This one made me feel like being in the movies!
We have Charlie Jordan who shares a car with Josh Baxter. He is a stranger to Charlie she met by the college ride share board.
While driving over the country they share their stories. The big news, the Campus Killer, who killed three students in the span of a year, has just come into action again.
During their trip Charlie becomes suspicious about Josh. As she is planning to get away from him, because she suspects the Campus Killer in him she has the feeling, that Josh is looking into her mind. Will Charlie be his next victim? A game of cat and mouse is about to begin.
So Charlie is desperate to . . . survive the night.
Thanks #NetGalley #Hodder & Stoughton for an ARC of this book

Charlie is being driven across the country by a stranger- and as time goes on, she's more and more convinced that he could be the Campus Killer stalking America and killing students. Could Charlie be the next victim or will she make it out alive?
I didnt really take to the writing style if Im honest, though looking at other reviews I think that Im unusual in it - it was a bit too brittle and jumpy for me to get a grip on the story telling. And some of the decisions that Charlie made were just ridiculous - though it was set in 1991 so maybe we're just more aware of things now? Who knows

So all in all, not one for me, but thanks for the chance to read it!

Definitely a page turner, I didn't want to put the book down. However the main female protagonist comes across as extremely stupid, full of poor decisions and unbelievable moments. The plot twists were sometimes unrealistic in the motivations. The book takes place in 24 hours and is written a bit like a film script. A good book to read where you can't put it down but some big flaws in the story and it's telling. I would read another Riley Sager book though!

Ever since I read Final Girls, Riley Sager has become one of my absolute must read authors. His thrillers bend established genres and offer pages packed with twists and turns, they perfectly encapsulate the word ‘unputdownable’. His latest tome Survive The Night is no exception and is one of my favourites to date. This book would make an absolute killer of a movie (forgive the pun). It gives a genuinely clever take on the ‘campus killer’ genre and has more red herrings than you can beat with a stick. It’s fast paced, tension filled and knee tremblingly good. If Hitchcock were still alive and making movies, this is the movie he’d make.
Edge of your seat thriller that will keep you guessing right until the very end. 5 out of 5 stars

Charlie meets Josh at her university ride share board, and after they pack up and leave the campus., she believes he is lying to her about his true identity, and she believes he may or may not be the 'campus killer'.

Charlie uses internal movies (made up in her head) to help her escape reality and I found the is this real, is it not quite disarming. It is an interesting technique as it definitely helps you get into her head, and wonder exactly what is going on!

Riley writes a captivating thriller as always - Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for giving me an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I was kindly given a copy of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is the first book by Riley Sager i have read and i enjoyed it. The plot was interesting and went along at a good pace, i did question the main characters thinking at times especially in light of what we are told has been happening but it carries the story along. I could not have predicted the ending that did hold some surprises for me, it was a fun read. I am looking forward to reading more from this author #SurviveTheNight #NetGalley

I couldn’t have chosen a better book to finish the year. I knew I couldn’t go wrong with a novel by one of my favorite authors and I wasn’t disappointed.

Survive The Night is a chilling, suspenseful novel that kept me glued to the pages and I read in one day. The pace is slow, but everything happens during a long night road trip full of tension and twists.

The year is 1991, right before Thanksgiving. The protagonist is Charlie Jordan, a lover of movies in her second year of college. Charlie needs to go home. She needs to leave college and go home and forget what had happened two months earlier. She can’t wait for the holidays or for her boyfriend to drive her, so she finds a car share with fellow student Josh Baxter. They met at the college ride share board and he seems nice and polite, although as they talk, Charlie starts to notice that some of the things Josh says don’t match. This is 1990s, there are no cell phones to call for help, so Charlie needs to find a way to survive the journey. However, are Charlie suspicions correct or is it all a movie in her head?

I do love unreliable narrators and Charlie is, without a doubt, an unreliable character. Since the death of her parents a few years before, sometimes Charlie finds herself in a movie in her own mind and can’t distinguish reality from fantasy. So are her doubts real or did she imagine Josh’s ID under another name? Is he really a student? No matter if her suspicions are real or not, Charlie intends to survive the night.

The novel has a bit of noir element, helped by the many movie references throughout the story, which I loved and made it easy for me to imagine the scenes and the setting as I kept reading. There are many surprises and twists, one in particular that I suspected (and was proven right) that made me enjoy the novel even more, and the suspense is always high. Riley Sager has always been a must-buy author for me and Survive The Night simply confirmed it. Highly recommended!

This is dark, twisty and melodramatic but I was happy to suspend disbelief and just go with the frenetic pace and unrelenting action.

Survive The Night is a thrillingly fast-paced ride that will devour your night and leave you gripped to the page. This is an excellent lesson in suspense and terror, keeping you on a knife edge the whole way through.

I’ve previously read and enjoyed Sager’s work, so was intrigued enough by the premise and that synopsis to request this title. Luckily Sager pulls through on every aspect and offers so much more. This is the type of book you do not want to go into alone in the depths of the night.

