I was searching for thriller books to read, and came across an article about Best thrillers of 2020 and found Lucy Foley‘s The Guest list. Immediately attracted to the review “Evokes the great Agatha Christie classics…”, I couldn’t resist myself of reading. And lucky I did. After this one, I read Foley’s earlier work, “The Hunting Party“. Both are satisfying and totally page-turners.
Glad to found this book on the top of the list “20 thriller books to read in 2020”. The Agatha Christie-esque in the summary is the thing that made me decide to get the book right away, and devour it during the weekend, because I had to know, whodunit.
The back-and-forth internal monologue of the characters is captivating, when you got to get a glimpse of these people, of their deep dark thoughts and hidden secrets. It also painted a grim picture of all things that looked “perfect”, never would, and never will.
By half of the books when more back stories were told, you sort of got a feeling of how it came about, and what hideous truth was underneath that beautiful lie – yet you would continue to read until the bitter end, to see the tortured got to take their well-deserved revenge as the unforgiven.
I think I no longer believe that people can be redeemable. There are those who are incapable of feeling remorse, and would not so easily pay for what they have done, until they have inflicted enough damage that they would have to be badly hurt to learn – or to be forever stopped. Personally, it is not satisfied with how it ends, I want the bad guy to pay the higher price, but I suppose, life doesn’t work that way. So I will be content that at least, this could be a precautionary tale, that the shit you do, it always catch up on you.
Great writing, very illustrative, the storyline kept me on edge and truly a page-turner, I stayed up until 4am in a morning of a Monday just so I could sleep knowing the end.
A great read for a rainy, stormy night.
“The Guest List” at Bookdepository
**spoiler alert** “Some people, given just the right amount of pressure, taken out of their usual, comfortable environments, don’t need much encouragement at all to become monsters. And sometimes you just get a strong sense about people, and you can’t explain it; you simply know it, in some deeper part of yourself.”
Okay, must confess I thought there would be more blood than what happened, due to this particular quote that I quite enjoyed, however I would have to be content for that one death.
I chose this book as it was written before “The Guest List”, and I was quite like that one, especially the writing style, the classic whodunit mystery, the psychological monologues that reflect the inner thoughts of each character, sometimes oblivious of their flaws, other times utterly miserable for the way they couldn’t stop themselves from acting out of ego, desire, blind rage, shame… and the fact that the end was a nice surprise because it linked everything together nicely, like a beautiful ribbon on top of a big gift you feel so satisfied having it untied.
This book reminds me so much of my all time favorite Agatha Christie – so I was glad this was a good read too, as I couldn’t stop from continue until the very end without stopping for half a year just to drop it completely. Not a lot of books can make me feel this way, and I’m certainly a sucker for a good thriller.
On a more personally note, I suddenly found my habit of reading again, because it wasn’t the loss of habit I experience, it was because I keep choosing books that are not my cup of tea and yet I convinced myself I should read this type of book instead of that. Reading shouldn’t be a forced activity, it should bring you joy and satisfaction, and a good night sleep.
“The Hunting Party” at Bookdepository
* Disclaimer: I don’t earn anything if you buy from Bookdepository links, I just purchase books from there all the time – they have free delivery mostly worldwide, and they have a vast variety of books.
Petite Gratitude 
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