Wow, so many twists and turns in this story. It started off a little slow for me but then I was hooked as to what was going to happen to Charlie. The ending resolved everything quite nicely. Looking forward to more from this author.

This was my first Riley Sager and it absolutely did not disappoint! While the lead-in was a bit slow for me, once our traveling duo hit the road I was HOOKED and finished in a couple of sittings. I think the pacing was excellent once the action began, and I loved that Sager took a potentially boring premise of a road trip in the 90's and turned it into much more. While I actually found the ending to be a bit predictable, I did not guess everything and still enjoyed it nonetheless. I have since read The Last Time I Lied and am a true Sager fan thanks to this first advance electronic copy! Thank you to Dutton Books!

A girl obsessed with movies after the tragic accident that killed both of her parents, Charlie--just Charlie, not a nickname--is now reeling from the murder of her roommate and best friend. Intent upon dropping out of college and going home just to avoid the guilt, she agrees to rideshare with Josh, a man she's only met through the ride board on campus.

Charlie suffers from delusions occasionally, so when she first starts suspecting that Josh may not be who or what he says, she writes off her concerns as her head messing with her. But eventually, she can't ignore the obvious: Josh--if that's even his name--may very well be the man who killed her friend. And now she's trapped in a car with him.

A nineties throwback novel, Survive the Night is laid out like a script, it's fast-paced, and it's fun. Be prepared to suspend your disbelief, as I got the distinct impression that not only are we reading a script, we're meant to feel like we're participating in a movie.

3 stars for me

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC copy

I really wanted to like this one, and I did to some extent.
But, I honestly found Charlie super annoying. I did not understand her internal and psychological presence.
First, she gets in a car with a stranger then spent the entire time second-guessing her decision.
She had, in my own limited thinking, some mental health issues, but guess what? they all disappeared when she was damn good and ready to get her ish together.
Some characters made absolutely no sense to me as well.
I did love the chase though, it wasn't too drawn out and every little piece of the puzzle that was revealed made me want to get to the end.

👍🏼 This one was fun, and I didn’t guess the big middle twist or the last small plot device twist. This would be a great movie.
👎🏼 After the big twist, the smaller twists were easier to guess, and it wasn’t quite as pulpy as I wanted.

This e-copy was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and the publisher for review. All opinions are my own.

I was ultimately disappointed in Riley Sager's newest title, Survive the Night, which really bums me out. I wanted to like it. I found myself skim reading so much just to get through it. I was invested enough in how the book was described that I had to know how it would evolve and then end.

I guessed the killer from the beginning (I am one of those readers when it comes to 'who done it', I am not normally surprised) but I 'm left wanting in the reasoning behind the killer. It felt like the explaination was a bit of an easy way out at the end. I was not convinced. I did really like the ending, and the touch of revenge. I will admit that this book takes you off course and left me slightly confused at the climax but I enjoyed the resolution.

I liked our unreliable narrator, though her episodes make it hard to decide if what she is experiencing is actually happening.

So... this was a shitshow full of mad people. And I don't mean it in a good way.

Let me start this review on a positive note.
As Riley Sager is a best selling author, I expected to like his writing style, and although I wasn't a fan of all the things he has written in this particular novel, I do admit that his words are easy to follow and the book reads easy and fast.
To give you and example how fast it reads, I will just say that it was our August pick for our book club and instead of planned 7, it took us only 4 days to finish.

The premise was promising, but with all the negative reviews appearing I didn't have too high expectations.
However, I did expect to be fascinated with Josh's character (because of one BookTube review) but that didn't happen.
Also, in one of my Goodreads friend's review I read that Charlie is one of the stupidest characters ever written, and after I finished Survive the Night, I 100% understand why my friend feels that way. I also agree with her, to some point.
It is hard to root for someone who acts so against their well being.
If I am being honest, one part of me even wanted for her not to survive the night.

As for the big relevation I wasn't surprised at all, as the author gave us only few characters in the whole story, there weren't much choices to chose our suspect from.

Last thing I want to mention is how I am not happy with the way mental illness was handled.
We never got the answer what Charlie's diagnosis were, the author almost approached it as some kind of superpower, at some parts it felt like it was used just to mess with our mind and one chapter closer to the end reminded me of the way mental illness was handled in the history, when ppl in mental hospitals were put under electricity hamlets to be cured.
That chapter left bad taste in my mouth.

In the end I will just say that I am still eager to read Riley's book called Lock Every Door, and this one I will just pretend it wasn't written by him.

