Ok, I’m starting to get the complaints about Riley Sager. When I read Final Girls and The Last Time I Lied I enjoyed them and didn’t really understand the negativity around Sager as an author. But with Survive the Night I think I get it. I thought I’d really like it, but honestly it was just meh. I’m beginning to see why people whose opinions I trust don’t think highly of Sager’s work.
Let’s start with the premise. Charlie is dropping out of college after her roommate Maddy was murdered by a serial killer called the Campus Killer. (Very imaginative.) Charlie was the last person to see Maddy alive, but can’t remember any details about the person she saw her talking to. You see, Charlie sometimes hallucinates and sees things around her as if they were in a movie – larger than life with lighting and costumes and even soundtracks to fit the mood – and so doesn’t even know what the suspect looks like in real life. He could be anyone. And so, like any person without a modicum of self-preservation, she’s hitching a ride back to her home state with a random guy from her college town that she’s never spoken to before. Never mind that Maddy’s killer is still out there, and never mind that Charlie has been named publicly as the last person to see Maddy alive. Let’s just get in a car with a stranger and go to a second location! I realize that John Mulaney would have been a little kid in 1991 when this book is set, but still – street sense! Get some!
What follows is a series of flashbacks explaining more of Charlie’s trauma and her life up until now, interspersed with her growing suspicions of Josh, the driver, and a series of dumb decisions that no reasonable person would make. Staying in the car with the suspected killer? Sure! Stabbing the driver while he’s operating a moving vehicle? Why not?! And of course, nothing is as it seems, and the big reveal is, once again, something no reasonable person would ever do, let alone convince someone else to go along with. The very final confrontation is satisfying, but “surprise! the killer was a misogynist all along!” just feels kind of lazy in the year of our lord 2024.
Look, the book doesn’t drag, I’ll give it that. The high tension scenes are indeed high tension, and there’s a decent amount of suspense as Charlie tries to Survive the Night. (See what I did there?) But that doesn’t change the fact that Sager wrote a character that is so dumb you can’t help but be angry with her. If you want a popcorn read, I think Sager’s work is fine. If you’re looking for nuance, well… Look elsewhere.