Right from the start, Sager grabs you by the throat and never truly releases you. This is a sharp, unsettling book that keeps you guessing. The opening was so well-executed and enticing, with that epic scale and touch to it. From then on, the pacing is relentlessly fast as you try to uncover the exact truth of this twisted situation. Sager has plenty of tricks waiting in store for you. I really enjoyed the many amazing twists and turns, all of which genuinely upend the story and challenge your expectations.

The entire book has this sleek, dark and classically noir feel to it. For me, this really enriched the atmosphere of the book and turned Charlie into more of a complex protagonist. Her escapism, shown through the ‘movies in her mind’, added that extra layer of untrustworthiness to the narrative and the inclusion of other narrative voices further complicates this. This was a cleverly used plot device, but it also served to explore the power of cinema. Indeed, the entire book is a sort of love letter to the horror and thriller genres of entertainment. This infuses the book with that quintessentially cinematic tone, with all the drama and the gloss of the films.

Survive The Night is a well-rounded thriller that combines elements of the psychological, suspense and a good old-fashioned unreliable narrator to create a chilling new tale.

This was a disappointing first book from this author for me. The premise and some of the plot twists were good. I didn't like how it was executed though. There were some parts of the book that were so boring that I almost gave up on it. The main character was extremely dumb and I got angry many times at her because she just took too many wrong decisions one after the other and missed too many opportunities to get out of her situation. The ending was a big NO from me.

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for my copy. All thoughts and opinions are mine.

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

This is the first book I’ve read from Riley Sager and this definitely won't be the last.

Riley begins his novel by introducing a handful of characters into Charlie's life. Not only does this keep the scenes intense but also allows the readers to grow an attachment to each Character. The novel begins with Charlie saying goodbye to her boyfriend Robbie whilst she shares a car with another student to reach her hometown. We learn very quickly that there is a serial killer on the loose, known as The campus killer. Throughout the journey, Charlie begins to question who the driver is and what his intentions of leaving so soon are.

Throughout Survive the Night, the tension is kept incredibly tight. Some characters you may dislike at first, you may love towards the end and vice versa. If your views on the characters wasn't change enough, then fasten your seatbelts because this ride is going to be bumpier than you think! If this novel could be summed up in three words they would be don't trust anyone.
This is the first thriller I've read that was written by a man but featured a woman as the main character. I initially thought it would be obvious to tell the difference but I couldn't have been more wrong. If anything, I feel that Sager has built the tension up perfectly and has included more action in his scenes that I strongly favour over previous thrillers writers.

When I first read the blurb of this book, I was so intrigued. I knew it would seem very minimal with most of it taking place in a car but if anything, it should shaved a rawness to Characters that I hadn't seen before.

for anyone who is a fan of Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley and Allie Reynolds, I word strongly recommend Riley Sager. I was previously torn between reading Ware or Sager for my holidays and thought I'd picked well with Ware. Little did I know both choices would be so amazing.

Riley Sager's survive the Night is Officially at in paperback in the UK and I strongly recommend anyone with a love of psychological thrillers and plot twists, to give this book a go. Oh, and brace yourselves!

Enjoy the ride!

I hate leaving less than glowing reviews, but this book just didn't hit the mark for me at all. Instagram is full of four and five star reviews but I'm honestly left wondering if I read the same book?

Let's start with it's biggest and most glaringly obvious flaw, Charlie, our protagonist. I don't think I've ever read a book with a narrator as unreliable as she is. Charlie often 'zones out', where events play out as a movie in her mind. This means you're never sure if what's happening is real or a figment of her imagination. Instead of this making the story suspensful, it makes it frustrating for the reader. Not only is she unreliable, Charlie is, to be frank, stupid. Really, who would accept a ride from a complete stranger two months after their best friend is murdered? Who would willingly pass up numerous opportunities to escape the serial killer sat next to you in the car? As a reader, you can be pretty sure she's going to survive, but I wasn't entirely sure I wanted her to.

The plot twists were far too predictable and the plot holes too glaring, but yet I found I couldn't put it down. It's saving grace is it's break-neck pace and the epic play list of music this old grunge loving Mum would happily listen to on a road trip.

Overall, 'meh'

Well, that was one of the dumbest protagonists I ever read yet. Charlie lacks any common sense. Her friend was just murdered by a serial killer and she decided to share a ride with a stranger. How dumb can she get? There are also those chances she could've taken to escape but she did not seize it. Honestly, I just want her to get killed halfway just so this book will be finished.

I'm not even sure if others will enjoy this but it is definitely NOT for me.

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for my copy. All thoughts and opinions are mine.

This is actually the first book I’ve read by Riley Sager, but I’ve been wanting to for a while! Survive The Night takes place over the course of one evening as college student Charlie accepts a lift home across the country from a complete stranger she meets at the ride share board of her university. Charlie is leaving school in the middle of term for reasons that become clear and as she travels with this unknown young man. She also begins to realise he may be extremely dangerous – perhaps even a serial killer known as the ‘Campus Killer’.

