Reviews with content warning for Death - An Unwanted Guest

I love a good And Then There Were None type book, where it seems really unknowable who could be to blame. I was stumped until the end, which I really appreciated. There are a solid bit of characters in here, so it does take a tad more focus. But I did think that the characters were all different enough that they were easy to tell apart.

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foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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sea_tea_books's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense

2.0

This was reminiscent of a teen horror movie where the characters are picked off one by one. I skipped past the triggering descriptions. Overall, this story felt about 30% too long.

[Book club pick, audiobook]

Audiobook specific: Unfortunately, the narrator spoke in an incredibly slow AI voice. Increasing the playback speed helped a bit.

[Trigger warnings: death, murder, and descriptions of murder, rape, war, violence]

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c100's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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ruthypoo2's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was an interesting whodunnit and the author, Shari Lapena, did a great job creating a charming, but remote, B&B temporarily disconnected from the rest of the world. When the stranded guests start dying under mysterious circumstances, everyone’s a suspect!

I didn’t really connect with any of the characters, and most all behaved in varying degrees of unlikable or somewhat annoying ways. There was a decent degree of character development, but for many of the characters in the story, they were too one-note so that the way people behaved or what little we learned about them seemed to only serve as a way to progress the narrative and throw out a bunch of possible suspects. I did find the conclusion satisfying as the reveal came out of the blue and there was a bonus twist tacked onto the ending that left me with a wicked little smile on my face.

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