It’s really hard to write a review for this book without giving anything away but here goes…
A while ago I read Riley Sager’s “Final Girls” after being leant it by my sister who said and I quote “You won’t be able to put the thing down”. Turns out she was right. So when I saw Survive The Night on Netgalley I knew I had to request it and I got so lucky by being accepted to read it.
Quite simply this book is great! It was the tensest 3 hours of my life and I am all for it. I loved the way it was written. Like a movie playing out. I loved the mystery, the intrigue, the suspicion. And I didn’t guess it not until the last moment when I thought “Damn I know who The Campus Killer is!!!”

Let’s just say the only reason this gets a 4 and not a five is because I wanted a little more of why the Campus Killer did what they did. I wanted a bit more grit from Charlie when she tries to escape. I also wanted a little more from that epilogue. Because damn I think I could easily fall in love with a certain someone!! And I wanted more of him!!

Riley Sager’s books are a bit of a hit-or-miss for me. This one falls in the middle. I wanted to like it more than I did.
This follows Charlie, who after the murder of her bff, decides to quit college and head home. She struggles with guilt over the role she played in her friend’s death, and has these movie-like hallucinations where she can’t distinguish between real life and her hallucinations. She puts up a poster for a ride on the board and ends up taking a lift from Josh, a post-grad. But on the way she discovers that Josh is not telling the truth about who he is. Is it possible she has taken a ride from the man who be the college serial killer??

This started strong, but then I found the hallucinations confusing and a bit of a gimmick. I found Charlie irritating, too, and the way she can’t changing her mind on whether or not to trust Josh. The second was good though, once all these silly daydreams stopped, and there was much more pace, suspense and thrills. There were plenty of reveals even if the motivations for the antagonist seemed far-fetched.
This a fun, and breezy read. A thrilling popcorn read 🍿📚

Survive the Night is the latest page turning thriller from master of the genre Riley Sager.
Charlie Jordan needs a ride home from college. Unable to cope following the murder of her best friend by the Campus Killer, she has decided to drop out and is using the college ride share board to try to find a ride heading in the same direction. When she gets in the car with Josh Baxter, a college employee heading home to his ill father , she is determined to be careful, making plans to check in with her boyfriend from the road and ensuring he has a record of who is driving her and the licence plate number of the car. As the hours and the miles pass by Charlie starts to notice some discrepancies in Josh's story and before long she is sure that she is not going to make it home, she has trapped herself in a car with a serial killer. Her only objective is to survive the night and try to make him pay for killing her best friend, but that is going to be quite the challenge.
The author is a master when it comes to building tension in the book, it is the definition of a page turner and I struggled to put it down when real life got in the way of my reading. This is the ultimate game of cat and mouse being played out on the page for the reader, and the author has skilfully woven the story in such a way as to make it unclear whose version of events we can really believe. That being said I did find myself frustrated by Charlie's decisions and actions at several points in the book, I thought it stretched credibility a little too thin at times., but overall it was an absolute thriller and one of my favourites from this author to date.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher ,all opinions are my own.

Meet Charlie. Charlie decides to drop out of college and head back home after failing to come to terms with the death of her best friend, Maddy, who was killed by a serial killer. Despite Charlie knowing the killer is at large, she decides to hitch a ride home with a stranger even when there are red flags everywhere and Josh is practically waving them in her face. Charlie is stupid.

Charlie's stupidity intensifies throughout the trip. She is given several 'outs' but decides to take none of them. Someone even outright asks if she is in danger and she says no even though she thinks she is.

Well, it turns out that not all is as it seems, so the last 1/3 of the book was stellar and so brought it up from a 3 star to a 4 star because seriously, Charlie was just infuriating.

I also didn't find some of this stuff believable. If we just had Charlie's perspective throughout the book then this wouldn't be an issue, but some of the chapters from other character's perspectives just don't make sense when we learn more about them later one.

Still, a very enjoyable thriller and one I would recommend to some of my sixth formers who like a good thriller!

