Survive the Night

A Novel

By: Riley Sager

Narrated by: Savannah Gilmore

Length: 9 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

One of New York Times Book Review's "summer reads guaranteed to make your heart thump and your skin crawl"; An Amazon Best of the Month Pick; Named a must-read summer book by The Washington Post, USA Today, Vulture, BuzzFeed, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, CNN, New York Post, Good Housekeeping, E!, PopSugar, CrimeReads, Thrillist, and BookRiot.

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.

©2021 Riley Sager (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"This tale almost reads as an allegory for the lofty demands set upon women, particularly during the young adult years, albeit with an R.L. Stine ‘Fear Street’ feel, mixed with Hitchcockian noir and all the top music numbers of the nineties.... And it wouldn’t be a Sager novel without an ode to films woven throughout, plus multiple twists along the way....The novel satisfies like a summer blockbuster, nearly demands you stay until the final scenes and the lights come up.” (USA Today)

“A fast-paced, twisty thriller.... A first-rate read.... But then, with four final pages, Sager reveals a final surprise that is stunning yet somehow feels exactly right.” (Associated Press)

“With every mile, the tension rises toward a deliciously unbearable pitch.” (Good Housekeeping)

Not my favorite from Riley Sager

Very slow start, and middle, but gets good at the very end. If it was written by anybody else, I Wouldn't have kept going. Definitely not my favorite, but the end was Good.

Another surprise

If anyone has read Riley Sager’s books knows how good he is at the twists and turns that comes with his storytelling. This book is no different! You start to figure things out and then poof a switch. I really liked the chapter titles which is different then his other books, it gives the reader description and timelines. Also I liked that it gives the book a movie-like aspect, which that small detail goes with the main character’s love of movies.

Enjoyed it

This book kept me entertained. A few unpredictable twists.. The perfect thriller. I would recommend.

This thriller will keep you hooked!!

Amazing. Loved it. Couldn’t put it down. Kept me guessing and holding my breath throughout the story. Read it!!

What a ride.. literally!

This had so many twists and turns and only a few of them were too cheesy but the rest of it was good enough to look past it. Nothing against the narrator but she didn’t really fit the age or look I imagined for Charlie and the other characters in this book, and her imitation of Maddie cracked me up.

WOW!

This book had me hooked from the beginning, I read the whole thing in one day! It’s full of plot twists and the ending is so good! I wasn’t crazy about the narrator but the book was so good I got over it.

Okay but I’ve read better

Okay so I am not a fan of the main character Charlie. And all her actions make very little sense to me. I mean they had to happen to make the story happen but let’s be real any normal person isn’t going to make the decisions she made throughout the story. The thing that saved this story was the twists and the ending (even though it was kinda far fetched and a bit cheesy)
Also the narrator was just eh. I didn’t like the way she spoke and all the characters really blended together bc in no way did she make them their own sound.

!!!!spoiler!!!!
I did love the movie within the story ending that was a very small twist that I enjoyed.

Loved the book, not a fan of the ending

Kept me guessing throughout the book,, but the ending was just too sugary sweet for my liking.

For People Who Like Thrillers, Movies, and Life

It kept my attention the entire time. It grabs you in the beginning with a cinematic opening. The story keeps a good pace and keeps you guessing. The last two hours are an adrenline rush. I could guess alot of what was going to happen but the way it happened was so gripping. Definitely recommended.

Great book couldn't stop listening

It started out a little weird ,but ended great. I could not stop listening until it was finished