Even though this one isn't my favorite by Riley Sager, I'm still glad that I stuck with it. I was initially pretty bored with the first half of the book. There's only so much that can happen when two people are stuck in a car together. I figured it had to be leading up to something so I stuck with it. I'm glad I did because it delivered in the end. All the twists happen in the last half of the book and they had me so surprised. I even loved the ending which wrapped things up really neatly.

So the first half of the story I felt like I was in a fog. Everything just didn’t make sense, the parts where Charlie sees “movies” in her head had me confused on what was actually happening in the story or if it was all in her head. I’m not one to think too hard when it comes to thrillers so I pushed through, hoping it would all come together. It kind of did... after 60-65% in and thats when all the action happened and I was waiting for that signature WOW moment I’d get from Sager’s books but I don’t think it happened? I might have missed it from all the back to back twists happening in that short bit of time 🤦🏻‍♀️

I know I’m prob in the 1% but I know this will still be a summer hit! I will say now that I know what I know, I bet if I re read it it’ll actually make more sense and I’ll enjoy it more 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thanks @duttonbooks & @netgalley for my advanced e-galley! Swipe for synopsis.

Let me preface by saying this was my first book by Sager & I seem to judge thrillers the toughest, but I just didn’t love it y’all. I didn’t hate it by any means, but found myself rolling my eyes so many dang times at the absurdity of some of the plot lines and being so frustrated with the main character and some of her poor decision making skills. OPEN YOUR EYES, CHARLIE! Your roommate was murdered & the killer is loose but you want to get in the car with a stranger for a long road trip?! Crazy girl.

The story got a little monotonous as so much of it is just two characters in the car. There were a few minor twists that surprised me but I guessed a lot of them and I prefer to be surprised as much as I can in thrillers. I did enjoy the 90s references and did think it was a quick read, so I still recommend to the right reader.

I’m a big Riley Sager fan. The first book I read of his was The Last Time I Lied and the creepy camp atmosphere really was what sucked me into the story. This book definitely got it right with the creepy atmosphere. Trapped in a car on dark roads with someone who is maybe a killer. Pre-cell phones and Google maps. So good. Other parts didn’t do it for me as much. The plot device where the MC can’t always tell truth from reality was unique, but got a little bit old. There was a couple “big twists” that I didn’t quite see coming but also weren’t shocking and felt a bit rushed in the final chapters of the book. Overall, this was a page turner that I was compelled to finish in a few hours.

As a fan of Riley Sager's work, I was super excited to dive into "Survive the Night." The premise, a film junkie university student accepts a ride from a stranger shortly after her friend was murdered? I'm in!

I was a little disappointed in the strength of the story. Charlie, our heroine, is described as having a mental illness that causes her to hallucinate. It at times feels like Sager is using Charlie's mental illness as a blanket reason for the many terrible decisions she makes.

Charlie is wracked with guilt after her best friend and roommate is murdered. She blames herself and decides to leave her university and her boyfriend behind in New Jersey to go back home to Ohio. The story takes place in the 1990s, a time before smartphones and rideshare apps. So Charlie resorts to the ride board on her campus, which was a pretty common practice. What wasn't common practice was getting into a car with a stranger without anyone to vouch for them. Which is what Charlie decides to do. This decision is attributed to her desperation to leave the place her friend was killed.

Her guilt, depression and hallucinations combine for a nightmarish car ride filled with doubt and paranoia.

One thing I love about Sager's stories is the use of an unreliable narrator. The parts of the story told from Charlie's perspective are not at all reliable as she often slips into cinematic hallucinations when overwhelmed with emotion. And she is overwhelmed during much of this story. That means we, the readers, have to take everything we read from her perspective with a huge grain of salt. And that makes for a very interesting thriller.

While I don't think this was Sager's best novel, it definitely kept my interest. And the twist at the end was a great touch that should surprise most readers.

This was a super fast read that started a little slow in my opinion but eventually hooked me and really surprised me!

