Review: The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received an advanced copy of this book from Flatiron Books in exchange for an honest review.

This book follows the Milton family through three generations starting before WWII when Ogden and Kitty Milton first meet, marry, and begin their family. Ogden begins his very successful career and eventually buys and island. The island becomes their summer home and center of the Milton family. The Milton’s are a wealthy, upscale family who never do anything unexpected or impolite. Kitty has raised her children to never make anyone feel uncomfortable and for nothing to ever be out of place. The Milton’s keep their privilege and prejudice in check in public, yet as the story progresses we come to find that both come with great guilt on their part but to act on that guilt would upset the balance in society. Nothing is ever done to make a Milton look bad, anything potentially embarrassing is quietly hidden. Things are done a certain way, regardless of right or wrong, one’s desires, or basic human decency. Many times it is mentioned what one ought to do and what one ought not to do. As the grandchildren are faced with the care of the island, Evie, Joan’s daughter comes face to face with some of her family’s history, her own relationship with the island, and her own issues with privilege and how she was raised.

This book touches on quite a few heavy topics such as racism, anti-Semitism, feminism, white privilege, and more; which is perhaps part of the reason why I didn't love this book. There were so many threads, I think I would have preferred the book had focused in on one of the issues and stayed with it versus jumping around the many members of the Milton family and their guilt. I'm also not a fan of books that jump around in time, this does not have a linear timeline, and the chapters jump between different parts of history related to the story. You never know which character or which time period you are going to venture into until you begin each chapter. While this is very well written, the pacing was a bit off for me because of the way the timeline jumps around and jumps between characters.

There were several threads of the story that I felt were not clearly explained in this nearly 500 page book. The author writes beautifully, but leaves many plot threads unanswered. I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, but I believe some of it is done by design. The reader is meant to infer the answers versus the author telling you the answer to your question. This happened far too many times and I’m left with a lack of closure at the end. I wanted more about Elsa, the German woman whom Ogden Milton befriended in the 1930s, but she is barely mentioned in the book yet her part is significant. I have several questions that remain unanswered.



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