Listen free for 30 days

Preview
  • The Guest

  • A Novel
  • Written by: Emma Cline
  • Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
  • Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
  • 3.4 out of 5 stars (16 ratings)

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Guest

Written by: Emma Cline
Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $29.14

Buy Now for $29.14

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A young woman pretends to be someone she isn’t in this “spellbinding” (Vogue), “smoldering” (The Washington Post) novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls.

“Under Cline’s command, every sentence as sharp as a scalpel, a woman toeing the line between welcome and unwelcome guest becomes a fully destabilizing force.”—The New York Times

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Vogue, Glamour, Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Slate, Time Out, Chicago Public Library, Electric Lit, Bookreporter

“Alex drained her wineglass, then her water glass. The ocean looked calm, a black darker than the sky. A ripple of anxiety made her palms go damp. It seemed suddenly very tenuous to believe that anything would stay hidden, that she could successfully pass from one world to another.”

Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome.

A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city.

With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.

Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Emma Cline’s The Guest is a spellbinding literary achievement.

©2023 Emma Cline (P)2023 Random House Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What the critics say

“Cline’s writing at its very best—hypnotically propulsive, viscerally disquieting, and moving in the most unpredictable ways.”Financial Times

“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 confirms her reputation as the literary prophet of women on the brink.”Esquire

What listeners say about The Guest

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    4
Performance
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    5

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

where’s the ending ???

is there a sequel ? I didn’t understand in the ending at all …Did I miss something?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good book

A little literary, a little smarmy, just how I like em. Vague ending is fine but could be better

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Was expecting a better ending

I thought this story line was leading to some sort of climax - what a horrible ending or should I say lack of an ending? I purchased this book because it was recommended as a top read for the summer. I feel robbed. The narrator voice was fine if she talked in her normal voice - but quite annoying when she would switch to a pretend male voice.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

*Grunting in a lower octave* I'm a man now.

Brilliant novel, truly, but the reader's 'male voice' was comically bad and frequently distracting. Just read the dialogue as it's written. It is strong enough on it's own.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Not a fan

Found myself waiting for something to happen that explained the lead characters’ motivations.
Summer read about a drifter. I didn’t find any qualities in the lead that I could hang onto. Fleeting. Perhaps that was the point?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Not the greatest

I was expecting something exciting to happen but unfortunately I found myself drifting off listening to it. Felt like the story didn’t go anywhere

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!