The Guest by Emma Cline
Published 2023 · 83,600 words · about 6 hours at an average pace
How hard is The Guest to read?
The Guest scores 57 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 48 out of 100
- Plain, cool vocabulary.
- Sentence structure: 50 out of 100
- Short, controlled sentences.
- Abstraction: 50 out of 100
- Concrete drifting with an argument about class underneath.
- Information density: 48 out of 100
- Light.
- Narrative indirection: 62 out of 100
- A protagonist who never explains herself to anyone, including the reader.
- Symbolic density: 52 out of 100
- The pool and the water do quiet work.
- Ironic distance: 62 out of 100
- Steady distance between Alex's account and her situation.
- Resolution withholding: 78 out of 100
- The final page refuses to say what happens.
- Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
- Linear across a week.
How The Guest is regarded
The Guest holds a literary regard score of 44 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.