The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager is a novel that takes you through the game "Two Truths and a Lie" several times.

This novel follows Emma, a young woman who is haunted by the disappearance of three girls when she was at Camp Nightingale, fifteen years earlier. Emma, a painter who has just gotten her first art show, is an up and comer, who is afraid that people will find out not only what she has done in her paintings, but the lies she continually attempts to cover up with her paintings. Emma is most often haunted by Vivian, the girl who took her under her wings when she arrived as a scared 13 year old at Camp Nightingale. Now, the Camp is being opened back up, trying to start over and forget about the disappearance of the three girls fifteen years earlier. Emma is invited by the owner, Franny, to come be a an art instructor, teaching a new batch of campers to paint. When tragedy strikes again, and Emma falls under the suspicion of the police, she must decide, is it time to tell the truth, or has she just buried herself too deep under her lies.

This book is in the same suspenseful vein as Sager's first novel, Final Girls. It has a build up of suspense as the reader needs to decide what is going on, and who they should believe. There are a few twists to make the reader relax, and feel as if they do know what is going on, before it twists again, telling the reader how wrong they are.

Emma is an unreliable narrator. She is a woman who went through and didn't get over, something traumatic that happened to her when she was still a child. She is crazy, and continues to try to convince herself, and the reader, that she isn't crazy. In reality, she likely is since she hasn't really dealt with the trauma, and doesn't seem to be over the disappearances that happened. Most of the other characters are limited in their development, as the reader doesn't get enough information to make judgements for themselves about whether they believe a person is guilty or not. I would have liked a little more development of both Theo and Chet, Franny's two adopted sons. I would have liked to know a little more about their history, or something that could have added a little to their characters. This was especially desired because both boys played very important parts in the story, both in the past disappearances and the present trauma.

Other characters that could have used more development, were, well, most of them. There were characters from the past when Emma was a child at camp, and they weren't given much development, except to say one was an excellent photographer, and the other was a constant smoker. Also, the only character that got development in the present was Chet's wife, Mindy, who was able to tell part of her story when she was in a room with Emma.

The ending of this was a little unsatisfying. I wanted something more along the lines of Final Girls, but instead got something that was trying too hard when it didn't need to. I didn't think the ending was good enough for the book I was reading, and for me, it left me feeling like I had read the book expecting something that was never delivered. While the ending of Final Girls fit the book, the ending to The Last Time I Lied didn't really seem to fit, and it was trying to hard to place the blame on someone who wasn't guilty. It was, in the end, annoying and unsatisfying.

For the book Final Girls bu Riley Sager, I was torn about reading it. On the cover I have it has a quote by Stephen King, "If you liked Gone Girl, you'll like this." I almost didn't buy this book, only because of that quote. See, I hated Gone Girl, hated it with a passion. I hated it because there was only one character to like and he wasn't int he book enough. Otherwise, it was overrated and not at all interesting. Plus, I don't mind a twist, but I don't want to read an entire book of lies (which almost half of Gone Girl was). However, this isn't about Gone Girl, this is about Final Girls.

This book revolves around Quincy, a young woman who ten years earlier survived one of the most horrific experiences of her life. A night that was supposed to be fun turned into a night of betrayal and tragedy. In that night, Quincy and five of her friends, including her best friend, Janelle, were staying at a cabin. At the end of the night, only Quincy survived. Now, years later Quincy is pert of a group of three girls called the "Final Girls" all surviving a night of horrific tragedy, where several others were killed and they were the ones to survive. Suddenly, the original "Final Girl" is found dead of a supposed suicide, and Quincy's life is dramatically changed when the other "Final Girl" Sam shows up wanting to talk. What does Sam want to talk about? Not the death of Lisa, no, she wants to help Quincy remember what happened that night at Pine Cottage.

This book started out strong, and for a while kept me going, wanting to find out what happened to all of the girls and why Lisa, the strongest of the three, would kill herself after all of this time had passed since her tragedy. All three girls, Lisa, Sam, and Quincy, had been in a situation where they had become a "Final Girl," and in fact Lisa is the one who came up with the name. I didn't start getting frustrated with this book until Sam starts pushing Quincy, and her maybe Fiance, Jeff, keeps telling her that she is fine. How could anyone thing she was fine, and how could he have been so blind to what was happening to her? Sam, on the other hand, was too pushy and her personality was so abrasive that it started to wear on me.

I, throughout the book, also found Quincy to be too much of a pushover. I don't know how I would react if I had survived what she had gone through, but for me, I didn't think she was realistically written at certain points in the book. I found the younger Quincy, the one in the flashbacks, to be almost the same as the older Quincy, as if the tragic events of ten years earlier didn't affect her, but there was no telling how she was dealing, or how she did deal, other than she was put on Xanax.  This to me, seemed unrealistic. I doubt that she would just find Xanax to be the cure, and that she would show other destructive behaviors. However, I did the book and the final twist at the end.

One other thing that bothered me about this book, was the time it took to develop anything. There was so much in between the first and last scene that I felt a lot of it was filler. It was almost as if Quincy was standing in a room, just spinning around, and that was what the reader was seeing. I would have liked a little more involvement from the outside characters, a little more to make me feel something deeper, some sense of urgency or, well, anything. As with other books I have read recently, the only character that stood out was Sam, she was well described, and I could see her each time she appeared, often disheveled and awkward. None of the other characters stood out to me, and I didn't even get one bit at the end because I couldn't remember it being described much in the beginning.

Of course, this doesn't mean I disliked the book. I was thrown off by the ending, and not expecting it at all, and it really made the book much more interesting. It was something that I didn't see coming at all, and was happy to have the surprise, especially when most of the book I've read recently were obvious where they were headed.

I do recommend this. I would love to be able to give it a strong recommendation, but can't because of the the slow parts and the fact that none of the characters were really developed (Jeff was super flat).