This book had a slow start, and I'm glad that I stuck with it. I was confused because there were so many characters to follow. I liked how the story went back and forth from the past to the present, and it showed different perspectives from the characters. I enjoyed how the story was told in pieces that the reader had to put together. It was like trying to solve a puzzle, but some of the pieces were missing.

Overall, I liked the story, but I wasn't surprised by the ending. I think it was predictable, but it was still enjoyable.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for an ARC of this book.

So much action! I don’t know. Part of it was ridiculous and part was a bit easy to call (who is it?!?). But more than anything, this is a solid story of guilt and secrets. In reality, the secrets, even when you get down to the real truth, are understandable. No, you don’t want the world judging you, but I think we all understand. It just gets more and more crazy until the inevitable but satisfying conclusion. Another great one from Megan Miranda. A more involved review to come once this nightmare of a school year is over.

'The Only Survivors' is a captivating exploration of the thin line between healing and punishment, and how shared trauma can bring people together, or push them apart.

Finished ✔️ The Only Survivors by Megan Miranda & really LOVED it!! 🤩🤩
5 ⭐️‘s
Publish Day: Today
Kindle Unlimited: No
Seven hours in the past, seven days in the present, seven survivors remaining. Who would you save?
This is a beautifully and brilliantly told story
My first by Megan Miranda but won’t be my last
I didn’t see any of the twists or turns coming
It engrossed me from the first page
It’s a book I think any reader would stay up late to find out what happens next
This book had something about it that has me more and more intrigued as I kept reading it.
Yes, I’d recommend
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I really liked this book. It kept me interested until the twisty end! The main character POV along with the flashbacks from other main characters offered a great perspective.

10 years ago, a group of classmates survived a tragedy on a school trip while some of their peers and teachers didn’t make it. The trauma brings the kids together and creates a bond unlike any other. They seem to trust each other with their lives, but for some reason they keep dying…

The primary narrator is Cassidy Bent, who has tried to cut off her past and the group of people she survived with by changing her phone number and deleting any emails from the group. When an unknown number texts her the obituary of one of the survivors, she finally feels the pull to join the other survivors at their yearly get together.

Everyone seems to have something to hide, but none of them can afford to have any secrets. Can they trust that they’ll have each others’ backs? Or is someone finally going to let their survivor’s guilt take them all down…

My rating: 3.5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for an ARC for review.

Megan Miranda KNOWS how to write a book that you can’t put down. It took me about 50 pages to really get into this one, but there started to be little nuggets of info revealed that made it more and more enticing to understand the full picture of what happened the night of the school accident. I think at first there just wasn’t enough uniqueness to draw me in completely. And even after a few twists were revealed, it still felt like a long time before there were more satisfying payoffs.

I didn’t really love the narrator Cassidy, she just felt boring to me. Mostly due to her feeling like an outsider, she doesn’t contribute much personality to the group herself, but she observes the flaws and quirks of the others. There’s a LOT of characters and it takes a bit to keep them all straight. I sort of wish there were fewer of them.

I enjoyed most the chapters about the accident. I am fascinated by how people react in emergency situations and they were high schools kids no less! As the events of the night were revealed in pieces (sometimes the timeline was difficult to follow) the more you understand why the group has to rely on each other so much and how much there could be to lose. And while I saw a few of the twists coming, getting to Cassidy’s whole perspective of the night was really, really good.

Overall, I just wonder if Megan could have taken a bit more time with this one and changed a few things to make it stand out and be more memorable. I enjoyed the read, and I will always pick up Megan Miranda’s books!

I really liked this one! The plot was one that was definitely familiar and done before but it was comfortable I guess you could say since I was used to a group of friends in this kind of mystery/thriller plot. The atmosphere in this book was done very well and really made you feel like you were in that moment with the characters, whether it be the past or the present. I thought the characters were very well developed and I did not see that twist coming at the end when everything came full circle! I think this was a slow burn but it was done again very well and really was a good one! Definitely check this new one out if you have some time! Thank you so much Special thanks to NetGalley and Scribner/ S&s / Marysue Rucci Books for this advanced reader ebook copy!

