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

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

I was very happy when I was notified that Hodder & Stoughton approved me of an ARC of this. I loved Riley Sager's Lock Every Door and was looking forward to reading Home Before Dark for Halloween this year.

Compared with Lock Every Door, I didn't like this one as much. I think it was a fun book, and the premise is very interesting but sadly it didn't reach my expectation. I also didn't really the main character in this. As much as I think Riley Sager is a wonderful mystery/thriller author, his main characters are always stereotypical to me. I'm looking forward to reading his next books, but I hope there will be some development of his main characters in the next one.

What a joy to get your hands on the new title by one of your favourite authors!
For old fans and new ones alike, you will be on the edge of your seat, shouting instructions and rooting for the good guys. A fast-paced thriller that delivers to the last page.

I have read all of Riley Sagers books and have enjoyed some and not enjoyed others. But this one was by far the best one yet.
I was grabbed by this straight away and couldn't put it down. This is the true definition of a read in one sitting book.
Gripping, tense, a cat and mouse game and an unreliable narrator all worked perfectly.
And I didn't see the twists coming which is unusual for me in this genre.
This had the feeling of a screenplay and would make a great movie.

After her best friend at college was murdered, Charlie wants nothing more than to get away and go home immediately. She could wait ten days for her boyfriend to drive her, but she doesn’t feel like she can wait that long, so finding someone to ride share with seems like the best option. While putting an advertisement up on the ride share board, she meets Josh. He’s driving the same way as her and they arrange to leave together the next night. But as they start the drive, Josh says some things that make Charlie think he’s not the person he says he is. However, she often sees movies in her mind that warp reality – so, is what she’s seeing real?

I mean, I don’t want to victim blame here, but could Charlie be any dumber? Your best friend has been murdered by a stranger near campus, but you get in a car with a complete stranger you met there? And honestly, how many perfectly good opportunities can you possibly miss, to get yourself out of a situation, and instead just do NOTHING? It honestly made it hard for me to sympathize with her. The whole time I just kept thinking Just 👏 tell 👏 someone 👏 and don’t get back into the damn car! However, this turned out to be a fun story with a ton of twists that was reminiscent of 90’s teen thriller flicks. Despite my frustration I couldn’t stop reading, because I needed to unravel exactly what was going on and who these characters were.

This was the type of thriller that didn’t have me thinking too hard but still had me intrigued, and to be honest, sometimes that is exactly what I’m in the mood for! I read for entertainment after all. So, I wouldn’t say it was anything amazing, but it was an addictive read to curl up with for sure.

The epilogue was…I don’t know….a bit unnecessary? The plot was already asking us to suspend our belief in reality a little far and it almost felt like the author realised this and tacked the epilogue on. I don’t want to spoil anything but, yeah, I felt like those last few pages detracted from the story a bit.

This was my first Riley Sager book and I’ll definitely check out more to see what I think!

What a thrilling albeit dangerous ride! This book made my heart jumped out of my chest!

Boy! I never felt fear — but reading this book? Of Charlie being inside a ( possible ) serial killer’s
car on a road trip?? I am about to lose my sh*t!

This book was probably one of the best suspense thriller I’ve read to date. I love everything — how it grabbed all my attention , how it made my mind go “Oh no! Nooo sh*t!” Honestly, I never swear! Well, maybe occasionally.. like this very moment???

I love all the twists and turns — it kept on coming! It did not even give me a little time to catch my breath! Then, Bam!! Another “revelation”! Wha-aat??? Noooo way!!

My friends, it was like that until the very end. Unpredictable. Curious?? Go pick this book. Totally worth it!