User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars
My home is your home. My life is your life.
There will be no locks or secrets here.
Avery Greer belongs to the
small town life of Littleport, Maine and Sadie Loman belongs to the
wealthy summer crowd. The two communities never mix...until Avery and Sadie. Every summer the two of them are arm-in-arm...well...
until the summer it happens. The flashlight swung back, and that was when I saw them, a glint caught in the beam of light. I felt the earth tilting.
She leaves behind a cryptic note that the police use as
evidence for suicide.But nobody knows Sadie like Avery, and Avery is convinced something is afoot.
A close-knit family holds secrets.
A small town can still hide untold horrors.
But I knew how fast a spiral could grab you, how far the surface could seem from below.
No one is looking for anything anymore and Avery senses that the answers are there,
lurking just below the surface. There are things even you don't know.
I can't do this anymore.
Remember me.
This one was interesting but it
lacked a little pizzazz for my taste.
The mystery was there but it unfurled so slowly and had such little clues that it was a bit difficult to keep invested in the novel for the first half.
Once the clues started really coming in, the book
definitely picked up and I became invested.
And I did like how I never know where the mystery was going, and that twists and turns kept things interesting towards the end.
I did like the main character and her desire to find out what truly happened to Sadie...however Sadie was my favorite character...
and she was dead the entire book. Which, I suppose worked in the book's favor because I became so invested in figuring out who killed of my fave person.
Overall, this was a good book but it needed some sparkle.
With thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
All quotes come from an uncorrected proof and are subject to change upon publicationYouTube | Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Snapchat @miranda_reads
Rating: really liked it
This is my second book by the author and I have to say she's great at creating small town with lots of secrets.
It was a very quick and easy beach read (even happens in a beach town!). Compelling enough to finish it but not enough that you'll skip on your vacation to stay in your room to read it.
It's also probably one of the best covers I've seen this year. The colors, the view through the window and the 3D rain drops were a nice touch!
With that said, I did feel like the characters were quick to confess every details to each other and most of the twists were easy to see coming... a few pages before the main character figured them out.
I would recommend if you're looking for a quick fun summer read!
Rating: really liked it
I’ve known enough of loss to accept that grief may lose its sharpness with time, but memory only tightens. Moments replay.
A few years back, Megan Miranda’s story told in reverse, All the Missing Girls, found me so impressed I scrambled to secure a treasured copy of my very own. Meaning, I went out of my way to track down a personalized signed copy from one of her book tour stops. That hardcover now owns a rare piece of real-estate among my collection of
greats. I only mention this tidbit because it lends credibility to my expectations and subsequent disappointment with her recent work.
With two of Miranda’s releases since ATMG, The Perfect Stranger and now The Last House Guest, I’ve gone in hoping she would somehow emulate my initial experience with her storytelling. That the literary journey I was preparing to embark on would prove to be something other than typical. Maybe even memorable. Now, after two bouts of mediocre reading, it's clear
that's probably never going to happen. My reasoning behind that thought: (1) it's a very real possibility that I built ATMG up to be something more than it actually was, (2) my pickiness is at an all-time high as of late, and (3) chances are my newly acquired skepticism won't allow me to give her work another shot.
In all fairness, The Last House Guest starts off with
immense promise. Miranda builds anticipation with her writing wizardry, piecing together thoughts and passages in an interesting way. Attention-grabbing some might even say. Although, I have to admit, the more pages I turned, the more my interest dwindled. The
blah happenings, uninspired cast, and messy timeline worked against the author's style, muting the overall impact of her sentence structures.
And that right there—
the blah—is my biggest gripe with this novel. The author relies heavily on her scattered timeline to put a “fresh” spin on what’s become a tired narrative running rampant through the genre. Unfortunately, it’s not only the mystery itself that’s less than impressive, but also the cast Miranda employs to tell it. Talk about an undeserving bunch. There’s no depth or redeeming qualities to cling to. Not one single person—over the course of 341 pages—convinced me to care.
