e-Arc provided by Hodder & Stoughton, Hodder Paperbacks via Net Galley for Review. All thoughts are my own. My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton, Hodder Paperbacks for providing me with the arc for review. It is worth noting I also have a physical copy of this book that I had pre-ordered, my e-Arc did not get approved until after I received my physical copy.

Plot
Charlie, a film enthusiast and college student, is determined to get away from her college as soon as possible. She agrees to ride share with Josh, who has to leave campus at 9pm. As the pair drive across the state Charlie begins to question Josh's story and question whether she will survive the night.

Thoughts
This isolated and psychological thriller had me questions everything. Charlie is stuck in the car with no way out, and the forced proximity was so good. I also loved that is took place entirely at night time which gave it an extra layer of tension, especially as I was reading it while flying on a plane by myself at night.

Charlie has a mental health condition which causes her to hallucinate vivid 'movies in her mind'. As the book is largely told for her perspective I was constantly questioning her reliability as a narrator.

For the first half of this book I thought I had finally found my perfect thriller, and I was well on the way to it becoming a five star. However, it lost me in the second half. The second half became very predictable and I was guessing all the reveals.

The issue with having a small cast of characters in thrillers is when you know something is going to be revealed you're limited to who can be blamed. Which, unfortunately made this book very easy to guess.

Overall, I really enjoyed it but just thought it get too predictable. I was on the edge of my seat reading it, and read it in one sitting so would recommend if you're looking for an easy, gripping thriller to read during the spooky season.

This book was not for me. I really disliked it.

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest thriller reader, but I do enjoy them on occasion. This was my first Riley Sager book, and given all of the amazing reviews of his backlist, I think I chose the wrong place to start.

This book was very obviously a man writing a female MC, and it wasn’t good. Charlie read like what a man might expect, or even want, a woman to read like and maybe that was intentional given the ending, but it was painful to read. She made some shockingly bad decisions, which I don’t really fault her for considering she was experiencing delusions and grief, but given all that she’d gone through, it should have been SO easy to root for her. Instead, the author made her an unlikeable caricature and I just couldn’t have cared less about what happened to her. I also can’t understand why Charlie had literally been hallucinating for years and everyone she told seemed to just be like, “Oh wow, so quirky!”

The actual mystery element was pretty predictable, but it wasn’t badly paced, and the car ride itself was pretty creepy. The constant pop culture references, while in keeping with the theme, were a bit much and the whole thing was a bit cringy. I also really disliked the ending.

I may still pick up some of Riley Sager’s backlist, as I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things, but Survive the Night just wasn’t the thriller for me.

Content warnings: Sexism, murder, suicide, car accident, blood, shooting, drowning, drugging, cancer, kidnapping.

I received this book from the publishers via Netgalley for a review. A very good thriller with good characters. Well plotted highly recommended.

I’ve heard really conflicting things about this book but I really enjoyed it. I didn’t see any of the twists coming and LOVED the unreliable narrator. I loved not knowing why was actually happening half of the tome and not knowing who to trust. The ending was also really sweet. Thrillers don’t normally get such a sweet conclusion but that made the book so much better for me. Would definitely recommend

I needed a little time after finishing this book to decide if it was brilliant or if I had missed the point and was very frustrated. After sitting with that final part for half an hour I realised how thoroughly Riley Sager had spun me around in circles until I couldn't tell up from down! That was the most brilliant twist I could have never imagined. I was a little gutted that I guessed who the Campus Killer was but only about 20 pages before the reveal.

I loved the character of Maddy, and I did keep thinking she seemed too much like a movie character and wondered how much was the movie in her mind - so that end twist made so much sense. I could definitely see this book being made into a movie.

The unreliable narrator trope is one of my favourites and it didn't disappoint with finding a new angle for it in this book.

2/5 stars

I'm an avid mystery/thriller reader and enjoyer, though somehow I haven't picked up a Riley Sagar before even though I've heard good things. I liked the premise of this book and so I requested this to finally read from this author, but I was quite underwhelmed. I've heard that Sagar often writes very surprising and cool twists, so that was another pull to this book.