This is such a tricky review for me because I think this book has some real problems, however I cannot deny how unputdownable I found it. The story moves along at a great pace and it’s the sort of book you can easily get sucked into and read in one-sitting. However, the plot is also a little far-fetched and melodramatic, which in some ways sort of works for the very cinematic style and structure but in other ways could get a little annoying. The same could be said for main character, Charlie, who I found likeable but also deeply frustrating. She is very much an unreliable narrator but I don’t think this comes off as well in Survive the Night as it does in other books. Overall I would say definitely give this book a go because it is certainly an intriguing and easy read. I wasn’t totally convinced by Survive the Night but I would still read more from this author in the future as there are some aspects that I did enjoy, like the atmosphere, the movie references and the 90’s setting, which was portrayed really effectively.

One of those books where you scream at the characters not to do something but they do it anyway. The heroine, student drop-out Charlie, accepts a ride-share from a stranger in order to get away from a campus terrorised by a serial killer. A large part of the story is an “is he/ isn’t he” question over the driver’s identity as it soon emerges that he isn’t who he says he is. Meanwhile, her boyfriend picks up that something isn’t quite right and decides to follow their trail. Very fast paced and twisty, it’s one of those books you read in one sitting.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advance copy.

Let’s start by saying… I loved this. The story and setting initially brings to mind mid-80s horror movie "The Hitcher" and the whole feel of the book is very cinematic (and you'll discover why when you read it). As things progress it’s much more than that – and as the author says in his “End Credits”, it’s his love letter to the movies.

At times the book feels claustrophobic (most of the action takes place inside a Pontiac Grand Am). Charlie and Josh hook up to reach their final destination and Charlie starts to learn some uncomfortable truths about who she has hitched a ride with. Is he actually a Janitor from her University or is she about to become the next victim of the Campus Killer? She was the last person to see her best friend alive with the Killer but is unable to identify him. And as you read on you’ll see why.

There are many unexpected twists and turns on the road ahead. Charlie’s “ability” to zone out and see things as movies played out in her mind and ignoring the real-life situations around her (brought on by the tragic death of her parents in a car crash) is a nice device in the narrative – and much like the dream sequences in the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie – you never quite know what is real.

As a reader I related to Charlie's suspicions about Josh with the clues that were dropped teasingly throughout the first two-thirds of the story but all – no spoilers – is not what it first seemed. By the same token there were a couple of times I wanted to scream at her for not doing the right thing (you’ll know it when you read it).

The last third of the book comes into its own with some extra POVs and everything shifting easily into gear as it ends its journey. This is a great cat-and-mouse thriller that will keep you reading – and guessing –well into the night.

My thanks to #NetGalley and #hodderbooks for my review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was everything I wanted and more from a Riley Sager. It kept me on the edge of my seat and questioning who was good, who was the real villain and how everyone would get out of it alive. The twist was so good and I loved it so much.

Interesting thriller which kept me entertained thoughout. I have only read one other book by the author but will be picking up more in the near future. characters were interesting and the plot was both interesting but not too over the top. great little read.

Riley Sager is becoming one of my favourite authors and he has done himself proud with this psychological thriller. This book was so so good! I was totally riveted watching the story progress and the interaction between Josh Baxter and Charlie Jordan as Charlie starts to realise she may have put herself in one of the scariest situations a person could be in. I just had to know what happened next and the problems that Charlie needed to overcome to figure out what was real or not in the run-up to the finale. And what a brilliant conclusion. A 5 star read for sure!

I received a complimentary copy of this novel from Hodder & Stoughton via NetGalley at my own request. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

This is such a thrilling ride of a book! Charlie is a movie buff who is trying to get over the shocking murder of her best friend and roommate by a serial killer lurking in their town. To get over her grief, she decides to leave college midway and go back home. To get there as quickly as possible, she hitches a ride with someone she meets by the university notice board - so far very 90s teen movie.

As the road trip starts, Charlie becomes suspicious of the man she’s sharing a car with and becomes convinced he might be the campus killer. At the same time, she suffers from hallucinations and cannot trust her mind. So begins the is he/is he not the killer?

The writing is amazing in that you feel everything she’s feeling. It starts off a bit slow - her grief is overbearing and clouds her senses. We are left in a fog of wondering if she’s over reaching with her suspicions. Then we start to see he’s gaslighting her and the tension ratchets. Oh my the tension … 😱! Then comes the bit where our suspicions are validated and everything starts to go wrong for her and it’s only a question of how he’s going to kill her. You think you have an idea and then it all goes crazy. Like some incredible twists and turns that you cannot predict (well maybe - lol I figured one out about 80% in). The whole time my heart is pounding in my chest.

I think the book could be polarizing for some people depending on if you enjoy watching movies and are able to suspend your disbelief. There are some things that happen that make you think “Really? This is ludicrous. No way this is realistic” and then the ultimate final twist makes it all make sense. I loved it. I love the whole movie angle. I actually hope it gets made into a movie. It’s amazing. 4.6/5 stars