2.75 stars

"Survive the Night" certainly wasn't the best book I've read this year, it didn't even make it into my top ten. So far, the only book by Sager that I really enjoyed was "Final Girl" and I'm starting to think that was a fluke.

The plot of "Survive the Night" was rather predictable, even though there was one major twist toward the end, but overall there weren't any surprises. I think the suspense could have been built up a lot better if there hadn't been any shifts in perspective.

The main character's actions and decisions were, as is typical for a horror movie, completely non-sensical and wouldn't have allowed her to stay alive in a real-life situation.

Overall, I expected more from this novel.

I am always looking for the latest Riley Sager novel and am so thankful to the publisher and NetGalley for approving an eARC. Wow. I had seen some mixed reviews but this was a fun read for me. I adore Sager’s writing and for me, this did not disappoint at all.
The concept is centered around a female college student who had an argument with her best friend and roommate who then was murdered by a serial killer the same night. Charlie, the surviving roommate, blamed herself to the point that she cannot function and decided to leave school for awhile. She is leaving her boyfriend of the past year as well. In order to leave school at the time she does, she places a flyer on the ride board to see if any other students are going her direction so that they can share the ride. She immediately found someone and jumped at the chance. Things quickly spiral downhill as she realized that this guy is a stranger to her and then she began to suspect that he was lying to her the entire time. Her radar was activated and she tried to figure out what to do. Many twists and turns later the story unfolds in an intriguing way. This is a page turner of a book and I read it in a day. I loved all the classic movie and music references as well. That was a terrific addition.
Highly recommend!
#SurviveTheNight #Netgalley #HodderandStoughton #HodderPaperbacks

Riley Sager gets to me. Every. Single. Time. This book started a tiny bit slower than others but the build was worth the wait. Charlie the heroine, makes you love her and hate her at times in the book. The two major twists are more than a little surprising and made me grin with glee about where the story might go next. All the movie parts threaded throughout the story, and throwback songs added to the enjoyment. Can’t wait for his next!

* 2/2.5 stars. Slight spoilers ahead.

The most positive thing I can say for this book was that I was entertained. As a horror movie fan, I was intrigued by the concept, but unfortunately this fell flat for me. The main problem is that the protagonist was awful, the epitome of the 'I'm not like other girls' and 'manic pixie dream girl' trope, full of weird mannerisms and flexing her knowledge of movies in place of having a personality. She also switches from grieving and afraid to, quote, 'a fucking femme fatale' in the space of a few pages. And if this wasn't enough, she frequently 'sees movies in her mind' which is confirmed to be a sort mental illness that she takes medication for, but instead these hallucinations are treated as:
a) something that makes her special and ties more into her (insufferable) love of film
b) a tool for the antagonists to gaslight her with
c) a way of seeing potential (often more interesting) scenarios unfold before what actually happens

I don't mind an unreliable narrator, but the switches from her 'movies' to reality, combined with POVs of the antagonists proving that she was in fact not imagining things, gave me whiplash, and also removed any tension of actually considering that she was hallucinating. Finally, there were just so many twists in the last third of the book, it began to feel like a parody of itself, which I enjoyed but probably for all the wrong reasons. And the fact that she marries her kidnapper in the end? Yikes.

(Many thanks to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.)

Rating: 3.5

A book that split me in two.
On one side I couldn't stop reading it, I rushed through the pages because I needed to know. On the other side I spent the majority of this run screaming at Charlie, the FMC, wanting to jump in the book and shake her.

The plot is gripping. It's the 90s. Charlie is leaving campus and she needs a ride home, Josh is looking for someone to drive with. They are strangers but they get together for this cross-states road trip. Nothing out of the ordinary. Too bad once in the car, Charlie realises that maybe Josh is not really who he said he is. Maybe he is a serial killer and now she is stuck with him with no chance to escape.

