history and backstory that is slowly revealed as the plot progresses.  I really liked to see the way she would make decisions and rationalize her actions.  I did find that sometimes these inner monologues would run a bit long and I would want to get back to the action of the investigation. The cast of secondary characters were pretty well established, but there were a few times where it felt like they would blend together.  It might just be a personal reading quirk but if a side character has a name and has more than a two line conversation with the main character, I'm thinking they're going to be important to the plot in some way.  There were many characters who did pop up multiple times in important moments but there were also enough ancillary characters who never really came back into the story.  This led me to have a general feeling of the cast of side characters to be pretty wide, but not very deep.  For example, we meet a good number of the other detectives but she really only interacts, in any meaningful way, with Nik.  I was expecting more out of these different characters than I ended up getting and so it made the side characters, as a whole, feel a bit under developed. Again, that might just be a personal issue and I think the characters Hazel does interact with on numerous occasions are pretty well developed and interesting so maybe my expectations were just a little too high.

The pacing and plot balance was where I had my main issues with the book.  For the first half, I really thought this was going to be a 5-star read.  The pacing and reveals were spot on, I loved how we were getting layers revealed in Hazel's personal life as well as moving forward in the investigation.  There were some spot-on reveals and great building of tension that I was excited to see how everything would come together.  Then, at about the halfway mark, the pacing really slowed down and lost me.  After some reflection and re-reading, I figured out my problem was that after the halfway mark, we leave the drug investigation for a while and focus instead on Hazel and her personal life.  Hazel is our main character and we've been following her POV for the whole book so it would make sense that when her personal life starts having issues that we'd be following along as she navigated those issues.  However, Hazel had been having trouble in her personal life for the whole first half of the book and we were still able to flip back and forth in both plot lines just fine.  But when we leave the investigation on pause, the story goes from being a mystery/suspense to basically a domestic drama/thriller.  I think the domestic side was well written, but it was such a large shift from the narrative of the beginning half that it ended up making the book feel really disconnected.  When we do, eventually, get back into the investigation thread it, again, felt really disconnected and jarring.  On paper, I can see why Hazel had to focus on her personal life, but from a reading experience it made the pacing really slow down and then made the narrative feel not as smoothly connected.  I found the first half to be really well balanced between the detective investigation plot and the personal life issues plot and I think if the book was able to keep that balance throughout the whole book, it would have felt much more like a cohesive story.

The mystery and investigation elements were mostly spot on for me but there were a few times I wished certain aspects were really brought more to the forefront.  There are two specific plot threads that I really wish were further explored.  I could tell by the way they kept getting brought up that they would be important to the overall story (and they were) but I think they could have been much better utilized to also ramp up the emotional tension in the story.  Both of these plot threads have some pretty big emotional ramifications for Hazel but there was a bit of a gap, for me, between the buildup of these points and the outcome.  I thought having her be a transcriber was an excellent choice and I think it was used well as a lens to explore the detective side of things without having this feel like a typical police procedural - we get the information that the police searched someone's house but we don't need to actually be there with the police searching, for example. I thought the investigation made logical sense and there weren't really any big solutions that came about by accident.  I liked how Hazel was an active participant in the investigation and wasn't just being pulled along by Nik.  I do think the mystery aspect was lessened by the investigation plot being basically dropped in the middle in favor for the domestic drama side of things to take over.  I read this book in 2 sittings over 2 days but when we do get back to the mystery investigation aspect at about the 75% mark, I had almost forgotten about that thread so it took me a while to get back into that mindset.  I think the ending felt a bit too convenient for my personal liking and I had to suspend my disbelief a smidge.  I do like where Hazel, as a character, ends up at the end and her character growth through the book was really the highlight for me. 

Overall, I really liked this book but had some issues in the second half.  Great characterization with Hazel, good initial balance of the different sources of conflict in the story, and well built investigation.  I do wish the different elements were better blended in the second half, but I'd be excited to read more of Morrissey's work in the future - especially more character driven stories.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for review

Expected publication date is November 30, 2021

Final Girl vs. Final Girl vs. Final Girl

 

   

Okay, so maybe that title is a little click-bait-y.  I got the idea for this post when Grady Hendrix's newest book, The Final Girl Support Group, came out this year.  As is often the case, when there's a new trend emerging, it is easy to compare the books to each other.  These three authors - Stephen Graham Jones, Grady Hendrix, and Riley Sager - are, in my opinion, very well known authors in the horror/thriller genres. And all three of them wrote books that took the horror trope of the 'final girl' and asked what happened after the movie ended.  As a fun reading project, I read all of the above books in a pretty short timeframe (about 4 weeks) and decided to sort of compare and contrast them to help others pick out the one that would work best for them.  I also wrote standalone reviews for each of these books in my usual format - linked below.

Final Girls - Riley Sager

The Last Final Girl - Stephen Graham Jones

The Final Girl Support Group - Grady Hendrix 

Since this isn't an English class and I don't feel like writing a 10 page essay to fully compare and contrast the books, I put together some simple graphics to show how I felt the books fell on those scales.  Of course, this is all personal opinion and these are not the only books that use or explore the final girl trope.  However, these are the three that I see mentioned most often by the readers/reviewers/book influencers that I follow so they are the ones I focused on.

Year Published

My Rating

Time Post Initial Slaughter

Use of Final Girl Trope

 

Integration of Slasher Knowledge/Lore

 

Bloodiness 

Widest Commercial Appeal

If You Only Have Time For One

I'd also like to give an honorable mention to My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones.  It is also a book where the final girl trope and slasher flicks are heavily referenced and used in the plot but it felt so different than these other three that when I did try to include it on the above graphics, it felt like comparing apples and oranges.  I did write a full review of My Heart is A Chainsaw and I gave it 5 stars, but it is a much more literary horror and I felt the three books above fell more into the horror/thriller genre.  Also, the protagonist in that book does not fit the same final girl criteria as the protagonists in the rest of these books so, again, I didn't think it was fair to include it in the comparisons.