After the murder of her roommate Maddy, Charlie decides she can no longer stay at school and needs to get home as soon as possible. Posting on the ride share board, Charlie is thrilled when Josh lets her know that he’s traveling in the same direction and they can leave that night. On the ride, Charlie starts to think that Josh may not be who he says he is and may even be the Campus Killer, the person responsible for Maddy’s death. But with her psychosis and hallucinations becoming uncontrollable, Charlie can’t determine what’s real and who or what to trust.

I liked how this novel literally took us along for the ride as Charlie and Josh embarked across the country over several hours. It’s written like a movie which was really cool and unique and fit super well with the plot and Charlie’s psychosis. I also liked that Sager included a psychological disorder to make the story more interesting and a little tougher to figure out what was actually going on and who to trust. There were several instances where I thought I knew where the story was going and I was wrong every time (which I love!). There were surprises I wasn’t expecting and twists that really enhanced the story!

If you’re a fan of Sager, I think you’ll enjoy this one. It wasn’t my favorite, but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I expected.

Before the events of this book, Charlie’s best friend and roommate, Maddy, was brutally murdered by a serial killer named the “Campus Killer”. Charlie is wracked by guilt over the fight she’d had with with her just before her disappearance. Having difficulty dealing with her grief, she realizes that she can’t stay at university any longer. She finds a ride back home with a fellow student, someone she hasn’t met before they cross paths at the rideshare bulletin board. Of course, because of this student’s schedule, they have to leave at night. It’s needless to say, (the book is called “Survive the Night”, but this is a book review, so I’m gonna say it), but this car ride is… intense.

Survive the Night is a classic film buff’s fantasy. The plot itself is quite simple, reminiscent of a Hitchcock film. The protagonist is named Charlie, after Teresa Wright’s character in the Hitchcock film “Shadow of a Doubt”. She’s studying film theory, and she is, quite literally, obsessed with movies. This becomes evident right from the very beginning, with the plethora of classic film references. The author mentions Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, and many film noirs and Hitchcock films. There’s one point where Charlie comments that watching Singin’ in the Rain is the closest you can get to heaven, and I couldn’t agree more. But I digress.


The book is framed with elements of a screenplay, following through with the film theme that’s prevalent throughout the book. The chapters are broken not with chapter headings or quotes, but with a brief scene setter, similar to what you would see in a script.

Not only is Charlie obsessed with movies, but she has a strange way of dealing with stress. Whenever she’s upset or scared, “movies” play in her mind, messing with her interpretation of what she’s really seeing. These bring a sense of discomfort to the reader, because we never know if what Charlie is seeing is really happening, or if it’s just a movie playing in her head. Because of course, what’s more stressful than embarking on an eight-hour drive with a stranger in the middle of the night?

There were tons of little red flags early on in the story that kept me eagerly turning the pages. There’s nothing that’s too obvious, making me question Charlie’s intelligence, but she’s hyper aware of all the little signals her driver is giving off. This book is the definition of a suspense novel, and I could easilly spot the Hitchcockian influences throughout the storyline. That said, Charlie does make a couple of questionable decisions, particularly towards the end of the book, that made me shake my fist in frustration.

I was so close to giving this book 5 stars, but there were a few plot developments towards the end of the book that made me groan. Some of the twists were more predictable than others. However, the climactic parts of the book were incredibly well done, and made up for any groaning that I might have done beforehand.

I recommend this book to lovers of Hitchcockian-style suspense thrillers who want a read fraught with tension with a compelling and clever plot.

This felt different from Sager's usual style but I really enjoyed it! It was pretty fast-paced, suspenseful, and unique. I loved seeing the mystery build and, while I had my suspicions about certain characters, the entire killer's reveal had lot of surprises. The very end was a little weird but I overall really enjoyed how the story played out. I really liked Charlie and her character arc. She seemed to be so realistic and it was easy to relate to her, even though we have nearly nothing in common. This is the most connected I've felt with Sager's main characters and it was nice to get to that point easily in this book. The pacing was great and, as usual, there was a great blend of slower suspense-building scenes and action-packed scenes. This is definitely one of my favorites by Sager and I'd definitely recommend it!