I loved the story and the 90s setting. I squealed at all the songs and movies references and I started listening to Nirvana half way through the book, because you just have to.
What I didn't really like was Charlie, I guess. I can't pinpoint it. I understand her feelings, her survivor guilt, where she is coming from. But I just can't get behind a lot of the decisions she made. Some of the expedients to keep her in the car felt a little cheap. The final plot twist was also not that great, but I loved the ending.

Overall a good summer read and I'm definitely checking out Sager's other books.

Charlie, a film enthusiast that see's her own mini-films in her mind, struggles to tell the difference between reality and fiction when she accepts a lift home from a virtual stranger. Desperate to make it the six hours back to Ohio, but becoming increasingly paranoid over the drivers true intentions, who will survive the night?

This book was wild. I only predicted one plot twist out of them all. The ending made me forgive some aspects of the plot that seemed a little too convoluted. At times I didn't understand Charlies decision making process but when things came to light about her struggles they were put into a more understandable context.

Riley Sager has a style of writing that's really easy to breeze through. Even when the subject matter is mad.

This was a twisted and gripping read.

3.5 stars.

OMG what a book. So many twists and turns. This book made me question everything I thought I knew. Fantastic reading. Riley Sager never disappoints.

Tense, nailbiting, edge-of-seat stuff. I was immediately drawn in by the blurb: "It's November 1991. George H. W. Bush is in the White House, Nirvana's in the tape deck, and movie-obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer." It did not disappoint. Sure - the premise was questionable, as were a number of Charlie's actions, and fairly unusually for me I saw a major plot twist coming - but there was plenty of tension and enough surprises to maintain suspense and keep me up until the early hours to get to the end. I'm also a bit of a sucker for an unreliable narrator.

Easily the best thriller I've read in 2021 so far.

Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

I really liked the premise of this book, and I actually really was looking forward to reading it, but I’m so sorry to say I… less than enjoyed it.

Reasons why this book bored me to death:

1. It was about 70% before we got to the first ‘twist’. Before that, I put the book down and read multiple other books between it. The storyline just wasn’t compelling, which for a thriller is a big fat no from me.

2. I guessed the 2nd big twist a mile off. It was SO OBVIOUS. I really hate predictable books, I like thrillers to be shocking; that’s the point of a twist, if I’ve guessed it ages ago then what’s the point? 😩

Reasons why this book annoyed me immensely:

1. Why didn’t Charlie just get a bus instead of risking a ride share with a stranger? Surely with a killer on the loose you would?! (I know then there would be no book but I hate plot holes😠)

2. The entire epilogue - just why

That being said, the last 30% was decent and much better paced, and the first twist I will admit I did not anticipate. If you can manage to slog your way through the first 70% for that tiny burst of action at the end, I applaud you. If not, I’m unfortunately going to have to tell you I wouldn’t bother. Sorry.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed reading 'Survive The Night' and I read the whole thing in about four hours because I could not put it down. This book was so addictive to read and so fast-paced that I flew through it so fast.

I didn't predict where the story was going to go which is what I enjoy in a thriller and this book allowed me to just read and enjoy the story/mystery instead of trying to predict what was going to happen next. The killer was actually really obvious as there was only about four characters in the book and so narrowing it down wasn't hard, but I was expecting some sort of more exciting twist that I never go in regards to the killer. The ending wasn't the most exciting thriller ending ever, my mind wasn't blown by the twists, but I did enjoy how the story concluded.

There really isn't much I can say about this book without spoiling it and I really don't want to spoil it for anyone else, but this is a quick and easy thriller set over the course of one day and definitely one you should pick up if you want something quick to read.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with an advance copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A good, solid thriller! I really liked the particular atmosphere Riley Sager used, it really gave a nineties vibe that was greatly appreciated.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for giving me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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

This sentence alone grabbed my attention, and I'm glad that I didn't know more before going into this book as I feel that the less you know, the better.

This is the best thriller I have picked up in ages. It was my first Riley Sager, and it will definitely not be my last! Survive the Night is a gripping and addictive thriller that had me on the edge of my seat from the very first page. Once I started I couldn't stop, and I read it all in one sitting. I was, admittedly, terrified, but completely immersed, and I just had to know what was going to happen next.