Turns out, for this reader, the best part of the entire book was the setting. The Last House Guest welcomes readers to a picturesque town along the coast of Maine—a harbor community that thrives from Memorial to Labor Day. And for those locals and visitors lucky enough to garner an invite, the Plus-One party promises the perfect boozy salute to the summer season.
Miranda deploys the old “time has passed since the death of [insert person here], let's take a fresh look and see if we can figure out what
really happened, eh?” scenario. This particular case involving the poor townie and reformed bad girl, Avery, trying her hand at detective work. Piecing together memories of that fateful night her seasonal rich girl “bestie” failed to make it to the Plus-One party. Choosing to forgo the celebration, Sadie says goodbye to the world along a rocky shore. As the one year anniversary beckons, nagging thoughts force Avery to think twice about the suicide label attached to Sadie's demise.
The run-of-the-mill plot helped along by a series of coincidences, resurfacing memories, and an oddball interaction or two. And the ending, not completely obvious or horrible, per se. I'd go with
unremarkable instead.
*Thanks to Simon & Schuster for providing an advanced copy.
Rating: really liked it
Dull and Dreary
The Last House Guest is a slow-burn mystery about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks whose world is shattered when her best friend is found dead of an apparent suicide. Littleport, Maine is a town built on a class divide between the townies and wealthy vacationers. After a rich girl kills herself, her best friend begins to question the events that led up to the suicide. Alternating timelines from the past and present lead to secrets being unearthed.
I had such high hopes for this book--I knew going in it wasn’t going to be All the Missing Girlsand I tried to lower my expectations but I apparently didn’t lower them enough. My issues started right off the bat when just couldn’t connect with Avery, who is the narrator of
The Last House Guest. I actually pushed this book to the side and started reading another. When I came back to it the second time around, I actually liked it more than when I initially started reading it. I slowly started to connect with the narrative but I was never able to fully immerse myself in the world of Littleport.
The Last House Guest is lacking in tension, suspense, drama, finesse, and depth. I needed more--I was expecting more. However, this is not a total failure.
The foundation is there, but overall it felt incomplete. There are times when the mystery is intriguing and some of the revelations about Avery’s past made me want to know more about Avery in the present. At the same time, I was never able to get fully pulled into the story. I didn't care enough to about the characters, but I did care enough to finish the book and see how things would play out. It got better towards the end, but then it all crashed and burned once again in the final pages.
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
Please take my review with a grain of salt, as I have many friends who have loved this in the range of 4-5 stars, but
The Last House Guest fell short of the mark for me. Awhile back, I fell head over heels for Miranda's
All the Missing Girls; the reverse narration and plot resolution have stuck with me for YEARS now, which is a rarity due to the many books juggling for attention in my dwindling memory space. It could be that I've simply consumed so many psychological thrillers that read in a similar manner with a similar follow through, or it could be that my connection to ATMG was a one and done deal, but I've juggled my expectations and struggled with each adult novel the author has released since my first love affair with her writing.
I don't want to ramble, or repost the synopsis here for you, so I'll keep this brief in saying that there's not really anything
wrong with this book, it just wasn't attention grabbing. In a vast sea of psych thrillers, domestic suspense, and female driven mysteries, I'm already finding myself grasping to remember the plot, as I'm either confusing it with other stories I've recently read or just didn't find it compelling enough to remember in its detailed entirety. I still don't regret reading it, as the ending was a step up from many of the novels I've read lately in this genre, and the brevity in length made it a fast novel to devour, so I think I'll sign off by recommending
The Last House Guest to those looking for a breezy summer suspenseful tale, as they will enjoy this one more than I did.
*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy.
Rating: really liked it
Tumultuous, puzzling, & a twisty page-turner!
Oh my goodness where do I even start with this book......So let's just say I have to go back and read the whole book over again well because that ending is making me want to do it. LOL
This book reads extremely fast but while I was reading it though I was never fully immersed in this tale. There was nothing that was grabbing me here until well the end and then it's like I wish that I would have spent the time with this book before reaching the end. The book is just as puzzling as the author's writing style and that is all I'm going to say.
So I was definitely 3 stars all the way until I reached the ending which has made me bump it up to 4 stars. Take the time with this one.....
