THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of Survive the Night and Final Girls comes a tense and twisty thriller about a summer camp that’s impossible to forget—no matter how hard you try. Two Truths and a Lie. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and Emma played it all the time in their cabin at Camp Nightingale. But the games ended the night Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out into … the night Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out into the darkness. The last she—or anyone—saw of the teenagers was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips….
Fifteen years later, Emma is a rising star in the New York art scene, turning her past into paintings—massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches over ghostly shapes in white dresses. When the paintings catch the attention of the wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale, she implores Emma to come back to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor.
Despite her guilt and anxiety—or maybe because of them—Emma agrees to revisit her past. Nightingale looks the same as it did all those years ago, haunted by a midnight-dark lake and familiar faces. Emma is even assigned to the same cabin she slept in as a teenager, although the security camera pointed at her door is a disturbing new addition.
As cryptic clues about the camp’s origins begin to surface, Emma attempts to find out what really happened to her friends. But her closure could come at a deadly price.
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It’s not my davorote Riley Sager, but it’s good.
This book was so good! I was kept on my toes throughout, and kept trying to figure out the plot, to no avail. I was so wrong at the end.
This book was well-paced. I never felt too bored with reading. I, like the main character, Emma, wanted to find out what happened to her friends 15 years ago. I was so curious, and like I said, not even close to figuring things out.
Riley Sager also, has a way of writing these women characters really well. He perfectly captures catty wordplay. For example when Emma tells another girl she “looks fine”. I felt that.
This book was enjoyable, and almost impossible to figure out. The only reason I gave it four stars is because my head space just wasn’t in the right place for this book. It took me a whole month to get through, so I think I’m going to take a break from the thrillers for a bit.
Where do I even start?
I read this book in a single day. I would have plowed straight through without stopping, but I really needed sleep, lol. The author created a suspenseful and dark world, full of secrets and twisted truths, which all come together and lead to a stunning (and surprise) conclusion.
Emma attended Camp Nightingale for a portion of one summer, when she was thirteen-years-old. Her experience was not a good one. Three girls, whom she had befriended during camp, vanished into thin air, never to be found. Fast forward 15 years. Emma is living in Manhattan and is an artist. Her first gallery show features a bunch of beautiful works of art … all featuring the missing girls from summer camp. It’s at this gallery show that she sees Franny, the woman who still owns and once operated Camp Nightingale. And thus starts the next leg of Emma’s Camp Nightingale journey.
What follows is a brilliantly constructed thriller story. Sager’s writing is outstanding. I held my breath when I turned the pages of this, waiting to see what would happen next, if we’d get a clue about what was happening or meet a character who could shine more light on things. The story of Emma’s first summer at camp is told through flashback chapters, and I liked the way that was done. It left me wanting more and kept me on the edge of the seat waiting for the next chapter that would shine more light on the events that had taken place almost two decades earlier. Characters are on point in this as well, with a good mix of veteran camp goers and new people who have yet to experience Nightingale in its glory. I liked how Emma found friendship in one of the more unexpected places, with the girls who’s cabin she was the adult chaperone for. And I found Theo interesting, because there was such an air of mystery surrounding him.
The whole camp came to life in the book, and I appreciated that. I was brought back to my own summers spent at a camp in Northern Minnesota, and though my experiences were overwhelmingly positive, I still felt like I’d been picked up and transported back there. The cabins, the bonfire, the lake … It gave me goose bumps while I read.
I was completely floored when I got to the end of the book. It wrapped up with a twist that I never expected but that fit perfectly with everything leading up to it. Of course now I have a million questions about Emma—what happens to her? How does she fare in the future? Does her art career continue to skyrocket? And what about Theo… where does he end up?
This is definitely a story I can see myself reading again, multiple times. I read somewhere that this was getting picked up by Amazon for production, and I hope this is the case. I’d love to see it brought to life on the screen.
Five stars to this novel!
