The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

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Did I seriously read the same book as everyone else? I had heard so many great things about this book that I just don't understand how it became such a dud for me! The book starts out with different families/characters and different timelines, something that's often seen in psychological thrillers. The main character in one of the storylines, Josie, is excited about the state fair she's going to attend next day with her best friend, Becky Allen. Another storyline, Randy's wife Deb mentions her husband and son aren't home. When the night comes, Josie and her best friend Becky Allen who are outside jumping on the trampoline, hear gunshots, so they start running. Becky falls, a bullet grazes Josie but she keeps running. She survives but finds out her parents are shot to death and her brother Ethan is missing, as is Becky, making her feel guilty for leaving Becky behind. At this point, it's pretty obvious to me that Randy had something to do with the killings because he was the only person that wasn't accounted for (his son Brock was with Ethan and accounted for when the gunshots happened). The story drags on with a more modern timeline - someone named Wylie discovers a boy in her yard during a snowstorm. He's not dressed for the weather and half alive. She goes out and looks for clues and finds the boy's mom, injured and wrecked the truck she drove. Wylie tries to save both of them but they seem very scared, abused and have trust issues. Wylie slowly works through them. We find out - big twist! Wylie is Josie and the mom is Becky. To me, that's not a twist - the author chose to withhold their true identity and tell us towards the end of the book. I know a lot of thriller authors do this but this one felt cheaper than most. We also find out the little boy is really a little girl - the mom shaved her hair to avoid getting caught. OK....? They've also found Ethan's body and now they tell us the killer is Jackson Henley, for no reason other than the fact he has a long arrest record and is constantly evasive from the cops. (Someone I knew couldn't be the killer because I thought he was at his family farm when Josie's parents got shot at their own home?) Back to present day with Becky and the little girl, Wylie tells Becky she's got Jackson locked up - all is good now! Becky for some reason doesn't even tell Wylie, "uh, my abductor was Randy, not Jackson". Randy comes looking for them and only now does Becky speak up. After a dramatic showdown, Becky's daughter (who's also named Josie) kills her father. Wylie who's a writer, now finishes her book about the whole thing. This whole book was unnecessarily slow, confusing, boring, and no real twist at all.

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