Sultry and engrossing, with a note of menace, it's a gorgeously smart affair whose deceptive lightness conceals strange depths and an arresting originality . . . take it to the beach and savour every page

Drawing the reader inexorably on to the heightened, rug-pulling denouement, this is beach reading at its finest

Every sentence as sharp as a scalpel . . . tantalizing

At once chilling and eminently evocative of the rarefied world it portrays . . . a definite contender for Status Vacation Book of 2023

The ideal mix of hazy summer glamour and shimmering threat for compulsive beach reading... A gripping, almost ghastly book

The Guest is everything I look for in a novel: cool, subtle, clinical

The Girls was exceptional; The Guest, with its exquisite pacing and deliciously muddled moral compass, is even better

A thrilling dissection of survival and how far its protagonist will (or can) go to achieve it

Atmospheric and at times incandescent

Cline's writing at its very best - hypnotically propulsive, viscerally disquieting, and moving in the most unpredictable ways

The tension never wavers . . . This is rich material for Cline, who trains a chilly eye on the preposterous affluence and exclusivity of that part of the world

The Girls was exceptional; The Guest...is even better... Compulsively readable... The Guest is as refreshing as a dip in a cool pool on a hot day

The Guest... cements Cline's place as one of America's great contemporary stylists

As bracing as saltwater... Cline possesses unmistakable talent; her bursts of genuine originality and startling insight make that clear

A tale of the ultimate grifter. Doused in ambiguity and foreboding

A new tense summer adventure

This unsettling but gripping novel takes us deep into the mind of a woman living a shadowy half-life

Crucial reading for any young woman

Undeniably compelling and atmospheric... a poolside-worthy page-turner

A taut, tense novel... The Guest is a strong follow-up... Her [Cline's] prose is limpid and propulsive, sustaining an atmosphere of dread.

[An] arresting observational eye

Cline has a crime writer's gift for revelatory storytelling, ramping up tension like an HBO pro

A searing portrayal of the precariat? Or a slick summer thriller? The answer is: both . . . you won't be able to look away

Supremely readable... propulsive

A dream-like, foreboding novel and worthy follow-up to the sensation The Girls

The talented Ms. Cline . . . Her prose is drifty and wire-taut, easy on the eye, with an awful undertow of unease that never lets up. The pathology brilliantly observed by The Guest would not feel so edgy if it were not perilously close to an aspirational ideal

I loved every moment of The Guest: the intensity, the control, the atmosphere, the psychological escalation, the astonishing social observation, the profound and devastating visions of the void achieved with flicks of the wrist, the way it lets nobody off the hook and yet is not without deep humanity

Heady scent of hotsummers and dark secrets

The wealthy clique depicted in Cline's unsettling second novel is by turns boorish and menacing - but you won't be able to look away

A beach read that ticks all the boxes

[The Guest’s] atmosphere is equally apprehensive [as The Girls] and Cline’s eye for the fragility of insider-outsiders is as gimlet-sharp as before

The Guest… [is] as relentlessly spellbinding as her debut

Either/Or is extremely funny and delightfully ludic, as it probes the very act of reading from the point of view of confused university student Selin.

I was desperately looking forward to Elif Batuman's Either/Or, and it more than lived up to it.

Re-encountering Selin...felt like being reunited with an old friend.

Hilarious.

I greatly enjoyed the comic zing of Elif Batuman's delightful Either/Or

Witty, intelligent and funny... [Selin's] inner monologue is addictive enough to read a thousand more pages of, and I can only cross my fingers that this isn't the last instalment of the series.

Just as funny and self-aware and clever as The Idiot.

Funny, wry and insightful

Laugh out loud…hilarious and thoughtful