It’s 1991, a time long before high school and college students had cell phones or computers; when posting on a community corkboard was a way to spread the word of sporting events, parties, and dances, or to find a riding partner to make the long trek back home for the holidays. This is just what Charlie does at the beginning of Riley Sager’s new thriller Survive the Night as she looks for a ride back home, away from Olyphant University, where her best friend and roommate has just been murdered by serial killer at large, the Campus Killer. If you can suspend your disbelief early on with some truly hard to believe character decisions, you will be rewarded not only with some retrospective rationale but an exciting, addictive, and suspenseful read.

Sager starts his novel in an apparent risky way, “at the end.” He establishes his main character Charlie in the passenger seat of a car and an unknown man behind the wheel, with Charlie knowing with the utmost certainty that this man is a killer and one of them will be dead before the end of the night. Ah, but if it were all so simple and straightforward. After the very brief opening, Sager takes us back three hours, just before this long ride commences. The majority of the book’s first quarter is told through flashbacks, as we get to know Charlie, her best friend Maddy, and the events that led up to her murder.

One of the most important things we learn about Charlie, which fuels much of the book’s suspense, is the condition that plagues her, unpredictable periods of hallucinations (‘movies,’ she calls them) that leave her confused, afraid, and utterly exposed. These hallucinations are nothing new, and there are legitimate psychological reasons that explain their sometimes welcome, other time unwelcome appearances. What we don’t learn a lot about is Josh Baxter, the enigmatic man behind the wheel, taking Charlie back home.

Getting into a car with someone you don’t know for a buddy-ride across state(s) may sound like an insane notion now in 2021, but 30-years ago, it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for unfamiliar classmates at colleges across America. Throw in the mix a serial killer on the loose (is it Josh Baxter? Could it be that simple?), an empathetic but troubled final girl (see Sager’s Final Girls for more of those), and shocking surprises that a soothsayer couldn’t see coming, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a page-turning read.

“Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy” 🎶🎶

Gosh, I love that song so much.

Anyway, Survive the Night takes place in the year 1991 and made me want to instantly play my Nevermind album by Nirvana on repeat.

The plot: girl trapped on road trip with a suspected serial killer who murdered her best friend...it’s chilling.

However, the main character, Charlie, drove me nuts. I just didn’t like her. 😬 I did have empathy for her though. She’s lived through some really tough stuff.

As a reader, it’s hard to distinguish what’s reality and what’s one of Charlie’s mental “mind movies” as her past traumas cause her to have vivid hallucinations.

I have read all of Sager’s books and my favorite is still The Last Time I Lied. While this didn’t dethrone that book for me, it did have its moments, plenty of twists, and I was pleased with the ending.

If you’re a thriller, classic movie, and 90s rock fan you will find plenty to enjoy about this novel.

When Charlie's roommate is murdered by a serial killer on campus, she retreats further into her love of classic movies, to the point where she's not sure what's real and what is a "movie in her mind". She decides to leave college and head home to her grandmother and accepts a ride from a stranger to get her there. Now she's left to try to figure out whether he's a serial killer gaslighting her or whether it's all in her head. Some good twists in this fast-paced book.

Thank you So much for letting me get to read and review Survive the Night by Riley Sager. I am a huge fan of all of his books and this one did not disappoint one bit and I can easily give this one 5 stars. I absolutely loved it. The story was so crazy, so intense that I could not put it down. I had to know what was going to happen to Charlie. Was the driver a killer? Was he not? Was she going to make it home alive?! Wow, just wow. And there was a huge twist at the end that I was not expecting which I loved. The whole use of movies too and whether she was hallucinating or not too was a unique add to the story. Overall this story was wonderful, Perfect Mystery thriller if you are looking for a great read! I definitely will be buying a copy for my shelf once it releases at the end of June!

I love Riley Sager!
Loved the overall vibe of this book. I wish I would have read it in Fall to get all the cozy vibes

