Thank you to Riley Sager, Dutton Books, and NetGalley for this E-ARC!

Charlie needs to leave campus, no, not in ten days when Thanksgiving break happens, but now. She is tired of living with the ghost of her murdered roommate and best friend and the guilt that it was her fault. Enter Josh, a young man looking to get home and split the cost of gas with someone. As Charlie climbs into the car, she begins to wonder exactly who she's driving with. She's willing to bet against her hallucinations that he's the Campus Killer, the very same one who murdered her best friend. Charlie goes from fear to determination as she takes on the killer in a game of wits and speed. After all, only one of them needs to survive the night to tell the tale.

This book blew me away! Like read in less in 24 hours blew me away. Apparently as I inch closer to 30 my reading tastes have gone the way of the murder-y thrillers. I found this story impossible to put down. I loved the format of the story, the film script lent itself to creating a fast paced plot and also reminding you were you were in their world. It also makes much more sense at the end.

Charlie's unreliable narration was a gift and delight. The way she second guessed herself felt real, as real as anyone second guessing their memories when accompanied with mental unease. The classic movie references were enjoyable and added detail to every scene. I did not see the ending coming until the very last moment, which is exactly how I like it. It's much more fun when you keep guessing.

Pros: Unreliable narrator, fast paced, plot twists and turns, fantastic formatting, character you immediately want to sink your teeth into, and an ending to die for.

Cons: potentially unbelievable motive for our serial killer (depends on your thoughts, I think it worked but could've worked just a smidge better).

9/10 would recommend for fans of fast paced thrillers, unreliable narrators, classic film references, and putting your grief to use.

Taking place in a total of 6 hours, this book is very interesting and the pacing moves quickly. While the ending may upset some, the writing and characters and well written.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest opinion.

This read like a nail-biting screenplay more than a novel, but I didn’t hate it. I didn’t enjoy the writing as much as Sanger’s previous novels but it kept me reading. 3.5 stars.

I am a big Riley Sager fan, but this was not my favorite of his. I did not love the mental health aspect making the narrator unreliable. I thought the end was too unbelievable. I will continue supporting Sager and reading his books as they come out, but this was not what I was hoping it would be! I still would recommend it to those who like thrillers that take place in 24 hours.

Another day, another far-fetched plot. Fortunately for Riley Sager, however, the entertainment value is certainly there. I enjoyed the twisty-turny road trip setting. I did not see the villain coming at all, and I appreciated the final “got you” surprise. On the downside, there were a few similarities to Lock Every Door (which, to be fair, I probably should not have read at the same time)—orphan female protagonist, abducted/murdered best friend/sister, harrowing escapes, egocentric male villain. Regardless, I’m a fan, and will definitely read the past Sager books which I have missed.

Charlie: 1991. Her college roommate, has recently taken from the world by the Campus Killer; her boyfriend, wants his girlfriend to stay at school just until the end of the term; and a random stranger at the ride board offers her a ride meant to take her away from the pain.

Josh: A stranger to Charlie, genuine enough until he isn't; trustworthy enough until he isn't; and obviously hiding something, if only his questionable motives.

Two strangers, one car. Something is off. Who will survive the night?

I was split on my feelings about this book. There wasn't anything necessarily wrong with it, I just preferred some parts and characters to others. I liked the premise of the story. I liked that I didn't always know what was real and what wasn't. I liked that there was a twist I didn't expect. I loved the fast pace of a Riley Sager book.

I just didn't like Charlie. She made terrible choices, over and over. Granted; she was grieving, hopeless, and reckless with her own life before she got into the car with a stranger, but not even her moments of strength changed her trajectory. In stereotypical female horror movie character fashion, she ran the wrong way every time (maybe that was who she was supposed to be?). Then, the end left me feeling like everything in the previous 300 pages were pointless. I wanted her to be more badass. I wanted a version of her that wasn't real I suppose.

All in all, I enjoyed the book. I'd recommend it to others because it's definitely a story you want to talk about with other people!

