Emma Cline\u2019s previous novel, The Girls<\/em>, was a massive hit although I never read it. But I was interested enough based on reviews to pick up The Guest<\/a><\/em> which is an archetypal summer read (assuming we ever get a summer here in the UK).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex is in a spot of bother. She\u2019s essentially an escort who tends to also be something of a freeloader and something of a grifter. The setting of the book is somewhat opaque \u2013 but mentions of the \u201ccity\u201d and \u201cupstate\u201d tend to make me think of New York City and mostly, the Hamptons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex is dodging calls and texts from Dom. It\u2019s not completely clear to us what she did to Dom, but she\u2019s got herself into a new place with the wealthy Simon. She spends her time on the beach, and then drifting between social events where she\u2019s accompanies Simon without giving away too much about herself. Obviously, the fact that she\u2019s in her twenties and he\u2019s in his fifties, means that there isn\u2019t a complete veil over things, but as long as she minds her Ps and Qs, things are just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then they\u2019re not. As easily as she entered Simon\u2019s life, she has now been pushed out, with an upcoming visit of Simon\u2019s teenage daughter precipitating things. With no money, and an angry ex- getting sending ever darker messages, Alex needs to use her wits to duck and dive within the moneyed community where she has found herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So instead of taking a train back to the city, she decides that she will lie low for a few days and wait for Simon to come to his senses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What follows is series of encounters and situations, where the street-smart Alex uses here wiles to ingratiate herself with whoever she meets. She\u2019s normally just looking for somewhere to spend the night, maybe find some prescription drugs or other trinkets that won\u2019t be missed by a homeowner, and ideally a pool to spend the day by. All of this in a society from which she feels otherwise excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re not quite in Patricia Highsmith territory as the stakes are a bit lower, although there are definitely allusions with her Tom Ripley character. But Alex is much more listless. She\u2019s only really looking as far ahead as the end of the week, and not really beyond the summer season out by the beach, never mind the next season or next year. Everyone she meets she manages to somehow leave burnt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did enjoy this for the most part, although I\u2019m not alone in feeling that the ending wasn\u2019t quite what it might have been. But in the sense that the book is almost entirely told from Alex\u2019s dream-state, it does slightly work.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSweet Little Lies by Karin Nordin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n