Group Read - The Guest List 27-47% Spoilers Welcome

[Ann]

Discussion topic for 27% to 47% of The Guest List. If the first to post please briefly summarize to guide the discussion.
Spoilers welcome on this topic.
Updated Starting at 27% in with a Johnno chapter and ending at 47% with a now / wedding night chapter

[Ann]

JOHNNO starts a drinking game with his new whiskey, Hellraiser. It's the night before the wedding and the guests are getting drunk and rowdy, the groomsmen chanting their old school motto in Latin [especially creepy on the audio] Hannah and Aoife are unhappy their husbands join in.
NOW drunken groomsmen enlisted to look for the body reported by the frightened server.
OLIVIA Hannah and Olivia go to the whispering cave to get away and they talk. Olivia's story trickles out, an older man, dating app, drunken sex. Johnno senses something is outside...
JULES on the battlements with Charlie, she had been a 16 year old virgin, still attraction and jealousy. Later in their room Jules finds smelly creepy seaweed in gheir bed. Will said just like a school prank from the past.
Wedding day
AOIFE warns Hannah to stay away from bogs on her walk. She calls home checking on kids, sees old graves, then sinks deeply in bog walking back. After creepily watching, Duncan and Pete, the two groomsmen smirking and leering, finally rescue her.
Will almost hitting on Aoife asks how she ended up on island (spent summers there)
JULES pre wedding dressing contemplating the note about Will she has been hiding. "Will Slater is not the man you think he is, a cheat, a liar. Don't marry him"
NOW snippets of the search for the body are interwoven. The groomsmen are cracking under the stress. Pete halls in a bog, terrified of the bodies. Someone is coming towards them, the light nears, it's Freddy (chef, Aoife's husband) with something in his hand....
Breaking here at a "natural" point 47% in.

[Carol/Bonadie]

Ann great (and succinct) summaries. Those schoolboy friends are hideous. Never grew up. I feel sorry for the women in their lives.
What is with Jules and Charlie? One or both of them is still harboring feelings, please don't tell me they think they want to be "friends."
The seaweed in the bed was horrifying. I would have had them report it immediately. Aoife would at the very least have been suitably horrified, AND would have changed the bedsheets. Who is doing such a gross thing?
The note about Will is intriguing. Again, why would she keep this to herself? To prolong the dramatic tension I guess, LOL.

[Ann]

Carol: thanks! The groomsmen were indeed hideous and apparently are now well established professionally which adds to my disgust at them. There are quite a few mysteries building up. Jules seems to be slowly considering the anonymous note, it does add to the tension, but I also wonder why she is keeping it quiet.
As for the seaweed in the bed, it was well presented with the fishy smell as the first clue something was amiss. I shudder at the thought of encountering it under the sheets. Will's reaction was oddly muted.

Carol/Bonadie wrote: "Ann great (and succinct) summaries. Those schoolboy friends are hideous. Never grew up. I feel sorry for the women in their lives...."

[Carol/Bonadie]

Agreed, Ann. I have just finished the book so rather than say more here I'll move on and comment at the end.

[Bonnie]

Charlie is disappointing. Hannah deserves a better husband IMO. He is so cowed by his old school mates.

[Heather]

I just got through 23% a few days ago and now I flew through to 52% done! I think this one just keeps me guessing so I keep listening to the audio. We still don't have a full picture of what's happening in the "now" chapters! I really like the way the author does the timelines and it just keeps me wanting more.

[Ann]

Heather, I found the "now" short chapters ratcheted up the suspense, compelling me to keep listening.

Heather wrote: "I just got through 23% a few days ago and now I flew through to 52% done! I think this one just keeps me guessing so I keep listening to the audio. We still don't have a full picture of what's happ..."

[Barbara K]

Agreed. The mix of chapter lengths and POVs really kept the pace moving.