Reviews
"A grifter tale for the post Anna Delvey era, a spellbinding literary rendering told from the perspective of the deceiver herself . . . 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 "Cline quietly continues to be one of the best and most discomfiting young writers working today." -- Entertainment Weekly "Eerily captivating." -- Elle "Emma Cline's second novel is tense and restrained, as careful and controlled as the woman at its center--before she begins to unravel at the seams. This is a slow-motion car crash of a book: it's extremely hard to look away." -- Lit Hub "Her odyssey of desperation and misadventures feels like Barry Lyndon for Gen Z." -- BuzzFeed "The sheer anxiety level of watching Alex lure each new stranger (from the help to lonely rich teenagers), filling the endless hours until the next morning, 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 astonishing social observation, the profound and devastating visions of the void achieved with flicks of the wrist, the way it lets nobody off the hook and yet is not without deep humanity." --Sam Lipsyte "The talented Ms. Cline, as it were! Her prose is drifty and wire-taut, easy on the eye, with an awful undertow of unease that never lets up. The pathology brilliantly observed by The Guest would not feel so edgy if it were not perilously close to an aspirational ideal." --Geoff Dyer, "Emma Cline's The Guest --the must-read anxious-girl book of the season . . . 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 "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 "With her propulsive third book, Cline confirms her reputation as the literary prophet of women on the brink . . . Dreamlike and disaffected, this charged study of class and gender lingers like a bad sunburn." -- Esquire "[Cline has] skill with language . . . [and] shimmering insights into complexities of womanhood and desire." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "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 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 "Cline quietly continues to be one of the best and most discomfiting young writers working today." -- Entertainment Weekly "Eerily captivating." -- Elle "Cline's writing at its very best--hypnotically propulsive, viscerally disquieting, and moving in the most unpredictable ways." -- Financial Times "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 "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, "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 "With her propulsive third book, Cline confirms her reputation as the literary prophet of women on the brink . . . Dreamlike and disaffected, this charged study of class and gender lingers like a bad sunburn." -- Esquire , "Best Books of Spring" & "Best Books of 2023 So Far" "[Cline has] skill with language . . . [and] shimmering insights into complexities of womanhood and desire." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "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 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 "Cline quietly continues to be one of the best and most discomfiting young writers working today." -- Entertainment Weekly "Eerily captivating." -- Elle "Cline''s writing at its very best--hypnotically propulsive, viscerally disquieting, and moving in the most unpredictable ways." -- Financial Times "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 "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 "Emma Cline''s second novel is tense and restrained, as careful and controlled as the woman at its center--before she begins to unravel at the seams. This is a slow-motion car crash of a book: it''s extremely hard to look away." -- Lit Hub "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, "Cline generates an impressive amount of intrigue . . . The descriptions are frequently bracing and acute, sharpened to icepicks by a stance of amoral neutrality." -- Wall Street Journal "A wonderfully suspenseful examination of luxury, delusion, class and fear." -- Minneapolis Star-Tribune "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 . . . The same things that make Alex a sketchy person also make her an infectious protagonist: She's a schemer, a liar, a seducer, and a thief . . . But 'hot mess' doesn't quite do justice to her entrancing resourcefulness even as the walls are closing in . . . Alex is amazing." -- Philadelphia Inquirer "A smoldering thriller that explores desire and deception.'" -- The Washington Post "With her propulsive third book, Cline confirms her reputation as the literary prophet of women on the brink . . . Dreamlike and disaffected, this charged study of class and gender lingers like a bad sunburn." -- Esquire , "Best Books of Spring" & "Best Books of 2023 So Far" "[Cline has] skill with language . . . [and] shimmering insights into complexities of womanhood and desire." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "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 "A grifter tale for the post Anna Delvey era, a spellbinding literary rendering told from the perspective of the deceiver herself . . . 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 "Cline quietly continues to be one of the best and most discomfiting young writers working today." -- Entertainment Weekly "Eerily captivating." -- Elle "Cline's writing at its very best--hypnotically propulsive, viscerally disquieting, and moving in the most unpredictable ways." -- Financial Times "Emma Cline's second novel is tense and restrained, as careful and controlled as the woman at its center--before she begins to unravel at the seams. This is a slow-motion car crash of a book: it's extremely hard to look away." -- Lit Hub "Her odyssey of desperation and misadventures feels like Barry Lyndon for Gen Z." -- BuzzFeed "The sheer anxiety level of watching Alex lure each new stranger (from the help to lonely rich teenagers), filling the endless hours until the next morning, 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 astonishing social observation, the profound and devastating visions of the void achieved with flicks of the wrist, the way it lets nobody off the hook and yet is not without deep humanity." --Sam Lipsyte "The talented Ms. Cline, as it were! Her prose is drifty and wire-taut, easy on the eye, with an awful undertow of unease that never lets up. The pathology brilliantly observed by The Guest would not feel so edgy if it were not perilously close to an aspirational ideal." --Geoff Dyer, Praise for Emma Cline "Brilliant . . . [Emma] Cline is an astonishingly gifted stylist." -- The New York Times "Masterful." -- New York magazine "Extraordinary . . . Debut novels like this are rare, indeed." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post "On every other page, it seems, there is something remarkable." --James Wood, The New Yorker "A thrilling new voice in American fiction." --Jennifer Egan "A striking achievement, the assured work of a young writer with talent to burn." --The Boston Globe "Cline's writing is an addictive treat . . . a propulsive read starring an irresistible antihero." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "The payoffs are as gratifying as they are shattering." -- Publishers Weekly