I didn't enjoy this book (hence my rating), but it's down to the way the book pans out from about the 65% mark. Up to this point, it's fine, it's got an interesting isolated and forced proximity kind of feel to it. I'm sure a thriller like this could work really well, but unfortunately this missed the mark. The twists were ridiculous, and not the "ridiculously good" sort of twist that I was hoping for. They weren't surprising and one of the reveals didn't feel realistic as the character didn't have a plausible enough motive for me to believe them. I was drawn to Riley Sagar for the twists and reveals that I thought I would find surprising, but I just didn't. They went too far from reality for me to actually think they were plausible,

I'd probably read another Riley Sagar in the future as I liked the writing enough and I've seen that quite a lot of people who have enjoyed Sagar's writing in the past didn't enjoy this one. I've also seen reviews complaining about the main character, but honestly I didn't find that myself. In my opinion, she was okay. She made some questionable decisions, though nothing I was annoyed by.

Overall, I'm quite disappointed, but I don't know, you might like this????

Survive the Night continues the “Final Girl” trope with aplomb as Riley Sager builds the tension and claustrophobia with one of the worst car journeys I can imagine, with the constant mental manipulation and near misses really keeping me on the edge of my seat! With plenty of “Gone Girl” -esque twists and nothing being as first seen or expected, this is another excellent thriller by Sager, and it’s been tricky to explain it when recommending, which to me is a sign of a complex and interesting book. I have to say – I LOVED the ending!

I enjoyed this book and thought would make a good movie, I loved the twist at the end and would definitely recommend

It’s 1991, and Charlie is leaving college, maybe temporarily, but probably for good. The main problem is, she can’t get over the death of her friend Maddy, who was a victim of the Campus Killer - Charlie blames herself for Maddy’s death.

She’s just posting a flyer on the campus ride board, to see if anyone wants to share a ride back to Ohio, when she meets Josh, who is looking for a passenger to share his gas costs to roughly the same area, and so it’s agreed that they’ll travel together.
Charlie immediately starts to have her doubts, she’s never actually seen Josh around college, knows nothing about him, could even be the Campus Killer for all she knows!

Gosh this was a slow start, I almost gave up on it, but persevering, I discovered that it picked up considerably later on, and there were a few twists, one of which I wasn’t expecting. Was this one of my favourite reads? Definitely not, but I’m glad I stuck with it.

Following Charlie as she starts her journey home to her grandmother after her best friend Maddie died. We get to see in to an unstable mind, in a situation full of red flags 🚩 Josh a stranger just looking for someone to share the cost of a ride, Charlie desperate leaves with him, leaving her boyfriend Robbie and hopefully the guilt, shame and films behind. We take an adventure not knowing if Charlie is trapped in a car with a killer or an innocent man.

The characters in this book popped, with such a small cast the characters need to be well written, Charlie in particular was a fabulous character to follow. Struggling with seeing films in her head her narrative is shaky, her interactions are questionable and her memory is shady. It really keeps you on the edge of your seat!

The plot felt like it went a little off of the premise, I was really hoping for an interview with a serial killer type of story. What I got wasn’t a let down even if it was unexpected.

I did not guess or predict the reveal, I was overly happy with it but it definitely done it’s intended job. The epilogue however was great and there was reveal/surprise I did have a smirk at while reading as it was quite satisfying!

Overall I had so much fun with this book, I read it in two days and was really in to it flipping the pages to find out what the hell was going on.

I also review this in video format, so if your interested in my thoughts as I read this book it's here : https://youtu.be/0swKDpgs4Us

It’s best to go into this book knowing as little as possible. I read the synopsis after finishing the book and was really glad I hadn’t read it beforehand.

This was full of twists and turns I did not expect. It kept me guessing the whole time and questioning everything that was happening.

I couldn’t put it down and read the whole book in less than 24 hours after a brutal reading slump.

It’s November 1991. Nirvana’s in the tape deck, George H. W. Bush is in the White House, and movie-obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer.

