THE LAST HOUSE GUEST by Megan Miranda
THE LAST HOUSE GUEST by Megan Miranda
Megan Miranda has a fan club, I should be the president. Y’all, I just LOVE her books. Love them. Every time, without fail, she masters an effortless thriller: not too complicated, but never predictable. I’ve read all 10 of her books, and I’ve never, not once, predicted the ending. But she doesn’t need bizarre plot lines or dramatic, over the top events to make her books thrilling and enjoyable to read. She just does it with solid characters, great relationship emphasis, and a focus on the mundane, every day way we live our lives (and sprinkled with secrets and deception and uncertainty, duh). She’s JUST SO GOOD. ⠀⠀
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The Last House Guest was no different. This book also has a non-sequential narrative: switching between Summer of 2017 (past) and Summer of 2018 (present) every few chapters. It worked as the perfect narrative device here.
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My Synopsis: Avery Greer and Sadie Loman are best friends, in the way that any local in a small beach town can become best friends with a seasonal visitor. Their friendship is marked by the changing of the seasons and is capped by an end of the summer party, the aptly named Plus-One Party (reserved for the locals and vacationers who stay one week after the close of the season). Avery—trying desperately to distance herself from the locals and her hometown—chooses to cast her life in the Lomans’ shadow rather than be seen as the girl she used to be. But when Sadie jumped off the bluffs into the ocean on the day of the Plus-One Party the previous summer, her death ruled a suicide, Avery finds her life completely altered. And whether it’s because she can’t accept that her carefully chosen path has been disrupted, or whether she can’t accept that her friend—a girl who was stubborn and unapologetically herself—would leave this world saying “I’m sorry”, Avery does not believe, for one second, that Sadie jumped. She’s desperate to find the truth, not just about Sadie’s life but also about her own. And she goes to no end to find the answers, fearful to trust anyone with the secrets she uncovers.