Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Survive the Night

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

66 reviews

sarahholliday's review against another edition

adventurous 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

3.5

Another thoroughly entertaining thriller from Riley Sager. I didn't figure out who the killer was until about 60% of the way through, which is longer than it normally takes me. I don't love stories that revolve around people making choices that are so obviously idiotic. Regardless of her self-loathing I find it hard to believe that a woman whose best friend was murdered by a serial killer would accept a ride from a complete stranger.

That being said, if you enjoy fast-paced, movie-like thrillers with tons of tension and an unusual psychological element or two, I think you'll enjoy Survive the Night. Not Sager's best, but I still very much enjoyed the read.

Content Warnings

katelynprice's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense 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

3.5

As far as Sager novels go, this one was one of my least favorites. The premise was interesting, and it was still a great page-turning mystery. I just found the unreliable narrator trope and some aspects of the ending to be exhausting. For a while I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again even though I was turning the pages. The main character was absolutely infuriating, which I think was intentional, but it still led me to rage-read much of the beginning to middle. There were also some pretty problematic parts in the ending that just felt sort of cheap to me. Altogether it was a propulsive mystery, but not Sager's best.

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colleensreadingadventures's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.75

“𝘐𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘐𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴. 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘑𝘰𝘴𝘩. 𝘐𝘧 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘴. 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘢𝘺. 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘴𝘰. 𝘑𝘰𝘴𝘩’𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦.”⁣
⁣
A book with a road trip?! And on top of that a scary road trip with a possible crazy ass serial killer?! Be still my wildly thumping heart!! Unfortunately my beating heart soon turned to a sedated luuubbb duuuppp…..luuubbb duuuppp rhythm rather quickly after getting started on Survive the Night. Someone get me a defibrillator! ⁣
⁣
It’s 1991 Charlie is fleeing school after her best friend Maddy is murdered by the serial killer dubbed the Campus Killer. It wasn’t just her death that’s eating at her, it’s also the guilt that Charlie could have stopped it had she just stayed with her friend. ⁣
She meets Josh at the ride share board and decides to hitch a ride home even if it is dangerous to accept a ride from a stranger right about now. She needs to get off campus.⁣
On the twisted night journey home Charlie’s movie addled brain takes hold and starts to notice things don’t seem to be adding up about Josh. Why doesn’t he want her to see what’s in his trunk and why does his Drivers License have a different name? Could Charlie be in the car with a killer? Is her movie induced brain seeing things that aren’t there? Throughout the ride home Charlie and Josh play a cat and mouse game and it’s anybody’s guess if she’ll make it out of the car alive.⁣
⁣
𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬:⁣
-First of all Charlie’s delusions in the way she “saw” movies in her head really irked me. I thought it was a bit harebrained. Give the girl another mental disorder if you want to make her an unreliable narrator. Not something that sounds so completely made up. ⁣
-Charlie was also super weak in the beginning. I hate whiny, weak MC’s. All that woes is me crap just turns me off.⁣
-The story was a bit slow and way to repetitive in the beginning for my tastes but it did pick up in the second half ⁣
-The ending really was a bit half cocked to me. A lot of it didn’t make sense and I found it frustrating.⁣
-I pretty much figured out the whole scheme of things way too early.⁣
⁣
𝐏𝐫𝐨’𝐬:⁣
-Charlie got a back bone! It was late and she was still pretty stupid but she showed some guts and and I enjoyed her I’m done being a wimp bad-assery ⁣
-I liked the 90’s nostalgia. The music, the lack of cell phones or GPS. Charlie having to rely on a Pay Phone to get help. ⁣
-The second half was much better paced. ⁣-The premise itself was not bad. It just went sideways with the execution. ⁣
⁣
I absolutely loved Riley Sagers Final Girls. I keep trying to find that magic within his other books. Sadly Survive the Night was another sorely lacking. I still have a couple books to go before I determine it was a one off, but I truly hope not. ⁣

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ekmook's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

elainadoonan's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-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

2.5

Content Warnings

gabbreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

_chelseachelsea's review against another edition

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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.

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