Book Review: The Last Time I Lied | Riley Sager

Riley Sager somehow surpasses the amazing hype surrounding his first novel, Final Girls, with an absolutely compulsively-good psychological thriller full or secrets, lies, and shocking truths that you won’t be able to put down!

I have to say, I have read some outstanding books already in 2018, but this is by far the best psychological thriller for me this year! I was captivated by this book! I have a list of quotes and notes several pages long that I pulled while reading. Since I reached the shocking ending (seriously! What an ending!!!), I have been going back to those quotes and notes and finding even more clues and meaning in them. We read this as a Traveling Sister read, and the discussion has been so engaging and wonderful. We each are finding clues that give us a new theory about aspects of the book. I wish I could share, but you should go in and experience this one as it is written! You will find your own path through the mysterious web of truth and lies, and I think this one will keep you guessing!

About the Book

Emma Davis was 13 years old when she first attended Camp Nightingale—a summer sleepaway camp for the upper-class girls of the northeastern states. Emma is late—her mother didn’t mention that she would be away all summer until the first day of camp—and so she is placed into a tiny cabin with popular senior campers Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. Emma immediately bonds with the beautiful, enigmatic Vivian. Vivian feels like the older sister Emma always wanted. The girls quickly engage Emma in their favorite game, two truths and a lie. The point of the game is to trick others into believing your lie. And then one night, Emma watches the girls sneak out of the cabin. By the next morning, they’ve disappeared for good, and Emma is left wondering if she could have stopped them.

Two truths…

At 28, Emma is a successful painter with a gallery full of her Forest series—paintings inspired by the forest at Camp Nightingale and her lingering questions around that summer. Not a day goes by that Emma doesn’t think about the three missing girls, particularly Vivian. And then Franny, the wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale, approaches Emma with an offer—return to Camp Nightingale’s grand re-opening. Emma thinks this may be her opportunity to finally process what happened to her friends and move on for good. But all is not as it seems once she arrives at Camp Nightingale.

And a lie…

But Emma has secrets she has never revealed to anyone. About that summer. About the girls. Emma may know more about what happened than she admits. Though Emma tries to live a life of truths, she can’t seem to escape her lies that summer. And it seems that someone out there knows what Emma lied about, and is trying to make Emma pay. Can Emma find the truth before her lies catch up to her?

Reflection

I cannot put into words how wonderful this book is! It has layers upon layers of secrets, lies, and mystery that I continue to peel back, even after finishing. Small moments that seemed innocuous at first reading take on so much meaning as I discovered more about the events at Camp Nightingale. The characters are all slightly unsettling in a good way. You’re never totally sure that anyone is telling the full truth. But as Vivian says, lying is how you win the game.

One of my absolute favorite things about this book was the mysterious setting of Camp Nightingale. Sager uses the setting as a character in and of itself. He says at one point, “Like most old structures, there’s a heaviness to the Lodge, a somberness. I think of all the years it’s witnessed. All those seasons and storms and secrets…” The description of a place as having a memory; of knowing all of the secrets, and it creating a personality to the building that may not exist if things had been different. Emma reflects at one point that she was getting reacquainted with the lake, only to then state that actually, it felt like the lake was getting reacquainted with her. And then at other times several characters mention the forest as inviting them in, and the pull it has for those at the camp. The setting of the book completely came alive through Sager’s wonderful writing. It became a force within the story that held the clues to the mystery, if only Emma could be brave enough to ask.

And finally, THAT ENDING! I can’t say much more because I refuse to spoil even a second of this wonderful ending, but boy-oh-boy was I paging back and forward, processing what I just read. I can’t wait for readers to discover this book for themselves! The entire book is a masterpiece, and one I already am planning to read again. And like all of the best books, I already know that each time I read it, I’ll get a bit more out of it.

Publication Date: 7/3/2018

Thank you so much to Dutton, Penguin Books, and Riley Sager for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.