Scan barcode
A review by _chelseachelsea
Survive the Night by Riley Sager
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I’m trying really hard to figure out how to describe this book, but it’s tough because the twists and narrative devices feel like both its greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses.
To review it properly makes spoilers inevitable, so if you’re reading this BEFORE you’ve read STN, I’ll leave you with this: nothing about this book is what you expect; that means you are going to be both delightfully engaged and incredibly frustrated.
Spoilers begin below.
I want to start with a shortlist of general plot dislikes. My first (and biggest) plot complaint is about the character of Robbie. When Marge is revealed to be the villain (?) who orchestrated Charlie’s fateful ride, I thought “well, that’s a clever move.” Josh/Jake being revealed as a simple bounty hunter and NOT the Campus Killer was a cool bait-and-switch that, if a bit difficult to believe, still provided a much-needed breath of life in the second-to-third-act bridge.
And when Marge, desperate and angry, asked Charlie to kill her, I was totally bought-in on the drama. I even thought to myself, “It’s good that the true identity of the Campus Killer is still a mystery. That’s realistic. In real life people often don’t find out who killed their loved ones.”
Then Sager fucked it up.
The big “Robbie is the killer” twist felt forced, rushed, and ridiculous. Charlie dated this man for a year and didn’t recognize him from behind when he approached Maddy? Maddy herself didn’t yell out “Charlie wait, Robbie’s here!” when she saw him? Robbie, the ruthless killer, didn’t overpower Marge the second he realized she was lying about Charlie in the diner? It just didn’t line up for me. There’s nothing I hate more in a thriller than a forced last-minute twist, and leaving the CK a mystery would have paid off so much better. Charlie could have parted ways with Robbie as friends and still ended up with Josh/Jake.
Speaking of, that’s my second plot beef. Why does Charlie need to end up with Josh/Jake? In what world would that relationship be healthy? Trauma-bond romances in thrillers are getting very old.
But here’s the real conflict for me as a reader. Sager does some things with the narrative in this novel that are, as I said above, both the greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses of the book.
Let’s start with the use of unreliable narrators. Sager really impressed me on this one. Typically a book is able to pull off one, maybe two UN’s in a single story, but every single narrator in STN novel turns out to be one, right down to “Charlie” herself (who, I guess, was actually Movie Charlie?)
But the problem with the main line of narration being a movie version of what actually happened is that a) we’re left with no idea if we ever got any real insight into our protagonist and what her actual experiences were, and b) we’re left deeply confused about what actually happened. If there was no fire, for example, then how did the climax actually play out? Were the scenes between Charlie and Maddy genuine, or were they made up to add emotional depth to the “movie”?
And therein lies my biggest frustration. I think the “you’ve secretly been reading the Hollywood version of events this whole time” twist was creative and well-executed - it certainly took a lot of literary gymnastics to pull off - but I also feel robbed of Charlie’s story. The tears I shed over the surprisingly poignant moments when she’s lost in a memory of Maddy feel cheap, like Sager wanted me to be caught up in the emotion only to yank it out from under me. The thrill of the big climax and the plot twists and the gasps I let out feel even cheaper, because I (like Charlie) don’t know what was real and what wasn’t.
And all of this begs the question - did Sager trick us out of love, or spite? By feeding us a thriller that hits many familiar notes and leans into film tropes, is he trying to say he’s smarter than us? Does he want us to feel duped and stupid for buying into it? Or is he simply making a general statement about the dramatization of reality?
Sager’s author’s note explains that this novel is a love letter to cinema, but to me the final twist felt like a middle finger to us: the audience members who ate up the bullshit he was feeding us without thinking twice; the morons who trusted every narrator he presented, believed his version of events, and fell for his big trick.
No matter how clever that trick was, it still feels like antagonization.
To review it properly makes spoilers inevitable, so if you’re reading this BEFORE you’ve read STN, I’ll leave you with this: nothing about this book is what you expect; that means you are going to be both delightfully engaged and incredibly frustrated.
Spoilers begin below.
And when Marge, desperate and angry, asked Charlie to kill her, I was totally bought-in on the drama. I even thought to myself, “It’s good that the true identity of the Campus Killer is still a mystery. That’s realistic. In real life people often don’t find out who killed their loved ones.”
Then Sager fucked it up.
The big “Robbie is the killer” twist felt forced, rushed, and ridiculous. Charlie dated this man for a year and didn’t recognize him from behind when he approached Maddy? Maddy herself didn’t yell out “Charlie wait, Robbie’s here!” when she saw him? Robbie, the ruthless killer, didn’t overpower Marge the second he realized she was lying about Charlie in the diner? It just didn’t line up for me. There’s nothing I hate more in a thriller than a forced last-minute twist, and leaving the CK a mystery would have paid off so much better. Charlie could have parted ways with Robbie as friends and still ended up with Josh/Jake.
Speaking of, that’s my second plot beef. Why does Charlie need to end up with Josh/Jake? In what world would that relationship be healthy? Trauma-bond romances in thrillers are getting very old.
But here’s the real conflict for me as a reader. Sager does some things with the narrative in this novel that are, as I said above, both the greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses of the book.
Let’s start with the use of unreliable narrators. Sager really impressed me on this one. Typically a book is able to pull off one, maybe two UN’s in a single story, but every single narrator in STN novel turns out to be one, right down to “Charlie” herself (who, I guess, was actually Movie Charlie?)
But the problem with the main line of narration being a movie version of what actually happened is that a) we’re left with no idea if we ever got any real insight into our protagonist and what her actual experiences were, and b) we’re left deeply confused about what actually happened. If there was no fire, for example, then how did the climax actually play out? Were the scenes between Charlie and Maddy genuine, or were they made up to add emotional depth to the “movie”?
And therein lies my biggest frustration. I think the “you’ve secretly been reading the Hollywood version of events this whole time” twist was creative and well-executed - it certainly took a lot of literary gymnastics to pull off - but I also feel robbed of Charlie’s story. The tears I shed over the surprisingly poignant moments when she’s lost in a memory of Maddy feel cheap, like Sager wanted me to be caught up in the emotion only to yank it out from under me. The thrill of the big climax and the plot twists and the gasps I let out feel even cheaper, because I (like Charlie) don’t know what was real and what wasn’t.
And all of this begs the question - did Sager trick us out of love, or spite? By feeding us a thriller that hits many familiar notes and leans into film tropes, is he trying to say he’s smarter than us? Does he want us to feel duped and stupid for buying into it? Or is he simply making a general statement about the dramatization of reality?
Sager’s author’s note explains that this novel is a love letter to cinema, but to me the final twist felt like a middle finger to us: the audience members who ate up the bullshit he was feeding us without thinking twice; the morons who trusted every narrator he presented, believed his version of events, and fell for his big trick.
No matter how clever that trick was, it still feels like antagonization.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Cancer, Gore, Gun violence, and Car accident