Book Review - Survive the Night by Riley Sager

Title: Survive the Night
Series: -
Author: Riley Sager
 
Description: Charlie Jordan is being driven across the country by a serial killer. Maybe.

Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Charlie met by the college ride share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news - the Campus Killer, who's tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again.

Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh's story.

As she begins to plan her escape from the man she is becoming certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh knows exactly what she's thinking.
Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Charlie met by the college ride share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news - the Campus Killer, who's tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again.
Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh's story.
As she begins to plan her escape from the man she is becoming certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh knows exactly what she's thinking.
 
Review: Student Charlie Jordan gets into the car with a complete stranger, Josh Baxter. She met him at the campus bulletin board. Charlie was looking for a ride to Ohio and Josh was looking for someone to share a ride with.
 
Charlie is still mourning her best friend, Maddie, who became the third victim of the so-called campus killer. Charlie is therefor anxious to go home to her grandmother and decides to share a ride with Josh, who is going to visit his sick father. Is Josh really who he says he is?
 
I have enjoyed two Riley Sager book before, one not so much. “Survive the Night” is somewhere in between those.
 
Charlie is an unstable person and someone you can’t really trust as a narrator. Because she suffers from blackouts, due to movies that play out in her head, it’s often not clear whether what she is seeing is real or another movie in her head. That makes it very suspenseful. Josh is also someone we don’t know whether we can trust him or not. There are often reasons to believe he is up to no good, but then again, maybe Charlie is imagining it.
 
Because Charlie is a major movie buff, there are a lot of movie references. Especially in the beginning of the book and I can understand it might be annoying at times. And me, as a movie buff myself, found it a bit too much at times. Sager was overdoing the movie references a bit. I used them too, but not to this extend.
 
Because the events take place over one night and a large chunk of the story is set in the car, the tension is very present and unpredictable. There are some twists in the book, one I never saw coming. Another I did predict, but wasn’t obvious.  
 
The book is set in the 90s and I liked that part as well. I enjoyed the atmosphere and the twists. But again, the constant references eventually started to bug me. I enjoyed the book, especially the second half of it, but it’s not one of my favorites by Riley Sager.
 
Rating: 3,5/ 5