Review: The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

Title: The Last Time I Lied

Author: Riley Sager

Genre: Adult, mystery thriller

Publication date: July 2018

Published by: Dutton Books

Source: eARC for review

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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.

My rating: ★★★★☆
I read Riley Sager’s first book, Final Girls, back in January of last year, and I just fell in love with! I loved the writing and the twists and turns, so you bet I was excited to read this one! And I really ended up enjoying it!

Back when Emma was a teenager she went to camp when her cabin mates disappeared one night. Now she's back at this summer camp as an instructor and all the memories and nightmares come rushing back. She thought she knew what may have happened to them, but maybe she was entirely wrong.

Like Final Girls, The Last Time I Lied is told with flashbacks scattered here in there, which I loved! Everytime we were in the present I was SO curious as to what awful thing happened in the past at this camp. But do not fear because Emma’s past comes back to haunt her and it seems like things may be repeating themselves once again. And it all happened because she was being very, very petty. I mean, the book is called The Last Time I Lied. She lied and bad things happened! I just never would’ve guessed how bad things actually were. The girls go missing, yes, but there's a mystery in that as to why they go missing, if that makes sense. It was a mystery within the mystery, and I really liked that!

There were a lot of characters introduced so it was a bit hard to keep up with all of them at first. I really liked Theo and I felt so bad for everything that he went through. I also liked Emma's friend Marc, who we actually don’t see a lot of, but I enjoyed the little bits here and there that we did get of him.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! It had some great plot twists, an interesting mystery, and it was very suspenseful. I liked the way the mysteries from both the past and the present were brought together and I liked seeing how they were connected. And then that ending... holy crap! That ending scene was... I never would have imagined. It’s insane! But yeah, I really enjoyed this one, probably not as much as his first book, but it was still good! I'm really looking forward to reading his latest release, Lock Every Door!

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