The Guest A Novel

Cline s writing at its very best hypnotically propulsive, viscerally disquieting, and moving in the most unpredictable ways. Financial Times

Sultry and engrossing, with a note of menace, [The Guest] [is a] gorgeously smart affair whose deceptive lightness conceals strange depths and an arresting originality. The Guardian

Cline confirms her reputation as the literary prophet of women on the brink. Esquire

Pitch-perfect . . . Full of suspense and subterfuge . . . Cline has written a thriller about trying to
get by, a summer read for the precariat. The Nation

Cline quietly continues to be one of the best and most discomfiting young writers working today. Entertainment Weekly

Cline generates an impressive amount of intrigue . . . The descriptions are frequently bracing and acute, sharpened to icepicks by a stance of amoral neutrality. The Wall Street Journal

A wonderfully suspenseful examination of luxury, delusion, class and fear. Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Young, beautiful Alex is . . . a grifter wandering through a pricey, dreamlike summer playground looking for her next mark. Cline s exquisite writing makes us care in spite of ourselves. People

Enthralling . . . Who needs living when you ve got The Guest in your bag? Jezebel

Emma Cline serves glitz and unease. Vanity Fair

In her first novel since 2016 s runaway hit The Girls Emma Cline returns with another story of sex and manipulation . . . Philadelphia Inquirer

A smoldering thriller that explores desire and deception. The Washington Post

[Cline has] skill with language . . . [and] shimmering insights into complexities of womanhood and desire. Los Angeles Review of Books

Cline is a master of depicting the nefarious and atmospheric menace that often lurks adjacent to our most glittery environments, and she does so here with subdued but no less cutting aplomb. Vogue

Eerily captivating. Elle

Cline weaves through settings and characters with intentional disorientation, shifting ever darker, ever more suspenseful . . . Cline proves herself to be one of the boldest, most complicated writers working today. San Francisco Chronicle

Emma Cline s The Guest . . . offers a sharp, nuanced approach to an outwardly frothy premise, submerging her readers in an anxiety-ridden world where class struggle seethes under the surface. . . TIME

An intoxicating, sun-drunk work that tells the story of a hand-to-God grifter, one whose head you re both terrified of and want to bask in forever, until you wake up sunburnt to a crisp. Nylon

Galvanizing and so utterly readable. The reader, who ingests the novel s sumptuous atmosphere and the thrill of trespass captured in Cline s sharp, tense prose, is implicated alongside the protagonist. The Millions

Her odyssey of desperation and misadventures feels like Barry Lyndon for Gen Z. BuzzFeed

Will keep your blood pressure as high as if you were following a serial killer stalking their next victim. Paste

I loved every moment of The Guest: the intensity, the control, the atmosphere, the psychological escalation . . . the way it lets nobody off the hook and yet is not without deep humanity. Sam Lipsyte

The pathology brilliantly observed by The Guest would not feel so edgy if it were not perilously close to an aspirational ideal. Geoff Dyer