I was VERY lucky to get my hands on an early copy and finished it yesterday. Thank you @netgalley for an early copy in exchange for a honest review.  
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Charlie Jordan is a movie enthusiast, college student who has endured more tragedy than most people her age. Her parents both died from a car accident and her best friend was recently murdered by the “Campus Killer.” She wants to get out of her college town and back home and relies on a virtual stranger Josh, to get drive her home. Charlie finds out he isn’t who he says he is and all heck breaks lose and she’s trying to just… survive the night.  
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I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a die hard Sager fan - I’ve found him to be good, but not great. I’ve now read every book minus Lock Every Door and I think that Survive the Night is my favorite he’s written so far. I was immediately hooked, wanting to know what happens to Charlie. Her story kept me enraptured and I will say there were twists I wasn’t expecting. The end threw me a bit and was an interesting way to close the book, but I appreciated it. I will say the story line is a bit messy and some of the details and plot could have been developed or utilized a bit more, but overall I really, really enjoyed Survive the Night.

Survive the Night 🚗
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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. Josh Baxter, the man behind the wheel, is a stranger to Charlie. They met at the campus ride board, each looking to share the long drive home to Ohio. Both have good reasons for wanting to get away. For Charlie, it's guilt and grief over the murder of her best friend, who became the third victim of the man known as the Campus Killer. For Josh, it's to help care for his sick father, or so he says. There's something suspicious about Josh, from the holes in his story about his father to how he doesn't seem to want Charlie to see inside the car's trunk. As they travel an empty highway in the dead of night, an increasingly worried Charlie begins to think she's sharing a car with the Campus Killer.

Thank you @duttonbooks & @netgalley for a #gifted copy in exchange for an honest review, and @riley.sager for creating another book that had me hooked from start to finish.

Riley Sager is an auto-buy author for me, as every book of his is quite the ride. I loved that the narrator in this books was unreliable, and the reader questions the narrator, and Josh, during the entire book. It kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire book.

Although this book takes place over six hours, I never felt bored and it never felt stretched out. It was a thorough game of cat and mouse, and I felt like I was flying through the book, and I second guessed every moment when I had a grip on the story and thought I knew what would happen. Turns out I was still wrong, I absolutely did not guess the twist of an ending, at all! It definitely was out of nowhere and I caught no clues, but it was still realistic and fit with the story.

I found myself definitely questioning Charlie’s choices, and not agreeing with her choices, but it was also the era before cell phones. I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller.

From my blog: Always With a Book:

Each time I pick up a new Riley Sager book, I wonder how it is going to compare to the last one because inevitably each new one becomes my new favorite. And once again, he continues to prove his track record because this one is yet again a winner and my now new favorite!

I don’t know what it is about his books that immediately grab me and keep me glued to the pages, but this latest one was sure a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled read that I ended up reading in 2 sittings. I absolutely loved the 90’s nostalgia and while I am not a huge music fan, I appreciated the Nirvana songs and all the horror movie references. Incidentally – I can read all the scary and crazy books but watching them is a completely different story!

This book kept me on my toes the entire time. I thought I had things worked out, and yet the twists that kept coming in that second half just blew me away. My jaw just kept dropping and I’m pretty sure I gasped out loud a few times! This is the perfect summer read – it keeps you flipping those pages and has just the perfect amount of creepiness to unsettle you without completely scaring the crap out of you. I loved it!!!

Riley Sager is one of my favorites, I look forward to his next book year round, and this book definitely lived up to my super high expectations!

I don’t want to give anything away so I’ll keep it short and sweet. The pacing is really phenomenal, you are literally along for the ride, and if you been waiting all year for this one I promise you won’t be disappointed. I absolutely loved the ending I thought it was perfect. Definitely one of my favorite books of the year so far.

