The Guest List

Johnno is the one who asks to be Will’s best man, not the other way around. Johnno is convinced that the history and experiences they shared at the boarding school has tied their lives and destinies together. He wears the borrowed suit, and after getting ready, he meets up with the other ushers. This is when it is revealed that Will got away with everything back at boarding school because his father was the headmaster. Despite being a bad student, Will aced the GCSE exams. As a prank, Will would also put seaweed in the other boys’ beds to scare them. Johnno reminisces about a boy they called Loner who used to follow Will around as students; Loner had an effeminate name and a larger friend who often told the matron about the tricks that the other boys played.

As they turn to leave for the ceremony, Will takes Johnno aside and tells him not to embarrass him during the best man’s speech. Jules finishes getting ready for the wedding by placing a gold crown on her head. She heads downstairs, where her father is waiting for her. The reader discovers that the night before was the first time that Ronan met Will. Ronan is entirely unimpressed by Jules’s fiancée. Jules is furious and goes off on her father, blaming him for being so absent in her life, and demanding that he at least have the decency to walk her down the aisle and lie, if he has to, that he is happy for Jules and Will. Jules takes a moment after the incident to head inside her room and break things. Jules has the habit of breaking things to make her feel better, though it is something she has been fighting ever since she started seeing Will. After breaking the flower vase, Jules carefully cleans up the mess and rearranges her expression into one of joy. She then heads out for the marquee with Ronan, Aoife, and Olivia. The ceremony goes swimmingly. 

Hannah watches Charlie closely throughout the ceremony for a hint that he may be jealous of Will. Ever since Johnno made that comment the night before, Hannah has been thinking about how Charlie and Jules may have once slept together. After the ceremony, everyone begins mingling and drinking. Hannah approaches Charlie, where the topic of the stag weekend comes up again. She is worried about him, especially when it becomes clear that he is slurring and has been drinking heavily. Charlie snaps at her when she asks about the stag weekend, and Hannah recoils from him. Hannah’s reaction and her repeated moments of concern throughout the two sections thus far hints that Charlie may have had issues with alcoholism in his past.

Elsewhere in the tent, Johnno has a run-in with Will’s father, who was the headmaster of the boarding school. The headmaster believes that Johnno stole the GCSE papers for Will that his son used to cheat and get high scores. It is revealed, however, that it was actually Will who stole those papers. This begins the pattern of Johnno taking the blame for things he did not do. After that discussion, Johnno speaks with Piers, the producer of Will’s show, and discovers that Johnno had been offered a position on the show as well, but Will had intercepted the offer and declined it on Johnno’s behalf. This betrayal changes everything for Johnno. When Will sees Piers and Johnno talking, he attempts to make his way over to diffuse the situation. Before he can reach them, however, guests begin to panic about a figure drowning in the water.

The figure is Olivia, who has wandered into the sea and begun to drown. Will saves Olivia and comes out looking like the hero. Jules is worried for her sister at first, but her concern quickly turns to anger. Jules screams at Olivia, accusing her of wanting attention and trying to upstage Jules. Hannah tries to defend Olivia, suggesting that the young woman might actually be struggling with her mental health. Jules does not care and screams at Hannah as well. Aoife steps in and redirects the guests back to the marquee, where the party begins once more.

Johnno is bitter and furious as he watches Will emerge from the water with Olivia, looking like the picture-perfect hero. Johnno has kept Will’s secrets for so long and everything begins clicking into place for him. Johnno is determined to get his revenge on Will.

Though Hannah realizes that Olivia is most certainly not her sister Alice, Hannah still decides to try and comfort her. Olivia tells Hannah that she was pregnant and Steven was the father. Steven abandoned her to deal with the pregnancy and subsequent abortion alone. Olivia tells Hannah about this, and in turn, Hannah tells Olivia about her sister, Alice. Alice was incredibly intelligent and wanted to work in politics, but after she broke up with her ex-boyfriend in college, he published explicit pornographic videos of her that made the rounds at their school. Olivia and Hannah bond over this; Hannah encourages her to tell her family and get help. Hannah has no time to tell Olivia that Alice eventually took her own life. Alice killed herself she was so ashamed and believed that the videos of her made her dreams of being a politician an impossibility. 

Aoife falls apart in the kitchen with Freddy; she is distraught at the possibility that Olivia might have drowned. Aoife blames herself, but Freddy calms her, comforting her with how the wedding is almost over. Aoife’s breakdown in this section ties together several of the loose strings that Foley has weaved throughout the different chapters, such as Aoife’s connection to the graveyard and Hannah’s discovery of the grave of the young child who drowned.

Back at the tent, Ronan gives a speech as the father of the bride. Jules grows steadily angrier at the beginning because his sudden pride in her is entirely incongruent with his cutting her off financially months ago. Without her father’s economic support, Jules chose to host the wedding at the Folly because Aoife offered her a fifty percent discount. At the end of his speech, Ronan threatens to hurt Will if he fails to take care of Jules. Jules is eventually moved to tears by her father’s recognition and pride in her.

Olivia’s inner monologue reveals that Will and Steven are, in fact, the same person. Will threatened Olivia not to tell Jules, and she was terrified that Jules would not believe her. To warn her sister, Olivia wrote the anonymous note telling Jules not to marry Will. Everything is coming to a head, and the novel is beginning its steady up climb towards the narratorial climax.

Johnno makes thinly veiled threats to Will during his best man’s speech, revealing things that make both him and Will look bad. As it turns out, Johnno was unable to afford the suit he was supposed to buy, and Will had not offered to buy it for him. At the end of the speech, Johnno gets the ushers to blindfold Will in an impromptu game of Survival. Back on the night of the wedding, Freddy tells the group of men that they’ve called the police before turning back to head to the hotel. It is a confusing frenzy as the search party continues to bumble around in the dark; they soon notice that they have lost Pete along the way.