Norma’s Stats:
Cover: Stunning, striking, suspenseful, mesmerizing, impressive, impactful and fitting representation to storyline. #coverlove This book wins my vote for best cover design ever!!!
Title: Intriguing, relevant, suspenseful and a fitting representation to storyline.
Writing/Prose: Engaging, vivid, awkward, puzzling, readable, tense, and well-written. Okay, I know I’m all over the place with the author’s writing style but for the most part I found the writing style quite puzzling and thought it was packed full of riddles. Then the ending…..
Plot: Fast-paced, suspenseful, twisty, puzzling, entertaining, enjoyable, and somewhat underwhelming until closer to the end.
Ending: Oh my goodness what an absolutely fabulous resolution that totally flabbergasted me. I don’t know if I was just so uninterested in the whole storyline in the beginning that I just wasn’t retaining any of it but let me tell you that ending definitely brought the whole book home for me. So good!
Overall: Although I mostly had a problem with the execution throughout most of this book the ending definitely made up for it. This was a Traveling Friends Read and everyone else loved it and really didn’t have the same reading experience with this book as I did. So I would definitely recommend to give this one a try and how can you not with a cover like this one?
Thank you so much to Simon & Schuster Canada and Megan Miranda for gifting me a copy of this beautiful book! Did I already mention that I am rocking that cover? LOL
Review can also be found on our Two Sisters Lost in a Coulee Reading book blog:
https://twosisterslostinacoulee.com/
Rating: really liked it
3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ for this slow-burn mystery about a girl whose world is shattered when her best friend is found dead of an apparent suicideThis book had so much promise. I was drawn to the plot immediately - Avery Greer, a townie girl with a troubled past is essentially taken in by Sadie Loman, the daughter of an affluent vacation family in Maine. The girls are inseparable for decades. Avery becomes enmeshed within the Loman family and their business, overseeing their properties in town. All is perfect in Avery's world until the summer Sadie dies. Even though her death was ruled a suicide, Avery feels the suspicion and blame cast on her. Avery is determined to find out what happened to her best friend. Was Sadie's life as picture perfect as it seemed? What secrets was she harboring that drove her to suicide?
Told in alternating timelines between the past and present, we put the pieces together surrounding Sadie's death with Avery. While
The Last House Guest was filled with mystery, secrets, lies and deceit, it left me wanting. It just never had that "wow" factor for me. The story was good but I never really felt connected with the characters. They were almost too cliche - the poor girl with the troubled past, the rebellious rich girl, the rich playboy, the domineering, callous matriarch and the money hungry patriarch.
The whole thing had a Lifetime movie vibe that I just didn't fully buy into. It's not one that stands out from the crowd. I didn't hate it, I just wasn't love it either.
Rating: really liked it
This is the second book I’ve read from Megan Miranda and as with her prior book
The Perfect Stranger, this one just didn’t meet my expectations.
Sadie and Avery are the best of friends. As with most besties, they know each other inside and out, front to back. So when Sadie’s body is discovered from an apparent suicide Avery is certain Sadie would never take her own life, and is determined to find who murdered her friend!
Told from Avery’s POV in the present and past timelines.
While I was engaged by the story-line, the execution never grabbed me. I couldn’t develop a connection with the players and was left wanting more...something. With a good number of great reviews out there for this book, I do hope it works out better for you.
I do still have Megan Miranda’s
All the Missing Girls sitting on my shelf and look forward to reading that one soon! Hoping that one will have the
Wow factor I've been looking for in her books.
A buddy read with Susanne!🌸
Thank you to NetGalley, Edelweiss, Simon & Schuster and Megan Miranda for an ARC to read and review.
Rating: really liked it
This is another book that had a very interesting premise and started off great. A young woman, Sadie has been found dead. It's ruled a suicide but there are those in town who blame Sadie's longtime friend, Avery. For me, this sounded great.
But it didn't deliver on the "wow" factor I was looking for. As Avery tries to find out the truth, we learn there is more to each character than meets the eye. Secrets are the name of the game here. Many characters have them but has the most revealing one?
