Review: Survive the Night by Riley Sager
Thank you Penguin Group and Dutton Books for my copy of Survive the Night for review. All thoughts are my own.
Yes, yes, yes. I don’t read thrillers. They’re not my thing. But every once in a while, I get FOMO and want to see what all the fuss was about. I read Home Before Dark by Riley Sager last year and actually had a ton of fun with that reading experience. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen with Survive the Night. I…really didn’t like this book. Not sure if it’s personal preference, my lack of experience with thrillers, or the overall book, but this was not the book for me. If you love it or are planning on reading it, I hope you had/have a different experience!
Synopsis: “It’s November 1991. Nirvana's in the tape deck, George H. W. Bush is in the White House, 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 virtual 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 shocking 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.
The longer she sits in the passenger seat, the more Charlie notices there’s something suspicious about Josh, from the holes in his story about his father to how he doesn’t want her to see inside the trunk. As they travel an empty, twisty highway in the dead of night, an increasingly anxious Charlie begins to think she’s sharing a car with the Campus Killer. Is Josh truly dangerous? Or is Charlie’s jittery mistrust merely a figment of her movie-fueled imagination?
One thing is certain—Charlie has nowhere to run and no way to call for help. Trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse played out on pitch-black roads and in neon-lit parking lots, Charlie knows the only way to win is to survive the night.” —NetGalley
What I Liked:
The Pace—One thing I can get behind in thrillers? Quick reads. I finished this one in less than 24 hours because it was a solid length, the chapters were short, and the suspenseful aspect kept me reading. The twist surprised me to an extent as well, but if I was an avid thriller reader I probably wouldn’t have been (which isn’t a bad thing, sometimes it’s fun to guess and be right!)
What Didn’t Work:
The Execution—I think this book had potential but just got off course somewhere, like it was trying to do and say too much.
The Unreliable Female Narrator Trope 🙄— I think this is a big reason why I don’t like thrillers.
Something about it just made me feel…icky. The killer’s motive, the things this book was trying to say about women as a means of support but still felt so weird, forced, and off, I don’t know. Ultimately, it just wasn’t the book for me.
TW/CW: murder, gore, mention of rape and sexual assault
Character Authenticity: 2.5/5 Steam Rating: N/A Overall Rating: 3/5