Riley Sager is an instant read for me

Survive the Night by Riley Sager is another one of his excellent standalone psychological thrillers, which I have read and enjoyed. It amazes me how Sager continues to give us ultra-exciting and tense, edge of your seat stories that have us holding our breath all the way.
Charlie Jordan, our heroine, decides to leave her campus and go home to her grandmother, as she is still grieving over the loss of her friend, Maddy who was murdered months ago by the Campus Killer. Charlie meets Josh Baxter, who offers her a ride to her hometown, and needing a ride, she accepts. Charlie leaves her boyfriend, Rob, explaining that she may not come back, depending if she still has her nightmare dreams. She is a loner, day dreamer, introvert and is movie expert. Charlie has suffered with what the doctor says are hallucinations since her parents were killed in a car crash; which she often finds herself in movie scenes that look real.
Josh is a janitor for the school, and is heading home to care for his sick father. They begin their travel at night, and for a while the ride is fun, as they play 20 questions to learn about themselves. After a bit, Josh begins to notice how Charlie seems to be distanced, like in another world, at times. When he stops to pick up coffee and food, Charlie notices some strange things like a driver’s license with a different name, and his address was not where they were heading. She begins to suspect that maybe she is riding with the Campus Killer; she needs to keep herself alert and find a way to get away, especially trying to force her movie visions not to takeover. Somehow, she needs to survive the night.

I do not want to tell too much, as it would be spoilers, as there are so many twists along the way, I could not put the book down. Charlie suspicions grow and when they stop at a diner, she is desperate to find a way to escape, and calls her boyfriend Rob, who calls the police. The waitress in the diner befriends her, and tries to help; but Charlie needs to keep Josh from hurting anyone. Survive the Night was an intense nonstop thriller, that changed the game so often, throwing me for a loop, with shocking revelations.

What follows is an intense, action packed, exciting, edge of your seat scary thriller that a had a number of twists along the way, keeping us engrossed to the very end. Riley Sager once again gives us another fantastic story that was so very well written. With so many surprising twists throughout, you really need to read Survive the Night from start to finish. If you enjoy thrillers, suspense, and mystery, look no further than reading anything by Riley Sager.

I really enjoyed the premise of this novel, and Riley Sager always writes a page-turner. This, though, wasn't my favorite of his books- didn't keep my attention and the story was a bit of a dud.

Survive the Night by Riley Sager is a captivating and suspenseful book. It winds down different paths that keep the reader intrigued.

While I love Riley Sager and absolutely tore this one, I have to admit, I guessed the twist. Story moved ahead quickly, just like the car, but it just didn't grab me the way some of Sager's other novels have in the past. I'll still recommend it, for sure, because it is a good book. It just didn't blow my mind.

I recently had the pleasure of reading Survive the Night by Riley Sager. It is a story that follows a girl named Charlie, a college student and big movie buff. She is looking to escape college and the reminders of her best friend that was murdered on campus. She accepts a ride from a stranger and starts to wonder if he might be the campus killer. It was a crazy ride from start to finish that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Charlie has seen many horrible things happen in her lifetime and sometimes creates movie images in her head to cope with her loss. It is a story about trust and deception. Can she trust the man behind the wheel? Can she trust herself and what she thinks she knows to be true? You will find yourself wondering the same things.

I found the story to be incredibly intriguing and I liked that the book read a little bit like a movie script.

Behind the wheel is handsome Josh Baxter, a stranger college student Charlie met via the college rideshare board. On the dark, lonely road they share their stories and talk about the subject on the news—the Campus Killer, a mystery man who murdered three students, including Charlie’s roommate, Maddy.

Traveling the highways and byways between the university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh’s story. Something’s just not right about this guy. He’s too good-looking, too glib. As she begins to plan her escape from a man she is feeling certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh is onto her.

Riley Sager is one of my favorite novelists. Sager, who uses a pen name, has written five tales of suspense which follow familiar tropes—a young woman is placed into a dangerous situation and slowly, she works her way through. In the case of Survive the Night, Charlie is named after a character in the Alfred Hitchcock film, The Trouble with Harry. She and her onscreen counterpart share similar traits and find themselves lost in shadows of doubt. While Sager’s stories rely heavily on a formula, I enjoy his books because he’s good at creating three-dimensional characters and there are always a few twists towards the end. Totally crazy, over-the-top twists, but that’s okay—they’re all in fun, and certainly, his books are not meant to be taken too seriously.

Survive the Night is set in 1991, which makes sense because if Charlie had a cellphone, the book would be over after the first chapter. Still, even without technology, Charlie isn’t very resourceful. Even after she suspects Josh of being a heinous murderer of young women like herself, she passes up several perfect opportunities to escape. Josh stops at a toll booth. She doesn’t get out. He parks at a rest stop so she can use the ladies’ room. She gets back in the car. And so on. Sager adds a strong element of self-doubt, and maybe even mental illness—Charlie sees “movies in her mind” and therefore, her perception of reality is blurred—but I still wasn’t buying it. Fortunately, the last few chapters of Survive the Night are true page-turners with twists, implausible though they may be, you will not see coming.