At first, I wasn't sure where this book was going, but it kept my attention the whole way through and the pace really picked up a little after halfway. Charlie annoyed me sometimes, mainly because I kept thinking she was not making very wise decisions, but some of them made more sense later on in the story. It was interesting (and enjoyable) to read a book that takes place in the '90s and several times I kept thinking that she should just use her phone, but then kept remembering that she didn't have one. Overall, this was a well-written suspense novel that I would recommend to anyone who likes reading about desperate situations.

3.5 stars rounded up.

After the murder of her best friend by the Campus Killer, Charlie can't stay at university any longer. She puts up a flyer at the ride share board where she meets Josh, who's also headed her way. With Josh behind the wheel, Charlie begins to notice that not everything about him seems to check out. Is Charlie's movie-loving imagination running on overdrive or could Josh be a killer?

If you're interested in reading this one, I recommend not reading any more reviews! Best to go in as blind as possible.

Survive the Night takes place over just a few hours in very few locations creating a sense of claustrophobia and panic. Shorter chapters help to maintain a consistent pace even with events occurring in such a small amount of time. Major props to Sager, who continues to write complex female protagonists in his novels!

I recommend Survive the Night to those newer to the thriller genre. This one is a solid read but not my favourite Sager novel. I unfortunately saw the twists coming from quite early on and there was no major shock factor compared to his other books. I do hope to see this adapted for the screen, especially with its 90s nostalgic vibes! Sager will always be an auto-read author for me!

Thank you to #NetGalley and @duttonbooks for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

It is no secret that I LOVE Riley Sager, and all of this author's books. In the area of thrillers, particularly psychological thrillers, he is one of my favorites and go-tos. Survive the Night is a different book for me. I saw a word used when I first requested this book, I was so excited to realize there was a new book, and that was meta. I know for some people they have certain associations when they hear that word, but I love it. This is very much a meta book to me, and I love it. But for some people, they cannot get into that type of story and way of thinking. I am not saying it is over their head, some people can use it to sound snobby or pretentious, it is just they cannot immerse themselves into this "film" being played out. Survive the Night is written like a 90's horror movie with there being a typical serial killer and our "Final Girl." Final Girls is nothing new, however, we, in recent-ish years have been given a new type. In the movie Halloween, Laurie Strode is an early example of the typical Final Girl. She was usually pure, no sex, a girl-next-door type. Then in the 1990's, 1996 to be specific, we got a new Final Girl. Sidney Prescott from Scream. A girl who fights back, who has sex and can still survive, she may be the girl-next-girl, but she is no longer helpless. Survive the Night is filled with 90's nostalgia and is not the Final Girl from the 1970's or 80's typical in the popular slasher films of the time.

I thought the idea of reading this as a movie or script was a lot of fun, and while I enjoyed it on my kindle, and will on paper when it comes out in hardback, I also LOVE audiobooks and so I wonder if that will be annoying.

