Survive the Night

Around the middle of last year this seemed to be "The Book" that everyone was either anticipating or already reading. (FOMO)Fear of missing out is what sent me to request a review copy. My request was very politely rejected, with a lovely note from the publisher telling me that their remaining review copies were being saved for book sellers or reviewers who write for major publications. I should have let that be the end of it, and we'd all be better off if I had. It's rare that someone declines my offer to read a book and that must be what made me even more determined to read it. This happened to me before where I was declined, requested elsewhere, got the book, and regretted reading it. That should have taught me a lesson. Next time I will take as a sign that the book is just not for me. This book sure was not!

It starts off well enough. There's a killer on the loose. The Campus killer to be exact, who has murdered Charlie's friend Maddy, and left her wracked with guilt because they had been together earlier that evening. Charlie left her alone at the bar, where she was never seen alive again. Charlie, unable to cope, has decided she must leave the university IMMEDIATELY. In fact she can not even wait a couple of days for her boyfriend to drive her. She decides instead to take a ride with a total stranger, who as it turns out may or may not be the murderer. This begins a long and boring car ride broken up by a series of hallucinations that Charlie calls "seeing movies" in her head.

As someone who has a strong dislike for books or movies that suck you in and then say oops that was all just a dream, I find that I am equally disinterested in hallucinations as I am in dream sequences. The long car trip with only two characters, neither of which interested me reminded me of why I didn't like the Jeepers Creepers movie much, although they at least were not hallucinating.

You may enjoy this book more than I did, plenty of people have loved it.

This was a quick little thriller that caught my eye—mainly its cover—but also the interesting premise. The story follows Charlie Jordan, a college student who is on her way home following her inability to deal with trauma from a tragedy. She accepts a ride from a stranger who is not at all who he seems to be. The author stated in the acknowledgments that this novel is his love letter not only to classic movies but also to the time period of the novel, November 1991. The mention of Alfred Hitchcock in the blurb alone further piqued my interest. While this wasn’t an exceptional novel, it was a decent enough read that I was able to get through pretty quickly. (Maybe it helped me get out of my reading slump.)

The characters are a bit on the mundane and forgettable side, and most don’t have extremely complex sides. For the most part, their personalities and characterizations are predictable and simple. The main character, Charlie, loves movies—and that’s the main feature we as a reader glean about her, aside from the fact that she had a personal connection to her roommate, Maddy, who has been murdered before the events of the novel. Still, Charlie falls into a lot of classic horror/thriller tropes—at times she is TSTL and acts against the clear line of logic she herself deduces.

Because of that, I decided to take Jayme’s cue, and treat this as more of a movie than a book. I wish I could have visualized the book—that would have made it a lot more engaging, I imagine. I highly recommend other readers do the same—don’t take this book seriously, turn off your mind for a bit, and enjoy the ride.

The plot was fairly predictable and the mystery elements weren’t difficult even for me, and I don’t read that many mystery/thriller novels—I enjoy them but I am no aficionado. Still, I had turned my brain off for this book and I was able to get lost in the fairly quick-paced action. Though the first part of the book struggles to get off the ground, with a lot of internal monologues and thinking on Charlie’s part. There was a certain aspect of the ending I enjoyed, and it felt like a decent way to end things—I’ll leave it at that.

I have not read anything else by this author and I am not entirely compelled to, but this was a decent enough read—though it could have used a lot of refinement if the author wanted to take it up a level. It feels like a solid summer blockbuster type of movie—the kind where you can just sit back and watch without having to think too hard. I probably won’t remember reading this a few weeks down the road, but at least I’ll recall the nice cover and the numerous film and 90s references. Some reviewers called the references a bit too many and that they felt forced, and I might even agree, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying them anyway. I feel like going and watching some more classic cinema now.