At its heart, The Guest is an exploration of social class and power. Alex is a young woman whose only social currency is her youth and beauty. This currency brings her in proximity to power, but she doesn’t have much power of her own. Alex is seen as decoration by the wealthy men she dates. Her primary function is to provide them with sex, an ego boost, and easy, uncomplicated company. They don’t truly care for Alex because, like all decorations, she’s replaceable. Alex is acutely aware of her lack of privilege and power, but her survival requires her to play along with the rules of the elite world she moves in. She has to efface herself, becoming a mirror that reflects back what her boyfriends want to see.

The unnamed setting of the novel is clearly the Hamptons, a peaceful and beautiful refuge from the chaos of New York City—for those who can afford it. Cline uses striking imagery to note the natural beauty of the Hamptons, but she also exposes the ways in which power and social class manipulate and appropriate this natural beauty.