By Riley Sager
5*****. Best enjoyed on a summer evening when you need a good thriller to chill your bones.
It’s 1991 and Charlie may be in the car with the person who killed her best friend. She really doesn’t know. She suspects, but sometimes things go a little differently in her head, like the night Maddy was killed. She sometimes sees movies, something she’s been doing since the death of her parents, where everything becomes stylized and a screen drops in front of her vision, creating a scene straight out of a film noir or classic Hitchcock picture. She has no idea what the identity of the man in the alley or if he was even real. Charlie still blames herself. She never should have left Maddy alone that night, regardless of their fight. Now Maddy is dead, stabbed to death with her tooth removed.
Everyone knows that the Campus Killer murdered her best friend, but no one knows who it is. All Charlie knew was that she needed to get away from Olyphant University, even if it meant leaving her boyfriend Robbie behind. She can’t live with the memories and the movies of Maddy coming back. Plus, how does she not know if she’s next? What if the killer knew she saw him?
Now, after accepting a ride share from Josh, the man in the driver’s seat of the Grand Am and the person she is slowly beginning to believe could be the guy who killed her best friend, Charlie needs to figure out if there’s a way out and if she even wants one. She suspects that she won’t make it back to Ohio in one piece if she can’t figure it out.
I love almost everything Riley Sager writes. In Survive the Night, he keeps you guessing until the very end as to what the real and true danger is. Charlie’s movie episodes are also a huge help in keeping the plotline moving through. The majority of the book you are wondering what is real and what isn’t. Is he really in the car of a killer? Is it all just a movie?
I truly loved it. I was able to finish it in only a few days. Highly recommend!
Always Lost in Words 