mystery
Jules and Will are getting married on a remote Irish
island. Their family and friends are in attendance. Then, on the day of the
wedding, someone is murdered.
Since The Guest List was voted the Best Mystery/Thriller of 2020 by Goodreads Choice Awards, I had been
expecting something that would pull me in from the beginning. This turned out
to be an unfulfilled expectation. Rather, the beginning was an introduction to
all the important characters on the island. As the novel progressed, we got to
know the characters better. While “a lot of blood” was briefly mentioned
early in the story, this novel lacked a compelling overarching mystery for most of it. Yes, I knew
someone is supposedly murdered, but I didn’t really know enough to care who it would be or who
might have done it.
Told from multiple characters’ points of view, the
perspective changes helped to keep things from being boring. The characters all
seemed to either have a secret or be attached to someone with a secret from
their past. The more I read, I changed my opinion to
reflect that everyone had either hurt or been hurt by someone else. These
mini-mysteries were intriguing enough to keep me going.
However, when author Lucy Foley provided all the answers at the end,
they were dissatisfying. I can’t really explain what I mean without giving things away. But after all
the buildup and interwoven tragedies, it ended with a final tragedy leaving me
feeling sad. I can see why reviews are mixed.
The audiobook was narrated by six different people—one for
each perspective. I did not bother looking up which narrators went with which
characters but they were Jot Davies, Chloe Massey, Olivia Dowd, Aoife McMahan,
Sarah Ovens, and Rich Keeble. (Side note: It’s interesting that two of them
shared names with characters and I wonder whether they read the parts of the
characters with their names.) All of them were excellent voice actors and I
credit them with most of the enjoyment I got out of this one. I’m sure I
would’ve been less satisfied reading it by myself. Even though I’m not a fan of large casts for audiobooks, this production was nicely done. I’ll give this ensemble an A.
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