Overall, I enjoyed this book because I am a fan of the author’s writing style. If Survive the Night is ever adapted for the screen, I suspect I’ll like it a lot more. A couple of hours trapped in an onscreen car, while one of the characters is hallucinating, will translate better than over 300 pages of the same.

Fans of old-school horror/suspense flicks like A Kiss Before and The Hitcher will definitely get more out of this book than the casual reader.

As a huge fan of Riley Sager's first novel Final Girls, I was delighted to receive an ARC for his latest book Survive the Night.

The novel follows Charlie, a young woman who's best friend has been killed by the infamous Campus Killer. Desperate to get away from the campus where her friends memory haunts her, Charlie does something irrational: gets into a car with a stranger. As the ride goes on, it's clear the man she's riding with isn't who he says he is, and Charlie may have gotten herself into more trouble than she thought she could handle.

At the center of the novel, is Charlie's infatuation with film. It's revealed that after a family trauma when she was young, she began to see "movies" in her head, making it hard for her to know what is real and what is an illusion.

Unfortunately, this aspect of the novel made it read like an amatuer endevor. The movies in Charlie's head feel like a poor attempt at skewing her view of events, but the viewers as well. Often times, what occurs in the "movies" Charlie see's is more interesting than the route the book ultimately goes down.

Nevertheless, Sager does succeed in making the last half of the book engaging, with the cat-and-mouse game becoming more heightened. As new players enter the game, Survive the Night becomes more enjoyable, until its last final pages take a turn for the worst.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton Books for an early digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

SURVIVE THE NIGHT is Riley Sager's fifth thriller and I've been a fan of them all, this one being no exception! We get thrown right into the book in the first few pages and there's never a lull. Sager has redefined "unreliable narrator" with our protagonist Charlie in ways I didn't even know were possible. This book is different than others of his as it takes place over a few hours and each chapter is like a screenplay title and time (I e. TEN P.M. INT. GRAND AM) which is just another way Sager keep us engaged. I loved the noir aspects of this story mixed with thriller elements. Survive the Nights drips with tension and 90s nostalgia, full of great music, meaningful conversations, and absolutely zero cell phones. Sager doesn't hold back and the twists and turns are great. In a book that takes you back to being on the road without a care in the world, Sager definitely has me simultaneously wanting to take and avoid a long ride in the car. With a stranger. 5 stars!

Wow! We have a winner! This book blew my mind! Action packed from the first page. Kept me wanting more. For a story that took place in six hours I was never bored and I couldn’t put the book down. This book had me second guessing myself at certain points. I thoroughly loved this book, although I’d have to say that the last 25% felt a little off balance from the rest of the book. I really would have liked for the book to have ended a bit differently. That being said, I would most definitely recommend this book to a friend.

I was so excited to see Riley Sager had a new back and immediately went to Netgalley to request an ARC. The cover is creepy and the premise seemed good. I really liked Charlie as the main character. However, I did not think this book and the story measured up to Sager's past work. Charlie is upset and traumatized after her roommate/best friend is murdered and she leaves school to move back with her grandma. She refuses to drive anymore because of what happened to her friend, which is a little ridiculous. She posts on a message board she needs a ride back to Ohio. Enter Josh....the stranger, who happens to live a few towns away. What happens on their drive to Ohio? You'll have to find out yourself.

This book had the potential to be so much better than it was. Like another reviewer said "Cliche after cliche to the point it was annoying AF to read and I just wanted to get to the ending, which was bad and disappointing.

Still recommended because of the author but this is not her best, unfortunately.

Thanks to NEtgalley, Riley Sager and Penguin Group Dutton Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available" 6/29/21

Riley Sager has once again written a highly addictive thriller that kept me guessing on a lot of fronts. There were times that I thought I had figured things out, and while that was the case in one instance, for the most part I was completely surprised by the turns of events in SURVIVE THE NIGHT. The suspense skillfully builds up to a release point, and once we come down from one moment, the wheels are already turning to create a new slow build to the next moment. Most of our perspective is that of Charlie, a traumatized and paranoid woman dropping out of college after her best friend Maddy's murder. Her guilt and previous traumas have manifested in hallucinations and dissociative episodes. This kind of thing is pretty old hat in the thriller genre, and while Charlie as a character doesn't really re-invent any wheels, the cat and mouse game between her and potential killer Josh is strong enough that I could forgive some of the tropes that Sager relies on in regards to her character. The story flows well, the pacing is right, and it feels very cinematic in a lot of ways. Which is appropriate, given Charlie's love for cinema.