Despite the fact that she is still emotionally recovering from the violent murder of her roommate and best friend by a suspected serial killer, Charlie Jordan accepts a rideshare request from a young man she’s never seen around campus before.

Readers will need to suspend copious amounts of disbelief in order to enjoy this ride, but it’s possible; for curiosity’s sake.

Riley Sager obviously knows how to write bestselling thrillers. There are four successful hits prior to Survive the Night, none of which I had read before, and the hype is real. Determined to hop on the bandwagon of Sager fans, Survive the Night was going to be my ticket in. Except, unfortunately, I’m still waiting at the station.

Let me unpack this carefully and without any spoilers (which will be extremely difficult because most of my issues with this book are the plot holes).

Much of this story takes place in a car with this young woman, Charlie, and the “stranger danger” driver, Josh Baxter. Knowing what we know prior to this trip, there are zero good reasons for Charlie to have put herself in this situation so the author must convince readers that she is somehow…dun-dun-dun… unreliable.

The thriller genre’s oldest trick. Or maybe it’s a relatively new trick? Regardless, in the last ten years or so, thrillers have leaned into the unreliable woman trope (think: Gone Girl, The Woman in the Window, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Girl on the Train). These women are mentally unstable and their perception of reality can’t be trusted. Did she see what she saw? Did she hear what she thought she heard? Was she too drunk, tired, emotional, or hormonal to have a firm grasp on her circumstances?

In Survive the Night, Charlie’s bizarre mental condition isn’t a convincing enough reason for her to be so self-sabotaging. In fact, character development is not a strong suit here at all so it’s difficult to invest in this story beyond just a casual curiosity to see what happens.

Charlie and Josh initiate different topics of conversation to alleviate obvious tension. He clearly thinks that she’s scared of him and he’s trying to set her mind at ease and she is constantly trying to bait him into revealing his true identity…a serial killer whose recent victim was Charlie’s best friend and who has killed at least two college students prior to that.

The problem is that Charlie slips in and out of these cinematic episodes that feel like she’s living in a horror movie, but the truth is that she’s just “zoning out.” When she snaps out of it, she has no concept of how much time she has lost or what actually transpired while she was starring in these movie fantasies.

It’s about as believable as it sounds. In fact, none of the characters in this book have any real motivations or purpose for doing the things they do. It doesn’t bring me any kind of satisfaction to run this book through the shredder but this is truly my honest reading experience. I was very disappointed. Thriller fans are bound to have a good time with this one despite any of the issues I had with the story and the characters solely because of plot twists and reveals, right? Such is the nature of thrillers. The *thrill* of finding out what happened or who did it. And Survive the Night comes equipped with plenty of those.

But for me, the premise of the story is tissue paper thin. The heavy reveals and twists are not supported and therefore feel a little ridiculous.

While this started slow for me, I couldn't put it down after a certain point. Very fast and twisty. Another hit from Sager.

Charlie is desperate to get home, so she agrees to do a ride share with a stranger from her university, Josh. She should be more cautious, as their is a campus killer on the loose who even killed her roommate. But she decides to go with him anyways. As the journey home goes on, she becomes increasingly more suspicious that Josh might in fact be the campus killer. Will she survive the night?

I love Riley Sager’s thrillers, and this didn’t disappoint. While it’s not my favorite it kept me reading and wanting to know how the story ends. Recommended for fans of Sager.

A doozy of a thrill ride. What’s real, what’s not? What happened, what didn’t? This is a very binge worthy beach read for sure!! A small cast of characters that you will question every single one of them.

Even with its issues, this is my favorite Riley Sager I've read thus far. While overall it still contains the same gripes I have with Sager's past books, over-emphasizing on in-the-moment shock value and disregarding basic rationale, there's enough self-awareness and breaking-the fourth-wall attitude this time around that makes the flaws somewhat tolerable.

