Survive the Night - shelf-to-table.org

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

3 Stars

The Book At A Glance

November 1991. Nirvana’s on the radio, and college student Charlie Jordan is hitching a ride home to Ohio with Josh Baxter—a stranger she met on the campus ride board. Charlie is desperate to escape the grief and guilt of her best friend’s murder, the latest victim of the Campus Killer. Josh claims he’s headed home to care for his sick father, but his story doesn’t add up. As the miles slip by on dark, empty highways, Charlie grows convinced she may be trapped with the killer himself. With no phone, no escape, and danger closing in, she must outwit the man behind the wheel if she hopes to survive the night.

Bookish Thoughts

The premise of this book immediately grabbed my attention—a thriller that takes place almost entirely inside a car. The idea of being trapped in such a confined space with a stranger, unsure if you can trust them, makes for an incredibly tense and claustrophobic setup. When you’re in the mood for a nerve-shredding road trip thriller—complete with cat-and-mouse tension, dark highways, and a serial killer on the loose.

Genre

thriller

horror

Tropes

Cat-Mouse

Road Trip

Movie Buff

My Review

The premise of this book hooked me right away—a thriller set almost entirely in a car during a late-night drive. Charlie, the main character, is a movie-obsessed college student who constantly views life through a cinematic lens. I found it fascinating how she created entire scenes in her head, blurring the line between imagination and reality. At times, though, this made it hard for me as a reader to know what was real and what wasn’t, which added tension but also left me feeling a little confused.

Josh, the man driving her home, felt suspicious from the very beginning. His vague backstory and evasive behavior kept me questioning him, but part of me couldn’t shake the feeling that it was almost too easy for him to be the killer. That constant push-and-pull between doubt and certainty carried much of the suspense.

Unfortunately, the ending didn’t land for me. I figured out the twist before the reveal, which made the final act less impactful. Because of that, I ended up giving this book 3 stars. While I loved the concept, the 90s setting, and the claustrophobic, cat-and-mouse atmosphere, the predictability of the conclusion kept it from being as thrilling as I hoped.

In the end, the twist revealed that the danger didn’t just come from the stranger in the car. The grandmother of Charlie’s best friend was also out for revenge, blaming Charlie for letting her granddaughter die and for failing to remember the killer’s face, even though she had witnessed it. And the biggest shock—Charlie’s own boyfriend turned out to be the Campus Killer all along, hiding his true, unhinged nature beneath their relationship.

“That’s the tricky thing about movies. They can be wonderful and beautiful and amazing. But they’re not like life, which is wonderful, beautiful, and amazing in a different way.”
Riley Sager

A vintage globe displayed in a historic library filled with old books.

Other Books by the Author

Some of the author’s other beloved titles include The Only One Left, Final Girls, Lock Every Door, and many more.

Literary Pairing

Murder Road by Simone St. James is a great match for readers who enjoyed Survive the Night because it blends the same claustrophobic, on-the-road tension with a chilling sense of danger. Like Riley Sager’s novel, it centers on a couple traveling late at night who pick up a hitchhiker—only for the ride to spiral into suspicion, fear, and violence.