As a little PSA, this video is spoiler-free at the beginning but I do end up discussing spoilers at the end, which I announce in the video so don't worry. Pros: 2:59 Cons: 5:10 Spoilers: 11:38 xx
She wrote the diary like that so the other two girls would read it and want to be in on the fake mystery she states it in the diary that’s why she buried it.
But Vivian never took her to the place marked X on the map! The place she took her to was to the chest with the scissors in, which it says in the book, was a completely different place. In my opinion, Vivian drew the map because she liked the idea of somebod discovering the truth about what happened - Emma had never been to that place before, so that made perfect sense. In terms of the journal being mysterious, Vivian wrote it that way because she wanted Natalie and Alison to read it, so they'd want to go out and discover the true mystery about the lake, so that Vivian could then kill them. I do agree with your point about when the seond group of girls go missing - Emma definitely should have thought about the secret place
I enjoyed it, found it entertainment. I totally understand the detail/plot issues that some people had with it, but the entertainment factor made it an enjoyable read for me. My two cents.
I haven't read the book but I enjoyed the spoilers. You should make them even more detailed 😉 I don't like thrillers but I love watching spoilers for them, I always want to know all the twists. Ps that cardigan is georgeous
I like thriller but too lazy to actually read the whole book so I prefer watching a spoilery videos or reading a spoilery blog for books that I'm interested in lol
Spoiler question: How did Vivian get away undetected? And then make it back into high society NY life when her family thought she was dead? Where did she go, how did she get there….. etc., etc??????????
THIS COMMENT HAS SPOILERS: I totally agree with all your points! One think that bothered me was why Vivian returned to the cabin the night she killed the girl. Like was she planning on killing Emma, if so that does not fit her motive at all. And then when Emma doesn't let her in, does that push Vivian to decide to start a new life and disappear forever? Or was she going back to say goodbye to Emma before she vanished forever? I don't know if that part of the story is meant to be ambiguous or if it's just a plot hole. Do you have any thoughts about that? Anyways, cool video, just followed you on TH-cam and Goodreads!
I kind of assumed she was going back to grab something she left in the cabin before starting a new life ?? But you’re right that’s not really addressed
Just finished it. Yes, all those trackers out covering "every inch" with dogs and everything, and apparently nobody knew anything about those "hidden" places that are not far away at all 😒😾
I've got his first two books and pre-ordered Lock every door. Gave 4 stars to this one and Final Girls. Riley Sager, as i wrote on one of my reviews, is the M.N. Shyamalan of thrillers, they're fun but don't try to find profound writing quality. Sometimes it's good to read things that don't demand brain activity 😉
I've only read his first two books so far but he honestly writes the most ridiculous characters. I have hated both of his romances as well. I think the only thing I really enjoyed from his books was the atmosphere!
The place Vivian took Emma and the place she buried the diary and drew the map to are two different places. I enjoyed the book but MY big question is *spoilers ahead*. Why did Vivian return to the cabin after she killed the other two girls? She knew Emma had seen her leave with them. Was she hoping to convince Emma to join her in faking their deaths and running away? Pretty damn risky. Made no sense to me.
LOL I enjoyed this. I loved the book--gave it 5 stars--and the logic holes that bugged you didn't bug me, but. SPOILERS You are totally right about not telling the cops about the secret place in the case of the new girls. I was pretty annoyed. DUMB. Definitely a narrative cheat. I'm also super super curious how the hell Viv has been just kicking around for 15 years without a social security number or money/help. Would love to hear the story from her POV :P And I agree that Theo/Emma was pretty silly. Talk about a toxic relationship.
Agreed with your points except for two. (Spoiler) 1. I didn't think it was unimaginable for guilt to consume you this way or to this extent. Considering that she felt that she played a part in the deaths of three whole peers, some people would have been haunted by lesser mistakes. And adding on to the guilt of "causing" her friend's dead is also knowing that she might have wrongly accused someone she did not truly think was guilty. 2. Didn't thought the being vague thing in her diary was that weird either. Like some people in the comments suggested, maybe it was written that way on purpose to entice nat and alli into wanting to be in on the mystery. Or else, she just didn't find it necessary to detail the entire plot in the diary like the classic villian trope where they go into a whole confession to give time for the hero to arrive. As someone who have kept a diary and blogs since young, so often i have no clue what i was writing about because i wrote about my feelings instead of the actual events. Because i didn't felt the need to narrate what i already knew happened. So i ended up with things like, "my best friend still has not forgiven me for last week." Or "mum is gonna be so mad when she found out what i did last week." But i honestly could not agree more with the rest of your points, especially about Theo!!!
I just finished the book and yes I agree with a lot of the things you mentioned. You make valid points. At one point I did start to roll my eyes and laugh a bit especially the way the main character found what her friend left behind all those years. The map you made did make my laugh out loud. I mean lets be real, realistically this would NEVER happen in real life. But in a way that is kind of the point of it all. That's why it's a fictional book. The author does try to take you to a place which is a familiar reality but really tries to stay on the side of imaginative. I think it takes a special someone to appreciate that kind of art even though there are disturbing parts in the book. I think that's why a lot of people either love the book or find it distasteful. With that being said, I would have approached the storyline differently after a certain point but Im not made at how it ended either. Those are just my thoughts.
My nightmare. I write a book and most booktubers like it. Then Theresa reads it, and mild mannered Dr. Theresa Jekyll turns into ranty Ms Theresa Hyde. And ya gotta stop drinkin'...from that fountain. And Ring's gotta go.
