I understand that thrillers are meant to be popcorn reads and so they're held to a different standard than other genres. But they still have to meet a certain bar, and The Overnight Guest just did not get there whatsoever.
Let's start with the characters. When it comes to thrillers, I’ve seen a lot of dumb characters, but Wylie has got to be the dumbest of them all. She makes one bad decision after another, and it's honestly painful to follow along as she blunders around. At one point, someone actually spelled out for her what really happened, and she still couldn’t put two and two together.
The rest of the characters were pretty much cardboard cutouts of typical thriller characters — scared victims, worried mothers, serious investigators, and shady would-be villains. No one really came alive, so it was hard for me to care what happened or whodunnit.
This story has so many separate storylines, and yet not one of them was compelling. The triple narrative threads, in theory a good idea that should have them converge into a single cohesive narrative, was in actuality just a vehicle for the story to jump around every few pages. Just as I'm getting into whatever the current storyline is, bam! I'm yanked out to somewhere else.
As the story moves along, it starts to rely on an ever growing list of coincidences and plot holes and just plain ridiculous developments to propel it forward. Each time something absurd happens, I'm amazed at both the gumption of the author and the gullibility of the reader that it's actually allowed to stand.
I feel like there's a turning point maybe two-thirds of the way through, and after that, it’s pretty clear what happened and also what’s going to happen. And then the rest of the story is devoted to spelling out in long form what's already obvious, to the dread of every reader on the verge of a slump, including me.
I’m honestly a little confused by the high ratings on this one. If you’ve read any thrillers at all, you’ll see what’s coming from a mile away. And unless cheering on foolish and slow-witted characters is your jam, I don't see what else this one has to offer.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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