The first 75% is an excellent psychological mystery, with it's slow-mounting tension and various alarming situations gradually revealing themselves. Even though Riley Sager didn't reinvent the wheel on closed space mysteries, the scenarios he has conjured up remain captivating, and the intentional absence of modern technology (story is set in the early 90s) definitely helps amplifying the terror. As a semi-cinephile, I greatly appreciate all the movie references (some very acclaimed, but obscure oldies!)—though I can also see this been an annoyance for readers who are unfamiliar with these source materials, then these mood-building mentions are just useless elements slowing down pacing. There are still some glaring plot holes regarding how characters act/respond, but overall I was thoroughly enjoying this energetic, sometimes silly thrill ride.

Then the narrative completely lost me in its final 25%, where the reveal(s) are so ludicrous and dumbfoundedly flawed, they are not only silly on their own, but also undermined some of the earlier scenes, making them even more comically irrational under the new context. This is classic Riley Sager, who has been pulling this trick in the last few novels, where the closure needs to be 'neat' by force-feeding every character a 'narrative purpose'—but this obsession for 'tidy' ending over realism completely detached me from the plot and its characters.

I was ready to give Survive the Night a 2.5 stars prior to the 'epilogue', so it was pretty astounding how much this little section at the end altered my soured attitude. Riley Sager pulled a trick not dissimilar to what he did in Home Before Dark, but is much better executed here—the self-mocking attitude legitimatized some of the over-the-top elements in preceding section—I wish this was developed even further.

I started Survive the Night as someone who doesn't understand the online obsession towards Riley Sager's work, which are mediocre at best in my humble opinion. Survive the Night still retains the overall 'promising start, clumsy execution' characteristic, but at least it is moving one step towards the positive.

This was a great thriller. It had me second-guessing myself the entire time up until the 65% in point. Some of the twists were a bit predictable but overall I really enjoyed this book!

Want an addictive, fast paced thriller that you can't put down? Well, here ya go. Survive the Night had me hooked from the get-go and I finished it within 24 hours of starting it.

I'm super picky with thrillers but lately have been having pretty good luck with them. Either the characters make ridiculous decisions, it's too over the top, or the ending is absolutely unbelievable. While some of the decisions the main character made in this one had me a little annoyed, it was never enough to make me dislike the book as a whole. The twists are ones I didn't see coming, especially not the initial one. Which is a huge plus for me!

This is the fourth book I've read by the author, and I think it's time to admit that his work is not for me. You see, he writes the type of thrillers that are generally well paced and suspenseful, but also don't leave a lasting impact because, while the idea of the premise sounds good, there's nothing outstanding about the characters or the execution. But this one in particular, oh boy, "Survive the Night" actually made me feel annoyed.

Let's start with this: I REALLY dislike when book settings or characters are "flavored" with a certain element that doesn't serve an actual meaningful purpose in the story. This novel is a prime example of that. Is it set in 1991 because the decade or the year matters? Does it feel like something that's actually set in 1991? Not at all - this feels entirely like a modern day story, this could have been set in 2019. The only reason for the setting is that it's an easy workaround the fact that a cell phone would be a solution to most of the issues here. The movie references? Do they matter? Do they serve a purpose outside of framing the story? Does the author intertwine horror/thriller tropes into this and examine them? No, it's just a bunch of references, and an attempt at a final "twist" which really is unnecessary. At least when it came to "Final Girls" Sager attempted to play with the "final girl" horror trope, and the references to horror movies played into the story. But not here.

Also, the characters... Ever read a book where every character makes the most absurd, stupid choices because the plot needs for this to happen in order to create problems? Because that's this book. The lead character? Let's not even talk about the use of her mental illness for purposes of throwing the reader off, but in general, she's the kind of character you read about and think "if you die - you deserve it because that's how nonsensical your decisions are". And the villain's motivations? Are you kidding me? When the "motives" were revealed I just sat there thinking "That's it? Are you kidding me??" Because this has been done SO many times before in film and literature, and in much more interesting and thought-provoking ways.

This story is passable at best. These characters lack depth and development. These twists feel artificial. The "red herring" is way too obvious. And the ending is ridiculous on many levels. This is by far my least favorite Riley Sager book, and I'm not falling for his promising-sounding premises again.