Riley Sager never disappoints. His pages are filled with terror, suspense, and psychological horror! While this wasn't my favorite Sager novel, it wasn't bad by any means. It was also filled with 90's nostalgia. If you are a fan of Stranger Things, then give this a read! 3 stars!

This was my first time reading Riley Sager and definitely won't be the last! I am fairly new to reading thrillers in general. I read and also listened at the same time and I loved both versions of this thriller!
I read the book without many pretexts and was surprised by several twists. There are a few trigger warnings you may want to research before you read if you're concerned. I definitely recommend this if to any reader that likes thrillers and all the 90's culture.

College student accepts a ride home to Ohio from her campus in New Jersey. The driver is a complete stranger and there's a serial killer on the loose. One of the victims just happened to be the student's roommate. Seems like the student could have made better choices. I'm a huge fan of Ms. Sager's writing but I struggled to stay with her latest.

2.5-3 stars

I have…mixed feelings. The ending was unexpected to me, and I’d rather it be that way then figure it out early on. I felt like there was so much potential to the idea of this book. But I expected a little more. I prefer Riley Sager’s other books that I’ve read to this one.

I was a fan of all of Sager’s previous books but unfortunately this one didn’t work for me. The premise was solid: a young girl hitches a ride with a stranger when there’s a killer on the loose who murdered her roommate. When he starts acting shady she tries to plan her escape and it all culminates over one car ride and evening.

The execution simply didn’t work for me. The plot devices were so strange and made zero sense. The “movies” - what? It was all too much. I wasn’t a fan of the build up or the “release”. It just wasn’t enjoyable and so far fetched I couldn’t get on board.

When Charlie, a young college student who is obsessed with horror movies, accepts a ride from a stranger, the night turns into a fight for survival....or does it? Is what she thinks is happening really happening....or is this just her imagination?

Riley Sager never disappoints. I LOVED this book which wasn't a surprise. Another great set of characters, with great tension and an awesome ending.

Riley Sager’s latest chiller is an homage to the B movies of a different time. A little claustrophobic, a bit of whatever it is that makes slasher movies so compelling, and a touch of Hitchcockian, gas-lighting psychodrama.
To get into the groove of the story, you have to think about what 1991 was like, a time before cell phones and Ubers, a time when college students posted on ride share boards to get home for break. And that’s where we join Charlie, a film major whose roommate, Maddy, has been murdered by a serial killer. Charlie is broken, still grieving the deaths of her parents in a car accident years before. The killing of her best friend has left her reeling, especially because the pair had a blow-out fight the night of the murder, with Charlie leaving Maddy behind at a bar where she was lured away by the Campus Killer.
Charlie is also suffering from trauma-induced mini-fugue states/hallucinations that she refers to as movies in her mind. Sometimes, she’s not all that sure what’s real, as her brain overlaps realistic looking movie scenes with real life. Not surprising, since her grandmother was once a hopeful Hollywood starlet, who helped Charlie deal with the loss of her parents through classic cinema. The grief and guilt she feels are compounded by the fact that one of these movies in her mind is covering the face of Maddy’s killer, who Charlie saw as a film noir-esque character, face covered by a fedora.
To get home to Ohio, and her beloved grandmother, Charlie accepts a ride from total stranger Josh Baxter, leaving her picture-perfect boyfriend Robbie behind at school. It’s clear pretty quickly that Josh isn’t exactly who he says he is, there are holes in his story and he knows things about Maddy’s murder that weren’t made public. She begins to suspect that he may be the Campus Killer, but can’t trust that the things she’s seen and heard are really happening, they could be the movies in her mind taking over. So, she stays with Josh, because either he’s a perfectly nice guy who she’s projecting onto, or he killed her best friend, and she has a chance to get justice, or at least revenge. All she has to do is survive the night, a task that will get more and more difficult the deeper the pair drive into the Pennsylvania mountains.
I’ve seen a lot of varying reviews on this one, and the criticisms are valid. Why would a woman take a ride across the state with a man she doesn’t know? Why would she stay when she begins to suspect he’s a killer? I’ve seen reviewers call Charlie stupid for these choices, but I see her as self-destructive and guilt ridden. She’s so consumed with the pain she’s feeling that she doesn’t see anything other than her need to get away, and she doesn’t see herself as worthy of a future, as worthy of saving. So, Charlie takes a route that might help her make amends to Maddy in trying to figure out if Josh was her murderer.
Survive the Night is a twisty thriller infused with a love for movies and 90s nostalgia. Sager is in his usual form, with a plucky, traumatized protagonist navigating a deceptively simple horror trope played for everything its worth. It’s not my favorite of his books (that would be The Last Time I Lied), but it is a solid summer page-turner that kept me guessing throughout the action.