A slow burn thriller that pulls you in slowly and steadily. There’s a circle of people who were never friends but they are bound forever by the fact that they are the “survivors” of a high school travel accident. Their singular status and forced closeness forge a closeness that connects them through time and each year they find time in their schedules for an anniversary week. But as their tenth “anniversary” nears their numbers are shrinking and there also seem to be questions about their shared story. This book is set up in a dual timeline. The now part is Cassidy Bent, one of the survivors POV, as she is trying first to stay away and then to uncover the undercurrents while also trying to stay away from memories that may pull her under. The timeline of the accident is split up in several POVs and lets the reader get a better sense of all the characters than just Cassidy’s point of view ever could. How high do you rate morals if you are facing the deadly reality of a natural disaster ? Is it ok to take an inhumane choice if it improves your chances of survival ? And who is calling the shots now that they have supposedly been safe for ten years ? Whom to trust ? Whom to mistrust ? What has been hidden ? Are they just suffering from survivor’s guilt or is something more sinister at the bottom of this ?

3.5 Stars
Who would you choose?

It was a little slow to start, but once it picked up, I was so invested!
Once a year, the high school survivors of a field trip bus meet up in the Outer Banks of North Carolina to get each other through that anniversary date. This year is very different, though.
Told in the past by each survivor and the present in Cassidy's POV, someone is watching and waiting. The suspense and mystery leading up to the end top notch. The twists that are revealed were such a surprise. I highly recommend this book, get through the first few chapters, and you'll be just as invested as I was.

Definitley an entertaining read. Well written.

Thank you #netgalley and #Scribner, S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books for the eARC.

Survivors of a horrific accident made a pack nine years ago to spend the week of the accident together each year after another took her life on that fateful day. It’s the ten year anniversary and Cassidy has tried to distance herself, she’s cut off all communication and vows not to join them this year. She’s tired of reliving the nightmare and she’s determined to put the past behind her. When she receives a last minute text from a number she doesn’t recognize with a message she can’t ignore, she quickly packs to join the group. Things are completely different this year, nothing seems right from the minute she steps into the ghostly beach house. There are suspicious people, and suspicious noises. When Amaya leaves the others aren’t overly concerned as she’s done this before, but when she doesn’t return Cassidy is beyond worried. As a storm rages and roads are closed we start to hear the stories from that tragic night. All is not what it seems and someone is hiding something … the only problem is someone else knows! Did one of them talk, after all they are the sole survivors!! When you are in danger, who do you save? Thank you to Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Having enjoyed Megan Miranda in the past, I looked forward to reading THE ONLY SURVIVORS. I liked the initial premise. Two vans of high school seniors with their teachers on a field trip in Tennessee crashed into a ravine. Nine students—-Amaya, Clara, Grace, Oliver, Joshua, Ian, Hollis, Brody, and Cassidy survived. Clara committed suicide. The remaining survivors decided to spend a week together every year to check in with each other. Coming up on the tenth anniversary, Cassidy decided she has moved on with her life, changes her phone number so the others cannot find her. She has a new boyfriend, Russ. Someone found out her number and sent her a text with an attached obituary for Ian who died three months before. Cassidy decided she needed to attend this year’s reunion.

The story is told in Then and Now chapters. I liked the premise of the story; however, I had to start over and take some notes on the characters. There were just too many to keep track of while reading. For me, the pace of the story crawled and I had a difficult time staying focused. When it did pick up in the last fifteen percent of the story, I had trouble buying what really happened. My thanks to Scribner,
S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.

Another wonderful thriller/mystery by Megan Miranda. I just stayed up until midnight finishing it in one day. The chapters from past to present kept the story interesting and all the characters seemed to have something to hide. Alas, they last thing I’d have to say about the book is technically it was the teacher’s fault (and I only say this because I was an educator for 7 years). Still a wonderful book I’ll recommend to others.

A decade ago, two vans carrying students performing a volunteer mission go off the road into a river ravine during a bad storm. Nine students fight to survive and then later are still dealing with something horrific when one takes her life on the anniversary. The remainder create a pact that they will meet during that week at a house on the NC Outer Banks to commemorate, and more.

However, this year Cassidy Bent has had enough. She needs to put distance between herself and them and the accident. She needs to get on with her life until she receives an anonymous text that her friend/sometimes lover Ian–another survivor–died three months earlier. Her desperate need to understand and be with the others who would understand and might have answers takes her to the place that she wanted to avoid in The Only Survivors by Megan Miranda.