Charlie has to escape but she has no way to call anyone and nowhere to run.

All she can do is survive the night.

This is the first book by Riley Sager that I’ve read and it was a hit for me. The main character Charlie is so frustrating to read about; she puts herself in the most precarious situations and doesn’t seem to have a self-preserving bone in her body! You will get so angry with her when you read this book. I think it’s important to remember the time period of this book, the early 1980s and the influences Sager draws from when writing the story. I get a lot of 80’s slasher movie vibes (think Michael Meyers in Halloween, Jason X in Friday the 13th, Psycho and you’re on the right track). The female characters in these movies seem to be helpless and never make the right decisions when it comes to escaping the psycho-killers. Charlie appears to be cut from the same cloth and I was shouting for her to pull herself together and get the hell away from Josh, the stranger she is stuck in the car with. Sager uses chapter titles which copy a movie script giving the location of the characters further tying his book to a cinematic experience.

The story itself is at times confusing and disorientating which makes you question whether events described by Charlie are actually happening or whether she has imagined it. The trauma of losing her best friend and roommate at the hands of the Campus Killer has led her to experience breaks from reality and Sager’s writing style and the unfolding of the plot mirrors her questioning of what is real and what is in her head.

Plenty of twists and turns and misdirection throughout the book. I had managed to figure out who the killer was pretty early on in the book but I’m a thriller addict so it’s hard to surprise me when it comes to who the bad guy is. It was still a very enjoyable read and I loved the way the story is sewn up at the end. Now I’m going to have to read Sager’s other books to see what they are like!

Survive the Night is out in December. Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for a copy of the ARC in return for my honest review.

The start of this book felt quite slow, but I'm glad i continued with it as suddently things really picked up and the plot went off in quite a different way. The ending was intriguing. No spoilers though.

This was my second Riley Sagar read, after I read Final Girls last year and loved it (did not see that twist coming?!). Survive the Night provided a similar level of angst, but more so in a way that I was questioning myself because of the unreliability of the narrator. I didn't know what was real or not, but I guess neither did Charlie, which was insanely frustrating. I also just could not suspend my belief - why would a girl whose best friend who had been murdered literally just a few days before get into a car with a man she had never met, and when she started to question that he was lying, remain in the car when she could have left at any of the stops they made?!! GURL this isn't scary movie, put down the banana and get away!!

Synopsis
After her best friend Maddy’s murder , Charlie’s left devastated and broken all alone at the Olymphant university.
With the serial killer roaming freely , she needs to leave and she needs to leave now even if it means alone with a complete stranger late at night.
But as the night goes , why does it feel like she’s on a ride with a serial killer?

Overall thoughts:-
I loved and enjoyed this thriller , enjoyed it enough that I’d recommend to everyone
Y’all if you love thriller and are obsessed with movies ‘This one’s for you.’

I’d give it a 3.5 ✨ because it didn’t bring out that ‘oh my god!! What just happened’😳kinda reaction on the plot twist,

As surprising as it was , I merely reacted with oh my!! How could that be !
Which for me wasn’t really enough

I get the Riley sager hype, this was a campy ride mystery that takes you back to the 90’s

I love his writing style and I’d love to read more of his books
Thank you @netgally and @duttonbooks for providing this arc for me to devour 🤍

I normally love Riley Sager but Survive The Night was just ..... Meh.
The blurb itself was intriguing and had me interested in reading the book but it just ended up being a note and I lost interest at around the halfway mark.
Not a lot of suspense or thrills and was predictable. I would still recommend Sagers work just not this one.
Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC

Survive the Night follows Charlie as, in an attempt to get away from the grief and anguish of losing her best friend, she accepts a carshare away from their university with a handsome stranger. Charlie is losing grip on reality though, and the longer she’s in the car, the more convinced she becomes that Josh, her driver, isn’t what he seems. It becomes clear that her only option is to mentally study all of the movie history that she’s learned from horror to get through their six hour drive and survive until morning, or until she can find help.