After reading this, I’m starting a petition for more historical fiction thriller books! Happy pub day to Survive the Night, Riley Sager’s latest thriller, .

I think the blurb for this one really sets the mood so well, so dropping it in here: “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.”

This was my first Riley Sager, and definitely won’t be my last. With that said, I think my expectations were lower than other people’s for this one, so I just enjoyed the book for the ride that it was with no comparison point. Riley Sager knows how to execute a plot really well, and out of all the thrillers I’ve read this year, (and it has been a lot) this was one of the only books that felt like a story I would listen to on a true crime podcast. It’s not realistic necessarily, but it felt far more grounded in reality than a lot of books I’ve read this year. I think I really like the locked-room mystery stories as well, which is why No Exit is going to be my next book. They just feel more cinematic to me.

The ending threw me off a little bit, but I try to base my book thoughts off of how much a book hooks me, and this one definitely did. It’s not going to be for everyone, but I will be recommending it to anyone who loves early 90s nostalgia, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, and true crime. I need to read more Riley Sager so I can weigh in further on this.

If anyone knows of any other good historical fiction thrillers, please drop them in the comments below!

From the get go this book had me hooked and kept me turning the pages: Charlie having lost her best friend to a serial murderer has lost her footing in the world; she can’t deal with school, her relationship is strained and everyone questions exactly how much she knows about the last night Maddy was seen alive.

Charlie decides to take a break from school and move back in with her nana and after posting on the campus board about a share-drive to get back to her grandmothers house she soon finds herself questioning not just her thoughts and memories but the person driving her in the middle of the night.

Lots of plot twists, fresh take and surprising events made for a fun fast paced read.

The thing about this book is that the first 60% is just spot on. The tension builds, Charlie is a little bit of an unreliable narrator, and Josh is slight creepy but just charming enough to make you question the whole situation. But then you hit the last 40% of the book, the plot gets just a little too outlandish. The twist is just slightly too predictable. The ending is just slightly too sappy. Obviously I gave the book 4 stars, so I still enjoyed it, but I wanted so badly to want to give it 5 stars because the beginning was so great. Unfortunately, the ending didn’t quite live up to that hype.

If you’re a fan of Taylor Adam’s No Exit or Karin Slaughter’s Good Daughter, you must read the newest title by Riley Sager. A seasoned thriller writer, Sager delivers another edge of the seat book that is impossible to put down. The narrative takes place over the course of one long car ride with a stranger.

College student, Charlie, is desperate for a ride home from school. Her roommate and best friend was the third victim of the “campus killer” and Charlie is ready to drop out of college. Rather than waiting for Thanksgiving break and a ride from her boyfriend, she accepts a ride from a stranger she meets at the ride share board. As the drive progresses into the middle of the night and thru increasingly isolated roads, Charlie suspects she’s trapped in the car with the campus killer.

I can’t say enough about this book. The characters are introduced in layers so that as the narrative progresses you get to know each one more fully. The suspense and ever increasing tension build to a gut wrenching finale. The details and descriptions create a plot that would easily translate to a popular Netflix show and the 90s setting creates a perfect background playlist.

Survive The Night
Riley Sager

This book was fun and I would love to see this book made into a movie. I think it would be fantastic. I read this book through the night because it was addictive and compulsive, as I determine how Charlie Jordan – the movie obsessed college student is going to survive the car drive home from campus to Ohio with the potential “campus killer”.
Charlie’s roommate was the third victim of the Campus Killer – she needed to get home to Ohio and ended up meeting with Josh Baxter from the campus ride board who was trying to get home too for his sick father. This thriller is as locked room as it possibly can get, and it was so exciting to see how Charlie was going to survive the ride of her life.

I really enjoyed it – was a different style but still with Sager’s unique signature, this was so much fun to read.

This was great! I really enjoyed the twist ending and especially liked the character reveals. It was tough to put this down, very suspenseful.