Okay, let’s get my nitpick out of the way before I expound on how wonderful this novel is. The narration says that the group met even during the pandemic at the beginning of May 2020, but the group could not have met at the beginning of May in 2020 because the Outer Banks did not open until May 16 to visitors and rental home owners. And, if you know me, you know why I would know. But anyway. My second nitpick is that Megan Miranda has evidently not been in a beach house during a storm because she missed one of the most unsettling effects of the house actually swaying on its stilts which would have added a bit to her narrative. These nitpicks do not in any way affect my opinion of the novel.

Megan Miranda has created a brilliantly atmospheric novel incorporating not only nosy and creepy neighbors who observe the survivors but also a house that creaks and a seaside world creating a sense of malevolence.

Cassidy arrives at OBX not knowing whom she can trust because something is off in group. Her friend, the organizer, Amaya, almost immediately disappears. Upon encountering a neighbor, Will, Cassidy realizes that their group is a subject of conversation. Of speculation. All uncomfortable and creepy.

Miranda does what she does best. She provides bit after bit of information. Some of it points us in the wrong direction. Some takes us down side roads. We begin to speculate, as I did, expecting that someone might be someone other than whom we thought they were.

There’s a bad storm that cuts them off, cuts out electricity, forces them to forage, so to speak, as well as offering the best kind of Agatha Christie scenario. Is there anything better than a group in the dark during a storm wondering who the killer is?!

There’s a satisfactory climax. And then there’s a revelation that is so unexpected that it unsettles the entire applecart and even now I keep picturing that entire scenario. Desperation, surprise, despair. Things happen. Characters are wrong and act in their wrongness and then regret.

An excellent read.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Let me know if you read this and what you think.

Overall it was a good story, it just fell a little flat for me at times. The amount of characters did make it muddy at times and I had a harder time keeping up. However the plot was well written and a believable story so that was a definite plus. Sometimes it did get a bit slow but other times it kept me wanting to know what was going to happen in the very next sentence. It was on the longer side of number of pages so it did take some time to read but I definitely think a lot of people will enjoy this book! I look forward to reading others of this authors work.

A terrible tragedy befelled a group ten years earlier. Every year those who survived gather at the same place, which I thought was very macabre. Cassie tried to sever all ties, but the survivors keep turning up dead.
I didn’t put any of the clues together until the very end because the author used much subtly.
The ending was a bit anticlimactic but it was a good read.

Megan Miranda never disappoints. This particular story is about a group of classmates who survive a tragic accident where everyone aboard two vehicles died except their group of nine survivors. A year later, one of them is dead. The remaining group of 8 decide to meet up every year on the anniversary of the accident to check in on each other and keep each other safe. Ten years later, Cassidy wants to complete leave the past behind and decides not to go to the meet up. When she finds out another one of the remaining survivors is gone and now there are only seven of them, she decides to go. When after she arrives, another one of them goes missing, it is apparent that something else might be going on. The suspense and mystery continues and keeps you engaged and on the edge of your seat.

3.5 Stars

What begins as an annual trip on the anniversary of a tragedy, seven survivors come together and things slowly begin to unravel. Everyone is rattled when one of the group leaves and the sense that not all is as it seems becomes apparent.

I felt this started out a little slow, but as each character’s truth of the harrowing night a decade ago comes to light, I became hooked. What really happened when two vans full of teens crashed late one night during a storm? How did the nine survivors make it? Why do they feel the need to hide away and only see each other once a year when they gather at The Shallows, a beach house, where they aren’t exactly friends but are also the only people they can trust?

The last 10% definitely delivered some twists and I loved that I didn’t see them all coming.

I received an advanced copy through Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, Simon & Schuster and Megan Miranda for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

First off, I love Megan Miranda's books. I love how her books are so easy to read and fast paced and just pull you right in. And this one was no different! I was immediately hooked and could not put it down! This might be my new favorite of hers!

I was enthralled with this book from page one. The slow burn pacing was so exciting, and the rate at which plot details were revealed seemed so perfect. But unfortunately, the pace never picked up, which made the ending fall incredibly flat and unexciting. I never got the feeling that anyone was ultimately in danger, and the twist at the end seemed, while not predictable, sort of careless and plucked from nowhere. I loved 80% of this book, and I really wish it had stuck the landing for me.