Emma is an artist who always paints 3 ghostly girls but then paints over their faces. Fifteen years after the summer camp she had attended, Camp Nightingale, closed she returns. It closed because Emma’s three cabinmates disappeared from camp one night and were never found. Franny, the camp owner, decides to open it back up and invites Emma back. Emma is put back in the same cabin with 3 new girls and sets out to find out what happened to the other girls fifteen years earlier.
They say you can’t repeat your past but Emma Davis relives that fateful summer as she paints the girls who went missing over and over. Years ago Emma attended Camp Nightingale. It was a wonderful summer until her cabin mates Vivian, Natalie, and Allison disappear one night and are never seen again. Now Emma has been invited back to Camp Nightingale to work as the art teacher. Her real reason for going is to see if she can uncover the truth about the disappearance and finally put the past behind her. Good fast-paced thriller!
Not bad
3.5 STARS
Fifteen years ago Emma was sent to a summer camp when she was a child. She was the youngest participant and placed in a cabin with three older girls … Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. One night the three girls slipped out of their cabin in the middle of the night .. and were never seen again.
Emma is now an adult, a rising star in the art world, a woman who has never forgotten the three missing girls. She’s turned their disappearance into a series of paintings, with leaves and branches covering three girls in white dresses.
One woman who has seen these paintings is the woman who is the owner of Camp Nightingale. She begs Emma to return to the newly re-opened camp as a painting instructor.Seeing an opportunity to find out what really happened to her friends all those years ago, Emma agrees.
Upon her arrival, Emma is assigned to the same cabin she slept in all those years ago. Doing her own investigation into the girls’ disappearance, she discovers that the truth maybe closer than she thinks … and the truth could cost her more than she’s willing to pay.
Well written with a tightly woven plot this thriller weaves together the past and the present. It’s a chilling tale, intense with tension that never lets up. All the characters are skillfully constructed, lending an air of credibility to Emma’s story. The ending came quite as a surprise.
Many thanks to the author / Penguin Group – Dutton / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological thriller. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
Pretty good page turner thriller.
BOOK REVIEW
The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
Pub Date: July 3, 2018
384 pages
-DESCRIPTION-
The story is told is two time lines. One is modern day Emma, artist, who has been asked to teach art classes at Camp Nightingale. This is the first year the camp has opened, and Emma has been back, since the last time Emma was there as a teenager when her 3 bunkmates went missing.
-THOUGHTS-
So I did enjoy the way the story was told. The two timelines are great. I love a book that incorporates various timelines or points of view. However, where Sager loses me is when he has so many characters that that one needs a cheat sheet and almost every single one gets accused of the crime at some point. By the end, I’m just so sick of everyone being a suspect that by the time it’s revealed…it’s really not a surprise. It’s it’s always some weird explanation for why they committed the crime. It is a fine read. I understand why people like his books. It’s just not a big thriller for me. It’s kind of in the middle of a whodunnit & a drama. The twists aren’t very twisty.
-RATING-
3/5 stars
This book isn’t for me, but I understand why some people like it.
-SIMILAR RECOMMENDED READS-
Angels and Demons
The Perfect Couple
Watching You
I liked this book, it kept me guessing and I enjoyed the suspense. I like the characters as well
I’m so glad I picked this one up. I really enjoyed this story and the unreliability of the narrator. Is Emma crazy? What lies did she tell? Is she still lying? I loved the back and forth from past to present and trying to unravel the tale of where the girls that disappeared could have went. Coming back to the summer camp after 15 years took a toll on everyone, but Emma bears the brunt of speculation because the girls she bunked with went missing. She was only 13 and may have falsely accused accused her only friend at the camp. When lives are shattered by her lies, can they really be forgiven? This story was unwrapped layer by layer and even though Emma was a bit of a mess, I loved her. I also loved her “love interest” even if we had no idea if he was terrible or not. Don’t judge me. I loved that at the end there was multiple twists and I liked that I didn’t know all of them before they happened. I really like it when a book surprises me.
Love Her books!!! Can’t put them down, and keeps you guessing until the end!
