Welcome back to another edition of Crystal’s Corner my lovely bookworms. I know it’s been a while, but I am back with another book review!
For this week’s edition, I will be discussing The Guest List by Lucy Foley. This is an captivating thriller murder mystery novel that follows the story of a beautiful wedding that tragically ends with a murder. After I read the Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, I was on the hunt for another thriller novel that would have me on the edge of my seat, eager to get to the end, and find out if my suspicions were correct. After reading countless reviews about this novel and the author, I knew this was a novel that I had to check out. Now before I get into this book review, I would like to preface the fact that I was in a major book slump before reading this, hence why there hasn’t been a new edition, but this slump did play a major role in how I went into reading this book. I would also like to say that since this is a murder mystery, I will not dive too deep into the details of this novel, so as to not spoil it for those who want to read it.
This novel revolves around the day before the wedding of Jules and Will and the wedding itself. This beautiful love story , however, turns dark when someone from the wedding party turns up dead by the end of the event. Jules and Will are two extremely successful and ambitious individuals. Jules is a beautiful magazine publisher, who has worked extremely hard to build her success. Will is an extremely handsome and charming man who has built his fame from being a rising television star on a survival show.
As we move through the book, we are introduced to Aoife, Hannah, Charlie, Olivia, and Johnno. Aoife and her husband, are the wedding planners for this wedding and work in the background, hidden from others, to ensure this wedding is perfect, but this also means that they hold all the secrets of the island and others close to them. Hannah and Charlie are a married couple who are plus ones on the bride’s side. Charlie and Jules are childhood best friends and share a history together, which places Hannah in an uncomfortable position, as she quickly turns into a background character whenever Jules is around. We are then introduced to Olivia, Jules’s younger sister. Olivia and Jules were never close as siblings, creating an awkward tension between them that they’ve carried throughout their whole lives. Olivia is the only bridesmaid and seeing as Jules was never keen on building a relationship with her, Olivia is under a lot of pressure to make sure she doesn’t ruin her sister’s wedding, despite all the issues she has been hiding from her family. And lastly, we have Johnno, Will’s childhood best friend and best man. The two share many secrets that have got them to where they are now and keep secrets from each other that could result in the end of their friendship, or worse.
Each chapter of the book bounces between the perspective of each of these characters and between the present and past. As we go through the novel, we learn the background of each character and their importance to each other. We unravel all the secrets that all these individuals have kept from each other as a survival tactic, causing a drastic change in how everyone begins to interact with each other. Everyone has a secret, a motive, and the desire to kill, but only one acts on this thought.
Now I won’t say much more, but I truly enjoyed this book. At first, I was not that interested in the story, but I do believe that this had to do with the fact that I was in a reading slump and not the novel itself. Once I did start enjoying the novel, however, I was eager to find out who was the killer. From every new piece of information I learned or a new secret, my suspicions changed, until I had no idea who the true murder was because I suspected everyone, but even then I was shocked by who the murderer was. I will say that before it is revealed who is killed, which is told to readers ⅔ into the novel, I already suspected who was murdered because of how the story was framed. This made the story a little predictable in the sense of who was chosen to be killed, but the motive and secrets that each character had was what kept me in and pushed me to finish the novel. I was not disappointed by the ending and would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a light read and enjoys thriller, murder mystery novels. Overall, I give this book a 3.75 out of 5 stars. See you next time, at Crystal’s Corner.
Senior Crystal Olague is a Staff Writer. Her email is colauge@fandm.edu.