This could have been a much juicier tale in my opinion. It was good but not great. Maybe it was me having high hopes for this one but at times, I found my attention dragging. Plus, I wish the chapters headers would have been clearer. Overall, a good book surrounding the mystery of what happened to Sadie - was it really a suicide, was it murder, was it an accident?
There were quite a few reveals at the end which helped my enjoyment, but will I remember this book in months to come? Probably not. But this could be a case of it was me and not the book. I still look forward to reading books by this author in the future. Again, this was enjoyable but I just wanted a little bit more from this one. More excitement, more likability of the characters, more oomph in the middle to keep my attention.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Rating: really liked it
Another fantastic summer mystery from Megan Miranda that has been on my TBR for years!Avery Greer is a year-round resident of Littleport, Maine. She works for the wealthy Loman family, renting out summer homes and taking care of the administrative side of the business. She’s also best friends with Sadie Loman, whose wealthy family spends each season in their own summer home.
After years of friendship, Sadie is found dead one night after not showing up to the annual party she and Avery attend every year. Her death is ruled a suicide.
The following year, many familiar faces return to Littleport as a memorial is planned for Sadie. Avery doesn’t believe her friend’s death was the result of suicide, and decides to do her own digging to uncover the truth. Not everyone is this tight-knit community is willing to help her though. Hmmm...
Megan Miranda continues to impress me with her brilliantly atmospheric writing that simmers with suspense. This is more of a slow burn, but with plenty of secrecy and tension to stay engaged. The characters, Avery in particular, are fully fleshed out. Avery has a bit of an unsavory history, which caused me to question things as the story progressed.
The reveals are ones I never really expected, and I was eager to find out where this was going to go. Luckily for me, I found the delicious ending fully satisfying. This is the third Megan Miranda book I’ve read and truly enjoyed, and I’m already looking forward to reading more of her backlist.
Now available from Simon & Schuster.
Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com
Rating: really liked it
3.25 Stars* (rounded down).
Twisty and Turny! Sadie Loman and Avery Greer had been best friends for years when Sadie’s body was found the night after a party. Police suspected that she took her own life, though Avery never believed it.
Now, a year later, Avery has decided to search for clues to prove that someone murdered her best friend.
Told in two timelines, the night of the party, and the summer after, the suspects are those who attended the party. Everyone who went had something to hide and you know what they say about secrets!
“The Last House Guest” is full of mystery, a web of lies and twists and turns galore. Unfortunately for me, this is a novel in which there was simply way too much going on and sometimes, less is more. That being said, this was a quick easy read which kept my interest from the get go. Having read all of Megan Miranda’s novels to date, “All the Missing Girls” is still my favorite. I am however a huge fan and can’t wait to see what Ms. Miranda comes up with next!
This was another fabulous buddy read with Ms. Kaceey!
Thank you to Edelweiss and NetGalley, Simon and Schuster and Megan Miranda for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Published on Edelweiss, NetGalley and Goodreads on 4.24.19.
Will be published on Amazon on 6.18.19
Rating: really liked it
Mystery!! ❤️ I love a good mystery book and this was a decent one. This is told on two timelines, the past (the night of the crime) and the present (where our main character is determined to solve the closed case). 🧐 I had a hard time connecting with any character... and there’s a lot of them.... while I wanted to know how it would end- I didn’t find myself surprised or rooting for anyone in particular. 😶
Rating: really liked it
I am a huge fan of this author. I loved “Such A Quiet Place'' and enjoyed “The Girl from Widow Hills”. This is an earlier book and from my point of view she has gotten better with each book.
Short plot review: Littleport, Maine is definitely a town that glows during the summer month, attracting tourists from all over to enjoy the beautiful beaches, gorgeous cliffside views and an array of galleries, restaurants and shops all catering to tourists. In the off season, it comes back to the locals, the real backbone of the town. The Lomans are literally and figuratively at the top of the heap of residents. They literally live on the highest cliff and they own a lot of properties and businesses, they are a wealthy family.