4 Stars - Another slam dunk for Riley Sager! I’ve got to say I think Survive the Night was probably one of my favorites from him so far! I love the premise of the book and I throughly enjoyed Charlie’s unreliable narrating. I will say the only complaint I have was the ending felt a bit rushed and (frankly) unrealistic. However that issue aside I felt that Survive The Night felt like a movie put to paper (which was definitely a good thing)! Overall very fast paced and enjoyable read from Riley Sager!

Thank you to Netgalley and Riley Sager for the advanced reading of Survive the Night!

More Like 4 and ½ Stars!

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Dutton Books and Riley Sager for my advanced copy of Survive the Night!

This book was absolutely nuts and I loved it. I have loved all of Riley Sager's books and here is a ranking that nobody has asked for :

1. The Last Time I Lied
2.Survive the Night
3.Home Before Dark
4.Lock Every Door.

I have Final Girls on my book cart and will get to it soon!

What I Loved About Survive the Night-

The Atmosphere- Survive the Night had great Atmosphere! It gave me major fall vibes and I loved imaging the dark autumn chill in the air.

The Writing- Riley Sager books are so easy to get lost in. All of his books are fast, easy reads.

The Suspense- After passing the half was point of this book I was constantly at the edge of my seat. The last time I had similar feelings for a book was while reading Taylor Adams' No Exit. Another great book- please give it a read.

The Audio- I purchased the audio of this book through Libro.fm. The audio was fantastic.

The Twists- I did not see the twists coming and was not disappointed at all.

Why This Wasn't a 5 Star-

I went into this book hesitant because of the mixed reviews. The first half of the book dragged at times. If you find yourself feeling the same way please push through. It's definitely worth the read!

Overall- Highly recommend. This is one of my favorites by Riley Sager and I can't wait to read anything else he decides to publish in the future.

Riley Sager is always an enjoyable read. I’ll always read his books. My minor criticism is that it’s starting to feel a bit formulaic. Always a vulnerable girl who’s questioning herself and what’s real and what’s not. I struggle to understand why they’re always women. This story could have easily been a male main character. Why is it always a vulnerable woman who doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not?

That grievance aside I enjoyed the book despite having what turned out to be a correct theory about one part of what was really happening. I did get surprised by a couple of things and I attribute that to him successfully diverting my attention elsewhere so that was great to actually have my jaw drop. I probably should have seen it but it was like magician making his audience look the other way. I see what you did there, Riley. And while I am classic in my attempt to “figure it out,” I also don’t mind when I don’t because it means I can actually enjoy the story. While it may not always be a highly intelligent plot twist, I appreciate when I can be surprised.

I thought early on that while I was enjoying the book, maybe Riley may be losing the flair of his first couple books but I didn’t feel that way at the end. Like I said he’ll always be a great beach read for me. I’d just like to see him take it a bit deeper and go outside of the standard Sager formula with a vulnerable woman at the center of the story

It’s finally summer, and thriller-fanatics know what that means: a new Riley Sager novel!

Ever since his debut novel Final Girls hit the New York Times bestseller list in 2017, garnering rave reviews from thriller veterans such as Stephen King, Sager has developed somewhat of a cult-following, of which I am a hardcover-toting member.

I became addicted while listening to his second novel, The Last Time I Lied, after which I immediately read Final Girls, and the rest is history.

Last year, his haunted-house-horror-novel Home Before Dark garnered five stars from me, as well as many other satisfied readers. Sager kicked fellow thriller novelist Ruth Ware out of the water as my favorite of the contemporary genre, so naturally, his newest novel, Survive the Night, was my most anticipated read of the year. I had pretty high expectations, as none of his other novels had been below a four-star for me.

Survive the Night, unlike Sager’s other novels, reads almost like a play, all taking place over the course of one night. First, we meet Charlie, our protagonist, a college student escaping home mid-year after her best friend was tragically murdered by the Campus Killer, an infamous serial killer that remains at large since their most recent murder was committed four years before. Wracked with grief and feeling inexplicably guilty that the death was somehow her fault, Charlie itches to get away as soon as possible.