Sorry, back to the review. In Survive the Night, our Final Girl, Charlie, accepts a ride share with a guy named Josh Baxter (I had to use the full name because I have a friend named this.) from her college campus to a town near where she is heading in Ohio. This is no quick trip, and Charlie has plenty of time to think of why she is leaving. Her best friend has recently been killed by The Campus Killer, his third victim. She decides to "temporarily" leave due to her feelings but she knows she does not plan to return deep in her mind. As she travels on this journey with Josh, Charlie starts to feel more and more uncomfortable and unsettled as she thinks she may just be sharing the car with someone who is not going to take care of a family member, like he says, but rather is escaping the school because he is actually The Campus Killer. This book, film, script is full of the horror film tropes that we love, and that is where the meta part comes in and makes you smile during this psychological thriller. I do not want to give too much away for the review, however, because you need to go in with an open and clear mind. I will admit that when I read the first few pages I thought, "Okay. I know the twist." Oh, contraire. There was a twist that I never saw coming. I am hesitant to even write that because I do not want to ruin it for anyone. I will just say this, you may think you know what is coming, but you have no idea. When I first saw the description of this book I saw someone say, you should go in having no idea what it is about, and I agree. Be careful of what you read (Netgalley, I am going to leave out some of the spoilery type parts in this review for my sites.) and go into this just knowing you are about to go for a wild ride.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for a nostalgic, 90's, horror movie book and the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Here it is, my most anticipated book of the summer, and IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT! I actually have had this ARC for awhile but kept putting off reading it because I didn’t want it to be over, stuck in the “read” column and I would have to wait a whole year for Riley Sager’s next book. Well, no one has to wait any longer for Survive The Night because it is released TODAY!!
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You know from the beginning that it isn’t a good idea for Charlie to accept a ride home from a random guy she met at the ride share board on campus just because she is in a hurry to get off campus and away from the memories of her best friend’s murder. If you like an unreliable narrator, Charlie is your girl. I actually loved that part of the book; not knowing what was real or not kept me on edge throughout most of the book. Her mental state provided a back drop to the choices she made, or didn’t make and I don’t think she could have been written any better.
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I stayed up half the night to finish this thriller. I loved so much about it. The way 90% of it was told from Charlie’s point of view but occasionally one of the other characters would have a voice for a chapter that enlightened us a bit and also provided a bit more anxiety! This book took place over a nighttime that flew by, I couldn’t wait for the next page to see what would happen and I enjoyed it so much.
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I think Riley Sager is a masterful storyteller. I guessed at a few things, but was mostly taking a stab in the dark, and was surprised at how everything came together. I have already seen some mixed reviews. My advice, read this for yourself. Some of the reviews really confused me because the reviewer didn’t see what I saw, but that is the nature of books and reviewers. As for me, I am recommending it with 5 Stars! At least one star for every time I paused to think “WTF!”.
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Guess I am stuck waiting until Sager’s next book....
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Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.

I have read all of Riley Sagers previous books and have never been disappointed."Survive The Night" is no exception. This fast paced novel is about Charlie, a girl who drops of out college after her best friend and roommate is murdered by a serial killer known as "the campus killer". She accepts a ride back home from another student, Josh. Charlie has an unnamed mental illness where she sees what she calls movies in her mind instead of reality at times when she is stressed. Soon into the drive back, she suspects that Josh is not who he claims to be and she behin to believes he may be the campus killer. The book follows the ride back and her trying to figure out what is and isn't real. Keep in mind, the book is set in 1991. I forgot and kept wondering why no one had cell phones. There are the twists Sager has been known for in his books and I loved them.
The unreliable narrator, makes you keep guessing on what is and isn't happening. I read this book in a day. If you're a fan of his previous books, you will enjoy this and if this is your first, it's a great introduction to his writing.

Wonderful Sager as always. I will admit, I think this is his least strong plot line so far but I am a massive Riley Sager fan so absolutely loved it none the less. I found it a bit too predictable and then, too outlandish at the end (the bit where the angry grandmother came in hot) but I thought it was a unique trope and was well engrossed the entire time reading it. I finished it in one sitting! Thank you very much for the opportunity to read it. I will be posting my full review on my Instagram on publication day! @ifyoucan_read_this

I've enjoyed every Riley Sager book and this one was no exception! I think Home Before Dark has been my favorite so far. Survive the Night was a super fast-paced and suspenseful read. It was dark and twisty and had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I had to know how it would end! I always look forward to the next Riley Sager thriller.

I loved this SO MUCH. Such a brilliant homage to the 80s slasher films I adore. @riley.sager has never let me down, and his exploration of nuanced final girls continues to be a thing I deeply enjoy. This book feels like a love letter to the survivors of horrible things, of both the internal & external variety.

Thank you so much Netgalley & PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for this eArc!