THE GUEST, by Emma ClineAll is not as it seems in Emma Cline’s latest novel, “The Guest,” a deceptively simple story about a young woman kicked out of her rich lover’s Long Island beach house in the final days of summer after embarrassing him at a party. Convinced that her breakup is only temporary, Alex plans to saunter back into Simon’s life at a Labor Day party he is hosting at the end of the week. All she has to do is wait out five days until then. Don’t leave toothpaste in the sink basin.” Be appealing, but also be invisible. Alex knows she is replaceable, “a sort of inert piece of social furniture — only her presence was required, the general size and shape of a young woman.”

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