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There are currently 20 member reviews
for The Guest Book
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Patty S. (Towson, MD)
Family Secrets
The Guest Book is the story of a family, an island, and the secrets that are held within the walls of a treasured house. Sarah Blake has written a beautiful and thoughtful book about the way money and power can color the way we see – and want to be seen in – the world. Ogden and Kitty Milton purchased an island off of the coast of Maine in the 1930s. The grandchildren are now left to decide what to do with it. As they struggle with reality and their childhood memories, they must grapple with the truths they come to know. I love a good family saga, but this one went well beyond my expectations.
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Deanna W. (Port Jefferson, NY)
Family Saga
I enjoyed Sarah Blake's previous novel - THE POSTMISTRESS ...Her new novel is also an enjoyable read...THE GUEST BOOK is a family saga that follows three generations of the Miltons ...The reader travels back and forth in time to experience the family myth on a beautiful island in Maine...It covers the classic theme of how we remember and what we choose to forget...It is perfect for Book Groups...
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Gail K. (Saratoga Springs, NY)
Kudos to Sarah Blake
Three generations of intriguing women. An exclusive family-owned island off the coast of Maine. Lives of privilege versus lives without. A strict sense of matriarchal duty. Secrets. Regrets. All elements that draw me in for a good read. All elements in Sarah Blake's The Guest Book. I was hooked from page one. Indulge yourself, and take this one to the beach, along with your sand chair, your umbrella, your sunscreen and a nice, cool beverage. Plan to settle in for a long afternoon of reading. You won't be sorry.
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Joy N. (Scottsdale, AZ)
The Guest Book
I really liked this book. The story was engaging and the characters were fully developed. She captured the culture of our country during WWII and the racism towards Jews and Black people at that time in a compelling way.I would recommend this book to our younger generation so they would have a window into what the world was like then.
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Dorothy L. (Manalapan, NJ)
An Interesting but Imperfect Novel
I was debating whether to give this novel a rating of 3 or 4. I really wanted to give it 3.5 but that wasn't possible. There were good things about this novel--lovely writing and description, important subject matter, but this novel could have been much better! What I liked most was the depiction of the time period--especially the pre WWII period. I found this family saga way too long. It needed to be edited more. The middle part especially dragged. I agree with other readers that a family genealogy chart at the beginning would have been helpful and dates at the beginnings of the chapters were needed. There were stereotypes in the ways Jews and Blacks were depicted and I think the author's characterizations were an easier way out for the Milton family's views and actions. Too bad. My feeling at the end was that this novel could have been really special if there was another draft before publication. It was overlong, but yet sometimes lacked sufficient characterization and depth.
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Kate G. (Bronx, NY)
The Sins of the Father or Grandfather
This will be one of the hot books of the summer of 2019! It is perfect vacation reading: A multi-generational story which mostly takes place during the summer on private island at a decrepit beach house off the coast of Maine. The Ogden Miltons were a moneyed family as the patriarch had started his brokerage house in the 1920s, catering to like minded people and making them money. Decisions made mostly by Ogden's wife Kitty reverberate not only through to their children, but to their grandchildren. Kitty was all about keeping up appearances, believing there was a right way to do everything and there were the right people to be kept in your social system. Her beliefs and decisions reverberate down to her grandchildren and as secrets are revealed, her granddaughter Evie realizes that peace may be found not only in a particular place, but rather in a particular situation.
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Claire M. (Sarasota, FL)
Secrets and Lies
I started The Guest Book with some expectation, and in the end, it is a good book, a good read. As it jumps around in time it might prove helpful for the publisher to include a page with a family tree. People who name their children after themselves make it confusing as the book goes back and forth in time, especially if one does not read this in one sitting.
Perhaps the ability of those who come from and continue privilege in our society who never confront, even within their own family, their secrets, their indifference to the excluded allows them to live in a world of their own with peace.
Ogden and Kitty Milton are the beginning line of this family saga and I find Ogden to be the most interesting character, but his is not developed, perhaps because he appears to be more enlightened. Kitty is ruthless in her maintenance of how life should be lived, and will not tolerate anything that might interfere. And that brings heartbreak to two of her children.
Blake has left us with much to infer as secrets are never directly revealed. Or the results of those secrets may be revealed but never the life between the deed and its result.
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