It’s A Choose your Own Crazy: The Guest by Emma Cline

If you like your books to end with a tidy, makes sense kind of ending, then you should just move along.

But if, as a reader, you enjoy being left to your own devices to write the next chapter in your head when you arrive at the end of a novel, then Emma Cline’s “The Guest” is right up your alley.

Cline’s followup to her megabit “The Girls,” “The Guest” seems to exist one swim one over from Evie and crew. This time around, readers are drawn into Alex’s world — living on the fly, minute by minute, in vacay Long Island-land. Cline leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination. And not in a bad way — we are simply invited to fill in the gaps that got Alex to where she is, trying to find her next pill source or drink or even just something to eat.

Mostly, Alex is where she is at because she is not so much naive as she is reckless. Her seemingly good fortune has taken an abrupt turn for the worse, and she decides if she can just life hack her way through a week on the Sound, she may make her way through this self-induced rough patch.

Cline takes those six days with Alex and turns them into a sociological study of human nature and how it responds to assumptions and half truths. Would you, in fact, know deception when it’s staring you in the face with a friendly smile? How often do you take strangers at their word when they invoke a familiar name? And how far are we willing to stretch our gullibility to make what we want to believe into reality?

“The Guest” is an alarming, fast read that’s perfect for a long weekend with maybe a few hours you can set aside for the couch and a glass of wine. Or two. Alex would approve. Maybe even try to join you. Just lock your bathroom cabinet.