SURVIVE THE NIGHT is sure to be a fun summer thriller! If you like the genre and have liked Sager's works before, you will probably find a lot to like here!

First line: Fade in.

Summary: Two months earlier, Charlie’s best friend, Maddy was murdered by the Campus Killer. But what makes things even worse is that Charlie could have done something to stop it from happening. She blames herself. And the only way she feels that she can move on from this tragedy is to leave school and go home to try and heal.

At the university ride board she meets a young man who offers to drive her home since it is on his way. Charlie is so desperate to leave Olyphant that she accepts. But as soon as she gets into his car she starts to wonder if she has made a terrible choice. Little things start to happen which makes Charlie wonder if Josh is not what he seems. Will she survive the long night time drive?

My Thoughts: I had so much fun reading this book! I kept having to tell myself to relax. I was caught up in the tension and fear. It immediately sucked me in. And Charlie is a very unreliable narrator since she has a disorder that takes her out of reality if things become too much for her. As I read I never knew what to believe and what is one of the movies in her head.

Riley Sager’s books always have the feel of an eighties horror movie. That may be one of the reasons I love them so much. They can be cheesy at times but that is how I want an eighties movie to be. There was lots of twists and turns. I did not expect the ending at all. Some things seemed a little obvious but I was very shocked by big reveal. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants a fast and fun thriller for the summer. It hits the spot perfectly.

FYI: Violence, murder, and some language.

This was... disappointing.

It's very hard to review this book without spoilers but here we go. The premise was okay. Main female character decides to leave university, her studies and her boyfriend to go back home after her roommate/best friend is murdered by the "Campus Killer". For that, she gets a ride from a stranger... oh, it's in the 90s so she has no cell phone...

The problem is that it was cliché after cliché after cliché. I even felt the need to double check I was reading the right book.

The ending was bad. Then it got even worse.

Another winner from Riley Sager! Survive the Night was just as fun of a read as I expected from Sager, and the premise hooks you in right away. Yes, it's a common trope but I feel like it works and I was ready for a road trip gone wrong kind of thriller. There is some suspension of belief, the main character Charlie accepting a car ride from a stranger even though she is till grappling with the trauma of her best friend being murdered by the "Campus Killer" is a bit suspect, but also kind of works in a self-sabotaging kind of way. Dare I say, I can relate to this kind of character. If you are looking for a book to get you out of a rut or something that you can read in one sitting Survive the Night is the book for you.

Book Review

𝑺𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕
𝑩𝒚: @rileysager
𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction
𝑮𝑹 𝑺𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒆: 3.86
⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5 Stars

“I’m so happy ’cause today I found my friends, they’re in my head” ⎯ Nirvana, 1990

𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒆

It's the early 90's. George H. W. Bush is in the White House, Nirvana’s in the tape deck and movie fanatic Charlie Jordon is placing a flyer on her college campus ride board. She doesn't know that her future looks like all she knows is she needs to get out of here and as soon as possible. So, when good looking Josh Baxter with his charming winning smile says he can drive if she helps with gas she agrees.

They met at the campus ride board, each looking to share the long drive home to Ohio. Both have good reasons for wanting to get away. For Charlie, it’s guilt and grief over the murder of her best friend, who became the third victim of the man known as the Campus Killer. For Josh, it’s to help care for his sick father. Or so he says. There’s something suspicious about Josh. As they travel an empty highway in the dead of night, an increasingly worried Charlie begins to think she’s sharing a car with the Campus Killer. Or is Charlie’s suspicion merely a figment of her movie-fueled imagination? The movies in her head are becoming more vivid, more real than ever. If Charlie doesn't snap out of them it could be life or death.

𝑴𝒚 𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔

I know back-to-back Riley Sager books! I can truly say I'm obsessed! LOL! Another fanfreakintastic job again for Riley! This one was so much fun and just incredibly hopeful. I mean I read it in a day and 1/2 not even HAHA! I want to say I ABSOLOUTELY LOVE the ending/epilogue. I was hoping for it so much! The movies in Charlie's head were a bit odd IMO. I'm not sure I liked them in the story. They made it weird and her a bit crazy. But maybe that was just one of the many, many twists that was in this awesome book that you get to read. Because there are so many twists your head will spin! Great job Riley!

Survive the Night releases on June 29th 2021

#SurvivetheNight #NetGalley

Thank you NetGalley, Riley Sager and Dutton/Penguin Group for this e-ARC