The Last Time I Lied Review

By Riley Sager

Rating: 5/5

Fifteen years ago, summer camper Emma Davis watched sleepily as her three cabin mates snuck out of their cabin in the dead of night. The last she--and 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 NYC art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings.. They catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the socialite and wealthy owner of the very same Camp Nightingale--and when Francesca implores Emma to return to the camp as a painting counselor, Emma sees an opportunity to find closure and move on.

Yet, it is immediately clear that all is not right at Camp Nightingale. Already haunted by surfacing memories, Emma is suddenly plagued by a security camera pointed directly at her cabin, mounting mistrust from Francesca, and, most disturbing of all, cryptic clues Vivian apparently left behind about the camp's twisted origins. And as history begins to repeat itself and three girls go missing again, Emma must face threats from both man and nature in order to uncover all the buried secrets--including what really happened all those years ago.

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The Last Time I Lied is written like one of the many paintings that Emma paints. This massive piece that when you stand in front of it, it could engulf you, surround you. All the tiny details that go unnoticed until you look deeply at it. Some even go completely unnoticed until you take that closer look.

Unlike with Riley Sager’s Lock Every Door, which was my first Riley Sager book, I wasn’t quite as captivated from the start. Things at first felt slow compared to Lock Every Door at least. However, I was intrigued by Emma’s paintings, this idea that she constantly hid these girls in them. The further I got in the book though, the more invested I became into what happened to the girls, the history of the land which the camp now rested on, and the lies that were told.

There were so many moving parts within this story. I easily had five even six theories of what happened. Each new clue changed or destroyed them, or created a wildly new theory. Let’s just say, none of them were right in its entirety. I was correct in guessing small pieces but the whole picture of what truly happened, I was way off. As I mentioned this story literally felt like a painting all these tiny details, some I overlooked or didn’t see their significance until it was too late.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this. I went to summer camp for several years when I was younger and there was always drama, but nothing like this ever happened so to read this was very entertaining. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of Emma’s paintings. The story really kept me on the edge of my seat there were so many clues placed throughout this complex story. Which I find so much better than everything coming out in a rush at the very end. However, there was a major twist I didn’t expect until it happened at the end. But it was a detail I had overlooked, I should have seen it coming. The ending reminded me of Watching You which I read at the beginning of the year, it was an extremely shocking ending to me. Just like Lock Every Door, The Last Time I Lied also earned a spot on my favorites shelf. I can’t wait to read more by Riley Sager.