The Night Guest
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3.6 • 23 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Hildur Knútsdóttir's The Night Guest is an eerie and ensnaring story set in contemporary Reykjavík that’s sure to keep you awake at night.
Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause.
When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same — have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps.
Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .
What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Knútsdóttir's surreal and spectacular English-language debut, crisply translated by multiple Hugo award winner Kowal, finds protagonist Iðunn suffering from chronic exhaustion that the medical establishment has, through a combination of neglect and incompetence, failed to treat, leading her to use a number of ersatz self-care solutions. When she wears a step-counting watch to bed one night, she wakes up achy, smelling of the nearby ocean, and having apparently walked more than 40,000 steps in her sleep. As her personal life and relationships crumble due to depression and fatigue, her mysterious nocturnal activities leave her with bizarre wounds. At her wit's end, Iðunn sets up her phone in the corner of the room to record what she does after she goes to sleep—and what she discovers sets off a horrifying chain of events that threatens every aspect of her waking life. Knútsdóttir's parenthetical asides and idiosyncratic voice create a queasy sense of vertigo as the story unfolds, and the time the narrative takes to reveal its secrets is well spent on the way to a conclusion at once grotesque and beautiful. This is psychological horror at its finest.
Customer Reviews
Very quick read
Agree with the other review about the potential here. A lot more could have been done. Many chapters are only a few words. I finished it in just a short sitting.
Abrupt ending
The story was good and enticing. I was expecting something more thrilling and fleshed out. Not much of a spine tingling story but it really could’ve been. I feel this book had a lot of potential. I don’t like how the ended is structured. It’s very short and doesn’t satisfy the build up. There is a lack of clarity with the correlation of missing cats, the dead sister, the two love interests and the things that happen when Iounn is asleep. There was potential to draw those parts of the story out. Depth and stringing the readers curiosity along is lacking. ‘The Night Guest’ has a great setup to be more. The ending suggests it’s “Her” which I am guessing is the sister. There are also areas to explore and delve deeper into. What was found under by Iounn after her sister passed? What if she did go to the psych ward and more sinister happened. Real thrill and development is missing. Disappointed with the ending.