It’s always been said the locals never really find true friendship with the summer people and the super rich. They are the people who work in rental homes, fishing boats, sightseeing boats, restaurants etc.
Avery Green is a local resident who lost her parents to a car accident a decade ago. Since that time the Lomans have taken Avery under their wing, helped her get her degree, gave her a job and even let her live in their guesthouse. Their daughter Sadie has become Avery’s best friend through the years. When asked why they were so generous Grant commented “IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO”.
The town is rocked when a yearly end of season party is shaken, with a complete power outage, a scream and then the realization that Sadie is missing and later found dead. All things point to suicide but there are other players in this novel.
I found that the story was a bit slow paced and didn’t really get me excited until the 80% location on my Kindle.
Here are two reasons why this book didn’t work as well for me as I had hoped. First of all, the characters!!
There is quite an array of characters including Sadie’s brother Parker, parents Grant and Bianca and a group of friends, NONE OF WHICH I LIKED OR CARED ABOUT!!!
I didn’t really understand some of Avery’s motives and why she did what she did. She just didn’t seem real enough to me. All of the Lomans “took what they wanted and did what they wanted” “Living at the Breakers, looking out over everything. Deciding what would be theirs for the taking”.
In the end the twists were quite good but a little unbelievable and too neatly tied up in a bow!!
This is a good book, just not one I can highly recommend. She does get better and better and I can’t wait for her next novel!!
Rating: really liked it
How great is it when one of your most anticipated reads for the year turns out to be all that you expected?! I loved this book from the drop dead gorgeous cover to the very last page.
The setting of this book was so intriguing and added to the entire story so much. Littleport Maine is a seaside community that caters to the wealthy families that chose to summer there each year. As with many communities like this, you hear of the fantastic events during the summer, but what happens when the season comes to an end? We got a look into the lives of the all year residents and it was quite a different atmosphere when the visitors have left.
Avery Greer and Sadie Loman became unlikely best friends. Since Sadie belongs to the elite Loman family and Avery is a resident that has grown up there. I felt myself cringe as Avery took on more and more of Sadie's interests, friends, clothes, etc. I began to wonder if this was not turning into an obsession for Avery. It started to have a single white female vibe.
When Sadie is found dead and it was ruled a suicide my mind began to spin. I questioned if Avery could have gotten jealous and done the unthinkable. Yet there were so many people that may have been fueled by jealousy to harm Sadie. I literally was in the dark all the way until the end as to how Sadie came to meet her fate. The last couple of chapters were so suspense filled I couldn't flip the pages fast enough.
I have read so many good reviews about Megan Miranda's books. This book sounded like one I had to have and it shot immediately up to the top of my must read pile. I was over the moon excited when I won a ARC print copy of this book from Simon & Schuster from their Instagram giveaway. I rarely say that I didn't want a book to end, but I really was quite sad when I knew I had to leave Avery behind as this book came to a close. I loved how the book ended, it was very satisfying. I can't wait to read the rest of Megan Miranda's books! Sign me up as I am now a fan!
Thank you so much to Simon & Schuster for this fantastic book!
Rating: really liked it
I was pretty anxious to read this book since it's been on my TBR forever and a day and I finally got around to reading it!
There wasn't anything entirely unique about it but it's perfect if you're looking for a quick popcorn thriller. I liked a few of the twists but I didn't particularly LOVE any of them and I felt the characters were a bit underdeveloped so I didn't feel super connected to any of them and didn't have much of a reaction when I found out secrets about them.
I really did like the 'unreliable narrator' bits and that's always cool to see play out, however, I thought it was better done in 'The Girl on the Train' and 'Gone Girl.'
There were a few scenes I didn't particularly care for that I can't name without spoiling, but they added nothing to the story and could have been completely taken out and it wouldn't have made a difference.
I did really enjoy the descriptions of imagery in this book though! Miranda really knows how to set the scene of a thriller!
Although it fell a bit short for me at times, I am looking forward to reading more from Megan Miranda! 'All the Missing Girls' is another one of hers that has been on my TBR forever and I'm hoping to read that one soon, but I'm open to suggestions on other books by her! :)
