I heard about this book on Bookstagram and since I’m always on the lookout for non-literary fiction SingLit, this sounded like something I would enjoy!

Fear of the Guest stars pretty much all the local ghosts in Singapore, including a few that I hadn’t heard of! There is Lady Pontianak, the marble children, and even a ghost for Pulau Tekong. It starts off pretty humorously, as the spirits have a monthly meeting where they meet to exchange tips on how to remain relevant, but quickly descends into horror as a new entity, called The Guest (and then, rather obviously, Xeno), decided to take over Singapore.

As a concept, I thought this book was really interesting! I love the idea of incorporating our local ghosts into fiction and the idea of exploring some of our modern-day fears was a very interesting one.

However, the book was very short and that really let it down. Because of its length, it switched from comedy to horror before I started to find the book funny (I was at smiles but not yet chuckles) and the pacing felt far too fast. I didn’t think I had time to absorb what was going on with The Guest before he and his army attacked and then things seemed to have ended rather quickly. There’s a lot that happens in this story and I think it would have been a lot more impactful if the author slowed down a little and let the reader fully experience what was going on.

Plus, since xenophobia was one of the fears explored in the book, I thought the shorter length worked against it as it became a bit obvious that this was the bad guy of the novel. I would have loved to see how Xeno slowly wormed its way into Singapore and various groups in society, instead of the rather sudden attack.

Overall, this was an interesting book with a premise that I haven’t seen before! I only wish that it was longer so that the plot and some of the characters have room to breathe.