Author: Riley Sager
Title: The Last Time I Lied
Genre: Thriller/Psychological Suspense
Publication Date: 2018
Number of Pages: 370
Geographical Setting: In the Adirondack Mountains in New York at a fictional summer camp named Camp Nightingale and the surrounding Lake Midnight
Time Period: Present day
Plot Summary: Camp Nightingale, a prestigious summer camp for the wealthy, shut down fifteen years ago due to the disappearance of three campers who were never found. Emma Davis, the last person to see them alive, was a thirteen-year-old fellow camper. Now Camp Nightingale is being reopened and Emma Davis has been invited back as a painting instructor. Hoping to find some answers as to what happened to her friends all those years ago, Emma agrees to return and stays in the very cabin where she last saw them. As she starts digging into the camp’s history, she finds dark secrets and more questions. Will she be able to find out what happened to her friends?
Saricks Rule of Three: Impending doom, dark, psychological
Elements of Thrillers: While this book is a self-described thriller, it is also equal parts suspense. The book moves at a rapid pace and is plot-focused. While Emma’s occupation (artist) isn’t used extensively, it does tie into the story. The background of the camp and the running of a summer camp do feature in extensively to the story and are relevant details. The narrative is intricate and detailed and there is a possible conspiracy related to the camp’s origins. The main character is sympathetic but also unreliable due to mental illness. The story propels forward to the climactic and action-packed ending. As for suspense characteristics, this book does have some. The narrative flips back and forth between present day and Emma’s time at the camp fifteen years ago. However, the actual action of the story takes place over a period of about two weeks. The prologue does include a snapshot of what will happen later in the book although the reader will not realize this at first. The atmosphere of the book is dark, menacing and foreboding. In my opinion most modern day thrillers featuring unreliable female narrators follow a pattern of being both a thriller and a psychological suspense hybrid.
Read alikes:
Lo Blacklock, a magazine travel writer, gets a once in a lifetime opportunity to write a piece about an exclusive new cruise liner. Unfortunately before the trip she is attacked in her apartment, sending her into a spiral of fear and causing hallucinations. Once on the ship she thinks she sees a woman being pushed overboard, but all passengers seem to be accounted for. Did she really see someone commit murder, or was it all in her head?
References:
“The Last Time I Lied”. Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36626748-the-last-time-i-lied. Accessed 24 January 2019.
Saricks, Joyce. “The Rule of Three”. Booklist, vol. 106 no. 3, 1 October 2009, pp. 25-25. Academic Search Premier, https://web-a-ebscohost-com.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid=309d92ae-6094-47f4-9f1b-0d46d02b34f4%40sessionmgr4006. Accessed 24 January 2019.
Saricks, Joyce. The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction. American Library Association, 2009.
“Never Let You Go”. Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29939148-never-let-you-go?from_search=true. Accessed 24 January 2019.
All images were taken from Goodreads.
I apologize for the wonky fonts. It looks the same before I publish it but I can't figure out why the last paragraph keeps changing.
ReplyDeleteI've had the same problems you and Meredith have had. It took me two days to get things formatted correctly and to stop my pictures from bouncing around.
DeleteI'm a fan of film noir and psychological suspense thrillers (Hitchcock, in particular), so your choice appeals to me.
It has been awhile since I read this genre. At some point I began to associate the term less with psychological suspense and more with horror. The violence and gore present in some of the novels began to wear on me. I used to read Patricia Cornwall, Ken Follett, and other writers of the Thriller genre. Since childhood I have sought out mysteries, and they seemed to fit, so anything from the Mystery, Suspense, or Thriller genres fell under Mystery. Maybe I just look at books in general as a form of Mystery, including Fiction and Non-Fiction. The good ones tell a story that makes you want to find out what happens next. The story may be explicitly a mystery or another genre that introduces a conflict, creates tension, and compels the reader to find an answer or resolution.
Meredith,
I agree with you that it is the ambiguity that helps us "expand readers' horizons" (to quote Saricks).
My narrow perception may have kept me from reading books that could have become favorites. A common characteristic of librarians I know is the ability to make connections between various titles. If we are to help patrons find their next great read, we have to have an understanding of how and where genres overlap.
This happened to me (the two fonts) and I ended up using the "remove formatting" button- it's a big T with an x, and that got rid of the different text types. I did have to redo my spacing, but the text was right!
DeleteI'll have to try that, thanks Meredith!
DeleteI had a similar problem with bold and trying to figure out why it was working in the preview and not the actual blog (I just ended up going with highlighting!).
ReplyDeleteI agree that the line between Thriller and Suspense, while on paper looks quite distinct, when actually trying to categorize specific books, it is quite grey! The book I reviewed, while it had mostly elements of suspense, it also had quite a bit of mystery thrown in. I read several articles trying to piece together an idea of genre selection here and I found this article: https://www.dailywritingtips.com/is-your-novel-mystery-thriller-or-suspense/ that I found pretty interesting. I especially like the advice from a literary agent that, "Anyone who uses three or more words or tells me they fit in chick lit, mystery, thriller AND true crime is an automatic no because it’s clear they don’t understand categories, and they don’t know what they have." But maybe this ambiguity helps us as librarians in getting people to read books beyond genres!
Thank you for the article! This quote is hilarious: "Blogger Lyn Hamilton says that when she’s asked the difference between “suspense” and “thriller,” her usual answer is “a hundred thousand dollars.” This book is definitely a thriller because she's in danger from the start, even if it's all in her head
ReplyDeleteI love that quote!!
DeleteI've been wanting to read this book since I saw it available on Book of the Month, but haven't gotten around to it. Your annotation has made me even more excited to pick it up! You did an excellent job of introducing the book without giving anything away, and now I'm super curious about what the prologue alludes to!
ReplyDeleteI can also see what you say about it falling into the suspense category as well as thriller, as there are elements of both present. Like Meredith mentioned above, it is a difficult distinction to make because the categorization is so grey.
Overall, I think you did a wonderful job annotating this title and I can't wait to find out what happened to the campers that disappeared!
Hi Caitlyn, I read this book too! I do tend to enjoy books with unreliable narrators because they make me constantly question what is being presented to me as a reader. I think this feeling of uncertainty can add to the tension that this genre is known for creating in its stories. Another readalike is the Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn. This book makes the reader question the reliability of the narrator as well. I kept going back and forth whether her distrust of the other characters was justified, or if she was just paranoid.
ReplyDeleteI read The Woman in the Window and enjoyed it very much! I figured out part of "the twist" a little ways into the book but the ending definitely got me!
DeleteUntil this class, it never occurred to me there is such a thing as an unreliable narrator! I tend to stick with one genre and not venture out too much. Have you had the chance to work with NoveList? This was my first time and it was a lot of fun to play around in.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your annotation and your read alike suggestions. I want to add that to my list of reads. Do you primarily use goodreads ?
Yes my library is subscribed to Novelist and it is wonderful! I use Goodreads to find new books by my favorite authors. I also like their user compiled lists. Here's my goodreads account, it's kind of a mess because I used it for Youth Materials last semester and I haven't gotten a chance to make a new shelf for my adult books: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/46852325
DeleteExcellent annotation! Your summary, appeals, and readalikes are spot on. I really enjoyed this one when I read it last summer. Full points!
ReplyDelete