The author manages to pack so much into so short a timescale, with the story taking place over one night. In the first half of the book, we learn more about the protagonist, Charlie, and her past, quickly learning that she is an unreliable narrator who occasionally slips into 'movies' in her head. This makes the story all the more chilling, as the reader is frequently left questioning what is real and what is not. Charlie, despite her questionable decisions, was a very likeable protagonist, and her love for movies was not only evident in the writing, but also in the way the story was set out like a script. Although most of the action takes place in the second half of the book, the moments where Charlie is stuck in the car with Josh are perhaps the scariest, as the reader is stuck in Charlie's unreliable and claustrophobic mind. Sager superbly uses this to create a blood-curdling atmosphere and to build tension which leads to a multitude of unexpected twists.

If you are looking for an addictive, suspenseful and chilling thriller that keeps you on your toes, I would highly recommend you pick this one up!

OMG this book had me gripped right from the start. You can’t help but feel all the emotions that Charlie is going through, and the twist near the end,did not see that coming.

Its November 1991. George Bush Sr. is in the White House, Nirvana’s playing on the tape deck and film obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer. (I don’t want to give any spoilers and this sums it up nicely)

Thoughts: I love Sager. I will read his books no matter what regardless of reviews etc. With that being said-this one was not my favorite. I think it’s best to detail the things I liked and the things I didn’t. I will say I read this in one sitting so it is extremely binge able, eerie and atmospheric. It is a very small cast of characters since it takes place in one evening and a majority of it is in the interior of a car. It is written as a screenplay with each scene depicted by camera location which I thought was pretty neat. The pacing is extremely quick in true Sager fashion. He just keeps you pushing forward as things build and build and build. It’s extremely entertaining and transportive which is also wonderful. I love the time period-90s kid here so it was really fun! The movie references were great too! The major twist was also fun and well done.
 
With all of that being said (I cringe doing this, but I like to be honest) I felt like the whole story was a bit convoluted. The characters and their motives were extremely unrealistic and they seemed really flat. Apart for loving film Noir, living with her grandmother and grieving the death of her friend we don’t get any more with Charlie. She also has a condition which I am not sure how serious/ well depicted Sager was with his description and honestly felt it needed more development or to be left out.
 
All in all I have so much love for Sager. This isn’t my favorite out of his five, but it isn’t my least favorite either. I enjoyed its fast paced suspense. It was entertaining and one wild ride –see what I did there?


Thank you Netgalley for my advance copy in exchange for my review!

I’d heard great things about Riley Sager but not read any of his works yet, so I was thrilled to be approved on NetGalley to read his latest thriller.

Survive The Night is about Charlie, a College film student in the US who decides to accept a lift home across country from a fellow student after her roommate is murdered by the so called Campus Killer. During the road trip Charlie becomes convinced that her driver, Josh, may actually be the killer. And what’s worse, that he knows what she’s thinking. So the question is, will she survive the night?

It didn’t take me long to get into this story, as Charlie is a likeable character. Often on the sidelines and fairly introverted, she seemed to live through her vivacious and unique roommate Maddy. I did find the story a little slow until about the 100 page mark. There are limited number of characters so the story could have been a little more pacy.

Once Charlie began to question Josh’s motives the story picked up and I didn’t want to put it down. There is a special aspect to Charlie’s character which I don’t want to give away in this review, but it started off as an interesting quirk which potentially allowed for a certain aspect of unreliability for Charlie as our main narrator. However at one point I felt it was just a little overdone. The phrasing choice was limited, so it became repetitive and tiresome.

Overall I enjoyed this book, and didn’t guess the outcome until juuuust before! The tension was built well, some unpredictable twists and a unique ending made for an enjoyable reading experience.

I cannot tell you how much I am enjoying this book. Riley Sager's writing is just so easy to get absorbed in. I am only a quarter of the way through this ARC, but I have already ordered copies of Lock Every Door, Final Girls, Last Time I Lied and Home Before Dark.