Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Survive the Night

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

66 reviews

katonthejellicoe's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

tier: liked it a lot

riley sager and i have a love-hate relationship and i've always been cautious when starting a book by his. after reading final girls recently, the bar was definitely low... lol. hence, i think this is why this one didn't disappoint me.

surprisingly, i enjoyed this book a lot. it gave me 'i'm thinking of ending things' vibe with all the movie delusions and 'no exit' feels while charlie and josh were driving in the dark. sager never disappoints with his atmospheric yet accessible writing. i also liked the multiple plot twists eventho i've guessed a few of them.

however, just like any book in this tier, i had some issues with this book. firstly, this didn't feel like it was set in the 90s. i often forget that this wasn't in modern day and the lack of advanced technology wasn't convincing enough. secondly, i didn't understand why charlie was overfixated on maddy. it was obsessive and unhealthy (not that i expect anything better from a sager main character lol)

overall, it was a nice thriller that made me excited and scared for a few moments.

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mrsmonty503's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

4.5⭐️

This was fast paced and kept me on my toes. It had turns and twists and the ending was written well. Very satisfied with this read.

Novice Path-
Obsidian Falls: Thriller/mystery

#orilium

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polarisbooks's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated

4.0

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thevioletfoxbookshop's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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cady_sass's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Riley Sager has a knack for writing a novel that you think is mediocre for the first half and then changing your mind in the last act. This book is widely accepted to be the “worst” of his thrillers but I was pleasantly surprised! I understand that people take issue with the protagonist being dumb and making horrible decisions, but I think the issue is more that people don’t enjoy an unreliable narrator who’s also self aware. She’s making decisions based on the fact that she doesn’t believe her own mind, and thats where things get dicey. Of course she’s going to do things that seem dumb to you, when, as the reader, you slowly grow to have more information than the protagonist (but… not really). It seems frustratingly obvious what she should be doing, but, as with much of Sager’s work, nothing is what it seems. My biggest critique is a massive spoiler, so read below at your own risk.
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My main issue here (aside from the fact that we have yet another iteration of boyfriend/love interest is the villain) is that there are only 4 characters in this book, if you leave out Maddy and the cop. So, by the end, there’s realistically only two ways you can swing the plot: boyfriend is the serial killer, or the serial killer is unknown. Once you get to a certain point it becomes clear we aren’t going with an ambiguous ending, and therefore it can’t possibly be a surprise anymore who the killer is because the boyfriend is the ONLY option. So is it even a twist? There’s no other character in the book!!! Maybe the final twist with Robbie did it for some people, but for me I would’ve preferred a not-so-tidy ending. Using the boyfriend as the villain is just sooooooo…. Boring? Unoriginal? Obvious? Some combination of all of that.
That said, what he did here with the OTHER 3 characters was nothing short of masterful.

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jules_july's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

4.0

„Entweder hat sich nichts von alldem ereignet oder alles.“

Oftmals habe ich mich bei dem Lesen dieses Thrillers gefragt, ob die Dinge, die passiert sind, echt waren oder ein Film in Charlies Kopf.
Ich habe vieles in frage gestellt und wurde immer mal wieder durch unvorhersehbare Wendungen überrascht.

Riley Sager hat mit „Night“ einen guten Thriller geschrieben, der etwas Zeit braucht, bis er an fahrt aufnimmt, dann aber, durch viele Wendungen, nicht mehr zu stoppen ist.
Durch den Aufbau und die Kapitelüberschriften erinnert das Ganze ein wenig an ein Filmskript und man konnte durch die verschiedenen Blickwinkel den Charakteren gut folgen.
In „Night“ gibt viele Bezüge zu verschiedenen Filmen, da Charlie Filmwissenschaften studiert und Filme ihr Leben beherrschen.
Sie beherrschen ihr Leben so sehr, dass sie manchmal mit der Realität verschwimmen. So weiß man nicht, wem man noch vertrauen kann und wer ein falsches Spiel spielt.

Der gesamte Roadtrip, in dieser einen Nacht, wurde sehr gut beschrieben, genau wie die meisten Handlungen, sodass man sich selbst immer mal wieder Fragen konnte, was man in so einer Situation gemacht hätte.
Nichtsdestotrotz ging es mir am Ende doch ein bisschen zu schnell.
Es wurde alles ein wenig überspitzt dargestellt. Im Vergleich zum Rest des Thrillers ist am Ende doch das meiste passiert und wurde sehr schnell geklärt.

Für mich war es ein guter, solider Thriller mit einem flüssigen Schreibstil, der sich gut lesen ließ, allerdings ein paar Schwächen hatte.

Eine Empfehlung für Film und Thriller Fans.

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alex_mabel's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I thought this was a really fun read. It kept me on my toes and I was pretty creeped out at times. I thought I called the twist at the end but it went further and I enjoyed it.

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carlaah1984's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-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

4.25

First book I've listened to in a while where I started a document just to keep my notes for a review. I'm not sure what it says about me that I keep picking up books where a central theme is

a college roommate has been murdered

especially since I started a career in high education this fall. It's also that all of these

slain roommates have been enigmatic, larger than life, and beloved by their roommates In my Dreams I'm holding a knife and the Maidens.

I was young in the early 1990's so it was fun to have this book set in this time period, and then me questioning some of the things if that was around then, like *69 wasn't really used in PA until 1996, also there is a quote that is Madeline Albright but she wasn't Security of State until 1993. However, the setting of 1991 allows for a modern audience to remember or to learn what the world was like without cellphones or WIFI, fear is heighted without those. The use of "come as you are" though the book was rather great, I listened to in and it's gave such the right creepy vibe for the scence it's used it, and led to questions about the line "I don't have a gun" and how that would play out. To that point there are moments where it's odd to have a man writing about women's safety that felt a bit odd to me- it was someone who had been told about the experience but not lived it as much. I enjoyed Charlie's passion and references to films, it made it so visual for me as I could picture the movies in her mind or the movies she was referencing, also the backstory of her name was great.

I was surprised the murders didn't have a SA element, not that all campus crimes have to have that, but I wasn't sure if it was an element that just wasn't being mentioned to not be overly traumatic, once Robbie is relived as the campus killer which was both a great final twist and oddly disappointed that it was able to be tied up with the crimes being solved. With the mentioned of Take back the night and rape whistles I was surprised SA wasn't part of it until Robbie explains why he killed each of them. Additionally, I was disappointed in Maddie's mother for blaming Charlie so much, but that was really amped up by Maude. It was a GREAT twist that she was behind all of it, and the shift how her character was seen.

It was a great story, the way it plays with the what is and isn't happening, with the twist, the way the tension building. I was surprised and impressed by it which hasn't happened in a thriller in a while.

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racheybee77's review against another edition

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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

3.25

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shereadsmysteries's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad 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

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