Sager is known for feminine protagonists with a history of family trauma, and Charlie is no exception: Charlie’s parents were killed in a car accident only four years before, and the death of her best friend Maddy seems to both open new wounds and exacerbate old ones.

When Charlie meets Josh at her college ride board, offering a free ride home to Ohio along with him to visit his ailing father, Charlie decides her only choice is to accept the invite while remaining cautious.

But Charlie is no ordinary grief-stricken student, she has a special ability to see “movies in her head.” As Charlie explains it: “Instead of what’s really happening, I see a heightened version of the scene. Like my brain is playing tricks on me. I hear conversations that aren’t happening and see things that aren’t really there.”

Of course you do, Charlie.

That said, I’m going to be honest: this book was a disappointment for me. As skillfully as this novel was written, and as much as I was on the edge of my seat for the last twenty percent, this is a three-star.

Although easily explainable as a side effect of trauma endured from losing her parents, the “movies in your head” element of Charlie’s perspective felt like nothing more than a plot device Sager implemented to further lead his reader off the scent. For example, when perspectives switch back and forth between Charlie and the driver, Sager constantly calls into question whether the events transpiring are entirely in Charlie’s head, or if the driver is just making her believe this on purpose. Needless to say, the uncertainty didn’t work for me—it only made me feel frustrated.

There were a few things that left a bad taste in my mouth when I first began the novel, a feeling I hoped wouldn’t stay with me. I quickly began to lose faith in Sager as a similar plot of another contemporary horror novel—No Exit by Taylor Adams—came to mind, something I was not looking forward to reading a second time. What’s more, a red herring was introduced within the first chapter, raising my suspicions, and I began to think Sager somewhat cocky for throwing the reader in one concise direction so early.

Throughout the novel, Sager tricks his reader into believing that they have everything completely figured out based on the way the story has led them, just so that he can pull the rug out from under you later with a mind-blowing twist. As a reader, I found this a little annoying, as it seemed more contrived than his usual narrative style.

The chapter titles are written like scene headers in a screenplay, (e.g., “INT. VOLVO–NIGHT”). Though seemingly an attempt to place the reader in Charlie’s “movie seeing head”, these scene headers did the opposite—it pulled me out of the story. This was jarring at first, but I soon understood that Sager used this staging technique to avoid setting the scene after each short section, which would take the reader out of the flow. Nevertheless, it was a bit distracting, personally.

Another gripe I had may just apply to a more seasoned reader of the thriller genre, but I was able to figure out the killer earlier than I have for any of Sager’s other books. I kept hoping, praying that this wasn’t it, that there was going to be an elaborate twist that I never would have thought of. I thought he was setting up all these red herrings so that he could blow my mind later, just like last summer with Home Before Dark.

As I kept reading, and my patience grew thin, all signs began to point towards what I had predicted. Honestly, it could be chocked up to too few characters, but it’s always a bummer for me when I figure out the killer that early on.

In addition, I found Survive the Night to be very put-downable. Usually, I finish thrillers in twenty four hours or less, Sager’s books in particular. I finished Home Before Dark in a day, and I planned to do so with this one as well, carving out an entire day to sit on my patio and become engrossed in suspense. Instead, it took me almost four entire days to finish. I kept yelling “get to the point! don’t keep me waiting!” and “oh, come on!” like a crazy person for my neighbors to hear. At some moments, I grew annoyed with Sager for throwing in so many red herrings and very convenient plot lines.

Ultimately, though, this is a novel about grief, and the things we do during that time when it feels like you’ve already felt the worst pain possible. When these overarching themes of pain and loss revealed themselves, my cold, horror-loving heart melted, and I was finally able to connect with the characters as real people with real emotions rather than plot instruments.

Although this is not my favorite of Sager’s novels, I would overall recommend Survive the Night, and Sager’s other thrillers, especially for beginners to the genre. It’s twisty, but not too predictable, and it’ll have you on the edge of your seat!

RILEY SAGER is the pseudonym of a former journalist, editor and graphic designer. Now a full-time writer, Riley is the author of Final Girls, an international bestseller that’s been published in 25 languages, and the instant New York Times bestsellers The Last Time I Lied, Lock Every Door and Home Before Dark. His latest book, Survive the Night, will be available June 29 from Dutton Books. A native of Pennsylvania, he now lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

I can see why this was a NYT bestseller. It kept me on the edge of my seat! I couldn't breathe, I couldn't eat, I couldn't put this down. It was a fantastic ride!