A wedding on a beautiful island off the Irish coast. Jules and Will are incredibly happy to be married here. When a storm breaks out, no one can leave the island and then someone is found death. Everyone has secret and someone has a motive for murder.
In the Guest List by Lucy Foley, we follow the perspectives of different characters. For example, we follow Aoifie, The Wedding Planner. She lives on the island with her husband Freddy and are both overly excited to organize this wedding. We also follow Hannah, one of the guests of the wedding. Her husband Charlie is best friends with Jules. We also follow Johnno, a good friend of Will. In addition to all these perspectives, we also follow Olivia, Jules’ sister. Yes, these are quite a lot of perspectives to read about and follow their stories. But every chapter has a name of the character and what their role is in the wedding. Which is nice because it makes it a bit easier to remember everyone.
The book is divided into 2 different timelines; the moment a body is found and earlier that day. The story is mainly about the wedding and the different storylines of the characters, which ensures that there is little tension in the story. Every now and then the story jumps to the present and these chapters should create tension, but this was not the case for me. It takes a long time to find a body since the focus of story is the wedding and the secrets of the characters. The mystery in the story is light and is mainly discussed around the end. Pretty soon in the story I had a hunch who would be the one who would be killed, but I had no idea who the killer would be. This was also a complete surprise to me.
Lucy Foley’s writing style is pleasant to read. She describes things clearly and her writing style is quite simple. The story is easy to follow, even with all the different perspectives. The characters are well developed, you clearly get to know the different characters. It is a good book, but I still missed the thriller elements in the story. Do not expect a super thrilling book because this certainly is not.
If you don’t like many different perspectives, I would not recommend this book.
Details:
Title: The Guest List
Author: Lucy Foley
Pages: 384
Rating: ★★★✩✩
A really good review! It was a super intriguing mystery, especially with the different perspectives. I agree that it wasn’t much of a thriller, and I also found the characters very unlikable.
Thank you!