Reviews with content warning for Stalking - The Last Time I Lied

Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

9 reviews

hauntedantiqueshop's review

mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Not great 🫥 the only unpredictable twist was literally the last page and it could ~~should~~ have gone without! And if you’d have taken a shot every time “lie” was written in the book, you’d die of alcohol poisoning.

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rebeccarc's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Read it with someone else, but they never even started it, and I wanted and never read more. I'm gonna try this again alone.

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bookcheshirecat's review

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

4.0

“Everything is a game, Em. Whether you know it or not. Which means that sometimes a lie is more than just a lie. Sometimes it's the only way to win.”

➽ The Last Time I Lied is another fun Riley Sager Thriller! It's one of his older works that was still enjoyable to read. The story follows Emma, who spent a summer at Camp Nightingale 15 years ago where three of her bunkmates mysteriously disappeared. Her new friends were never found and ever since Emma has been hiding them in her drawings in order to deal with her lingering trauma. However, the camp is supposed to be reopened soon and she's approached by the director again. Emma gets roped into becoming one of the counsellors and the resident art teacher, but there are a lot of bad memories at Camp Nightingale and not everyone has forgotten what happened with her bunkmates.

➽ The story talks about Emma's trauma and mental health, as she's still trying to cope with the disappearance of her three friends. With the camp's reopening, she hopes to finally get some closure, but something strange is going on. Maybe she can finally find out what happened back then, as there are still so many unanswered questions. The story is told in dual timelines of Then and Now, looking back on Emma's fateful summer. She develops a codependent, slightly toxic friendship with three girls who are older than her. I didn't really like them, as they were your typical, mean Queen Bees, but the story was still compelling!

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hellokatya's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

i’m really unsure how i feel about this book.
i really, really, enjoyed the ending. i think it really solidified this book, but i do have a few issues:
1. it was a bit hard to pick up again once i had put it down. during the read it was interesting enough to keep going, but it was hard to get the motivation again once i had stopped.
2. the story didn’t really pick up until the 30% mark and the main plot themes weren’t fully developed until around the 40% mark — all the backstory from the blurb had already been put out so why did it take so long for any development to begin?
3. why is a 28 year old regressing to her teenaged cattiness?
4.

i dont like how much time was spent on the asylum being an integral part of the story, just for it to fall flat and be a minuscule (in the grand scheme) detail. where did the women go? why would they have just thrown the scissors into the lake (or left them in the asylum) if lottie’s family cared so deeply about the history of it? why was helmut never reunited with his sister?

5. in ch. 36: “maybe the only way to free myself from the grip of guilt is to learn the truth.” — why was this framed as some epiphany? this had been the goal from the very beginning of the book.
6. the girls, natalie and allison + sasha and krystal, are only given a few defining character traits and never really explored or developed beyond that - though their very existence is integral to the overall plot. (with natalie and allison i suppose it serves a greater purpose [?] )

overall: i think this book makes for a good binge read if you’re willing to stick it out for a pretty damn satisfying ending.

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fraise's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

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ging090803's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

For the moment, I really like Riley Sager. Again, it think this book was really good. The end was so good.
I liked how we didn't really know if what she was seeing was real or not. Poor Emma. I really liked how the past and present were mixed.
Sager, again, gave us many suspects to put our mind on, I never knew what really happened. My suspicion went on and off continuously.

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cinthiaurora's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked this book better than Final Girls and I do think the author has improved from it in terms of writing tension and suspense- HOWEVER Riley Sager very obviously has no idea how teenage girls speak, for one. To add to that, every female character (most characters are female btw) thinks and behaves in a way that makes it super obvious they were written by a male author, which is a pet peeve of mine. I gave this (almost) 4 stars anyway because I love a good Alison DiLaurentis-type psycho mean girl. Speaking of which I did pick up some lowkey Pretty Little Liars vibes from this book which is either the best thing about it or the worst thing about it.

Also, maybe it’s just that I had made the connection between PLL and this book early on but the whole “Vivian was alive the whole time” thing in the end didn’t really come as a huge shock to me. Vivian obviously being the Alison in this scenario. In the show one of Alison’s aliases was even NAMED Vivian. I wonder if Sager was inspired by the series at all because it would be a funny coincidence if not.
Oh one other thing, the whole moment with Theo in his car where he’s like “If you were older I would have kissed you back” ??? Now WHY would he go and say something like that? Ew. It sort of made sense when I thought he was trying to manipulate Emma’s feelings for him because he was up to something but now that I know for sure he was serious… Ick. Emma and Theo’s whole “romance” actually… questionable. Could have been done better for sure.
Edit: bumped this down from 4 to 3.75 because after you think about it for a little bit a lot of things don’t quite make sense. What else can you expect from this type of book though right

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samisreadinq's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really love Riley sager!! Their books are always so incredible. This one is definitely my least favourite of his books but I still had a great time. The ending was was convinced me to give an extra star. The ending is really awesome and so engaging. I like having an unreliable narrator and not knowing if you can believe them.

I also liked seeing the past situation with viv, Allison and Natalie. And the dual perspective. Though it was written really well and added a lot to the book. I felt a bit bad for Theo he didn’t deserve that but also can understand Emma’s perspective too. Especially as she was only a child when it happened.

The writing as always is great and the plot well written. Riley has an incredible way of storytelling and engaging you the entire time. However, this time especially towards the start I didn’t feel that rush. That edge of my seat adrenaline that I always normally feel with his books. Definitely felt it at the end but I felt the start was a little slow for me. In comparison to his others books.

Overall, this one is definitely a great time. But not my favourite of his books.

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riella_reads's review

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This is soooo close to being a 4, but the beginning was just a little too slow for me. I liked this a lot more than I thought I would due to some of the reviews, but I think that helped me have low expectations. I thought I had it all figured out, and I did in part, but ultimately I was still left surprised. I have now read all of Sager's work except from his most recent release, which I hope to read soon!

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