Review: The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
SYNOPSIS:
Two Truths and a Lie. The girls played it all the time in their tiny cabin at Camp Nightingale. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and first-time camper Emma Davis, the youngest of the group. The games ended when Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin in the dead of night. The last she–or anyone–saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.
Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings–massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches that cover ghostly shapes in white dresses. The paintings catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the socialite and wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale. When Francesca implores her to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor, Emma sees an opportunity to try to find out what really happened to her friends.
Yet it’s immediately clear that all is not right at Camp Nightingale. Already haunted by memories from fifteen years ago, Emma discovers a security camera pointed directly at her cabin, mounting mistrust from Francesca and, most disturbing of all, cryptic clues Vivian left behind about the camp’s twisted origins. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing threats from both man and nature in the present.
And the closer she gets to the truth about Camp Nightingale, the more she realizes it may come at a deadly price.
REVIEW:
*Book Received in Exchange for Honest Opinion/Review*
A captivating mystery that will leave you guessing till the very end…and still end up guessing wrong! So I read Riley’s debut novel, Final Girls, and while the story had potential, the build up and climax in the story line left me disappointed so when I saw this lovely book floating around, I was hesitant. I debated requesting it for a couple days and finally took the plunge because I couldn’t get the synopsis out of my head.
Where Final Girls fell flat for me, this book soared! I was hooked from the plot the moment I started and it was honestly hard to go to work and have to put the book down because I was dying to know what happened. Endless twists and turns that have you guessing and guessing again throughout the entire story, overflowing emotions, I truly felt like I was in Emma’s head, and an ending I never saw coming left me shook. I think I read the last page of my Kindle, paused and said “What the f*ck” and then went back and re-read the last 20 pages because WHAT?!
Riley crafts an artful mystery that had me on the edge of my seat. Now, to the criticism and what I hope Riley improves upon in her next book which I will definitely pick up. There were way too many secondary characters introduced. Names and faces mentions once and then never directly mentioned again. I felt like all these characters took away from the story a little bit.
But my biggest issue is Riley still struggles to write romance. Whether blossoming or fleeting, I find that it doesn’t really fit into the story. It seems forces and it’s not fluid to the plot. Its like he mentions the romance aspect to entice readers but only addresses it 2-3 times throughout the novel and with Emma’s emotions, the romance didn’t fit her characters behavior in every other trait. That being said, I really enjoyed the mystery part of this novel and I kind of hope there is a follow up because I would love to see how that ending plays out more.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