This is one of my favorite books in the last six months. Since I read voraciously, that is a real compliment. The women in the present and the girls in the past definitely make you feel they are real. Some you love. Some disgust you. However, they all have personalities that are familiar. The leader of the girls who constantly seeks attention,but has a cruel streak, the girl who had become a woman living with guilt about that horrible night in the past, and the strong woman with a secret that lives for the camp no matter what. When suspicions arise again,the past seems to repeat itself in the worst way. Just when you think you have everything all figured out, you don’t. Read this when you have a long night. You will need it.
Just a really good story. I only read at bedtime and it was hard to put down!!!
This book has it all! Creepy setting, wonderful writing, believable characters and plenty of surprises. A definite page turner right up to it’s fabulous finish!
The ending was GREAT.
Very good read. I enjoyed the characters and the plot. It had a few twists I didn’t see coming. I didn’t want to put it down. Definitely a good thriller.
This story had me guessing the whole time. I usually work out the ending to books, but I wasn’t even close on this one. This is a page turner that I finished in one go. I just couldn’t put it down.
Absolutely loved this book and another hit by Riley. Overall 5/5!
I was a little skeptical of Sager’s ability to top what he did with his debut novel. I was also skeptical of the overwhelming number of good reviews of this book. Yeah. My skepticism was completely unfounded. This book is good. Like really good. Like hooked from the first few pages good (which almost never happens for me).
I’ve been on a pretty steady “good” book streak lately, and am keeping my fingers crossed that The Last Time I Lied wasn’t the end of that streak. I was actually trying to hold off on reading it – intending to save itfor my August book list. However, when my BOTM arrived I couldn’t stop myself from picking this one up and putting my other book down.
Without giving too much of the plot away, I must stress that this book feels and reads completely different than Final Girls. For me, Final Girls fell into the horror/thriller genre, while I would categorize The Last Time I Lied more on the thriller/mystery side. The tension and the plot are consistently rising and falling, twisting and turning. You feel like you are with Emma, peeling back the layers of Camp Nightingale. And while I wasn’t overly surprised with one plot twist, the second one completely baffled me. HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT! Sager’s writing was so good. Seriously. So good that I started questioning Emma herself, which is a big win for me. If an author has you genuinely questioning all of the characters – they’re a damn good author writing a damn good story.
I was sad to read in a separate interview that Sager doesn’t intend to write a sequel to this book. I feel like we could have continued on with Emma, but I also agree that he left us with a good stopping point. I cannot wait to see what he writes next.
I know I’ve only read two of his books, but man, Riley Sager is on a roll. The Last Time I Lied is about Emma Davis, a girl whose bunkmates went missing from their cabin at summer camp when she was thirteen. She spends the next fifteen years blaming herself for their disappearances. Now a successful artist, Emma paints her three missing friends in every one of her paintings, but only she knows they’re there. When Emma is approached by the billionaire owner of the camp to teach painting there over the summer, she takes the opportunity with the hopes of finding closure. When history starts to repeat itself, Emma realizes she has little time to figure out the truth of what happened in the past and why it’s happening again in the present.
The entire story is told from Emma’s perspective in the present, and from her memories of the past. As the reader, I got the feeling she wasn’t being entirely truthful with me until almost the very end. I love an unreliable narrator, so I loved trying to put the pieces of the mystery together while also trying to figure out the truth about Emma. Sager is a master at keeping you guessing until the very end, and I was. I still have questions and doubts about the truth of the events that took place at Camp Nightingale. The transitions between the past and the present were seamless, and the dialogue felt incredibly real. I’m not sure how a man knows so much about what it’s like to be a teenage girl, but he captured their bitchy, two-faced ways perfectly. I have to say, I wasn’t as shocked by the ending as I thought I would be. While I knew Emma was onto something, I still had a feeling she wasn’t on the exact right track. The ending ended up falling a little flat for me and I think the main reason is because it wasn’t as black and white as Final Girls. However, I think that’s the beauty of this book. Emma told so many lies throughout the book that when the truth finally came out, I wasn’t certain I believed it. I’m not going to spoil the ending, but I still think there’s more to the story, and it makes me wonder a lot of things.
I’m not sure I can say that I liked this better than Final Girls, because the two novels are so different, but The Last Time I Lied has a spot on my top 10 books of 2019 for sure.