I don’t read a lot of thrillers, but this one was one of the best I’ve read this year. It was fast-paced enough to get me out of my reading slump and, from the very beginning, completely unputdownable. Charlie’s deteriorating grip on reality made her an incredibly unreliable narrator and it was so interesting to try and guess all the way through whether she was in danger, what kind of danger she was in, and what reckless thing she would attempt in order to get out of it. The entire book takes place over a day or so, so it really felt like I was on their journey with them, with every second accounted for, without the book becoming slow at all.

This book was twisty and definitely went in a lot of directions I wasn’t expecting so, even though some of the major plot twists were very guessable, the amount that weren’t balanced these out incredibly well. It was easy to keep track of what was happening and all the twists made sense as well, which was a pleasant change to a lot of confusing and jumpy thrillers that I’ve read in the past.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I definitely enjoyed the first half slightly more, with the incredible amount of suspense that the author built from the get-go, but the whole book was a gripping, edge-of-your-seat read that I’m sure will become a new favourite for fans of Riley Sager’s other books and fans of the psychological suspense genre in general

Sadly for me, this book just didn't live up to the others that Riley Sager has written.

The book is based on a teenage girl Charlie who is movie-obsessed, awkward and an introvert. Charlie's best friend however, is eccentric and outgoing and can always convince Charlie to mix with the crowd and have a good time. Charlie adores Maddy and loves her for her eccentricity and that they share the common love of movies. When Charlies best friend Maddy is brutally murdered, Charlie knows that she has to leave Olyphant University, her boyfriend and her current life behind. She is crushed and devoured by grief and guilt as Charlie believes she is the reason Maddy was murdered. All of this led Charlie to ride share with a complete stranger, although she does express her concern as the Campus Killer is still lurking about and she is determined she will get back to Nana Norma safely. Grief is not a new feeling for Maddy, she lost her parents as a child and was brought up with her Nan - 'Nana Norma'. Following her parents grief, Charlie started to experience hallucinations which confused reality with the movies that she loved, this plays a big part later in the book.

I felt that the idea of jumping in a car with the first stranger you lock eyes on, who just so happens to be going to Ohio whilst her friend had just been brutally murdered was too unbelievable, yes, even for the 90's. Not long after she jumps in the car with this stranger, it becomes clear that 'Josh' isn't who appears to be. Charlie decides to tell 'Josh', who remember, is a complete stranger that she has hallucinations and of course, to no ones surprise, he uses this to his advantage. Regardless of this, the worst part for me was the numerous chances she had to get away from 'Josh' who she wasn't sure if he was the Campus Killer but instead changes her mind, every. single. time.

Once the action all started to happen, Charlie regains her confidence and the absurdity of the events just increase. There is shootings, fire and yes of course, some hero to come and save her. The twists will catch you off guard but mainly because they were just too ridiculous to consider in the first place.

I absolutely love Riley Sager and I will continue to read his books but this one was definitely not the one for me.

Unfortunately this one wasn't for me. The initial set up is interesting - a woman believes she's hitching a ride with a serial killer, but the execution is messy at best.

This doesn't feel like Riley Sager's usual writing style. It's as though he thought he'd try something a bit outside the box, a bit left field, by injecting this film noir atmosphere and attitude but it doesn't work. The narrative is all over the place, jumping between scenes and leading to repetitive story telling. It gets very boring and irritating after a while and I didn't ever feel connected to the characters or plot as a result.

I also guessed the ending very early on. Always a bad sign in thrillers for me. Add in a trope that I really dislike - twisting fake memories with unreliable narrators, and I ended up clocking out around 45% of the way in and skimming the rest.

Disappointing read, when compared to this author's back catalogue. I guess my expectations going into this shouldn't have been so high.

Survive the Night by Riley Sager is a psychological thriller that keeps the suspension going all through a car journey. I thought it was a very taut suspense thriller and the storyline kept you guessing until near the end. The characters were sinister and intriguing and the twists and turns kept the reader guessing until the end.
Highly recommended