SPOILER ALERT: STAY AWAY FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK YET That Chet plot twist was bullshit. It didn't have enough build-up for me. I was disappointed. He didn't even have enough screen time to give us time to doubt him. It's so out of the blue, his motivations and all.
Totally agree! 15 YEARS LATER he plots this ridiculous revenge that makes absolutely no sense. That was my main problem with this book. Enjoyed the twists but cannot get past Suddenly-Insane-Cher 🙄
Emma didn't tell the authorities about the secret place because she didn't know about it until 15 years later. She was never taken there, she was taken to a different random tree
I was a lot harder on this book than you I think and the main reason for that is that the twists were all a giant ass-pull. We spend SO.LONG. on this red herring plot about the asylum only for it amount to absolutely nothing. It doesn't develop the characters, it doesn't have any bearing on anyone's motivations, it was all ultimately just page filler. Then we get the twist that Emma believed Theo's brother was the killer/kidnapper only to discover that she was right! Only not really because he didn't do it the first time, but now he's been accused of it he might as well lure her out onto the lake and try and drown her anyway?? And then Viv is alive the entire time and murdered her pals for... I dunno, some reason (this last one might have actually been explained but it's been an entire year since I even thought about this book) Big step down from Final Girls imo, it just didn't work. Emma was obsessed with being a liar and teased some world shattering lie the entire book only to reveal that she didn't even really lie in the first place, and her omission of information was so pathetically mundane that it wasn't worth talking about. Lots of twists out of nowhere in the 3rd act just to make it all seem like it was smarter than it was basically.
you're not wrong haha I definitely cut this book too much slack but the plot twists were surprising to me, which happens rarely enough, so I think it made me more lenient :P but you think Final Girls was better?
@@ivymuse I preferred it, it didn't have such a meandering red herring plot, it was a lot more focused. I think Sager might have stretched himself a bit thin with this story by adding in way too many characters but Final Girls has smaller cast which leads to a tighter plot
I read this book as part of a book club. I have nothing nice to say about the book. Not sure why the reviews are so good. Agreed with many of your points!
The guilt thing is associated with PTSD. Like, a famous example that caused (or at least significantly added to) a lifetime of mental problems & drug abuse is Waylon Jennings & the Day the Music Died. It's not logical, but it has killed people, sometimes decades after the incident. But idk I'm wary of its use in thrillers. Also, the basic premise (girl goes to camp, makes a close friend, friend dies, camp closes, girl has survivor's guilt forever) sounds like Death by Landscape by Margaret Atwood. The girl in that short story isn't a painter, but she surrounds herself with paintings that remind her of the camp. Anyway, thanks for the review! I was thinking of checking this out, but now I think I'll pass.
Seit Pretty Little Liars im TV gelaufen ist, scheißt irgendwie jeder auf Logik in seinen Thrillern. Aber wem kann man's verübeln? Die Show hat eine Riesenfanbase, und nichts davon ist logisch (zumindest ab Anfang der 3. Staffel XD). Also kann man so auch Erfolg haben :D Ich hatte so einen Lachflash, als du das mit der Karte erklärt hast. Meine Güte, ist das dämlich! XDDDD 19 und 13 ... solche Altersunterschiede sind ja immer so eine Ansichtssache :D Mein erster Freund war auch 20, während ich 15 war. Aber wir hatten uns halt immer was zu sagen und waren halt auf einem Level von den Interessen, den Ansichten, etc.. Aber da ist man wenigstens schon mitten in der Pubertät, während man mit 13 halt noch null Ahnung von gar nichts hat :D Klasse Review. Ist immer wieder unterhaltsam, wenn du rantest :3
The book mentions why, basically since the lake is manmade over a valley, the trees and stuff that were once there made the water too dangerous for divers so they had to rely on police boats just doing surface searches. But that ended quickly because Vivian put her sweatshirt out in the woods so they would focus there and not on the lake as much.
@@aalllllllexx yeah but clearly it wasn’t too dangerous because Emma was able to magically stumble across the bones from just falling in the lake ?! Lol such a bad plot hole
I have this book 1 star but I think I hated it for a bunch of different reasons. I feel like a lot of the choices Sager makes are around making the book more profitable than telling a good story.
I completely agree on the fact it was so unrealistic for Emma to be lingering around her past, she defines her 15 year of life regretting. that was like😤. Another 😤😤moment when Emma couldn't think where her present Dogwood girls would be,😒dah the secret place you took them the other day.
Chet abducted modern 3 girls to frame Emma as revenge for ruining Theo's life. Vivian was responsible for killing Natalie and Allison because they didn't help her sister when she drowned and then ran away.
😂😂 I loved this rant review. I really did not like this book, it was so ridiculous and there was no need for a “romance” at all and it wasn’t even good! The asylum thing was so ducking stupid, absolutely hated that. And the ending had so much potential but I was also annoyed by it and I was hoping it was going to make the book better for me but it didn’t 🙈. Also, I don’t like how Riley Sager writes his female main characters, just please stop 🤦🏽♀️ If you decided to read Final Girls by him, just be aware it also sucks 😂 and actually hated that one. The Last Time I Lied was a little bit better
I think Riley Sager is a really fantastic author for those who don't have a brain or common sense. If you happen to have those, you need to shut them off before reading one of his novels to be able to enjoy him.
As a little PSA, this video is spoiler-free at the beginning but I do end up discussing spoilers at the end, which I announce in the video so don't worry.
Pros: 2:59
Cons: 5:10
Spoilers: 11:38
xx
She wrote the diary like that so the other two girls would read it and want to be in on the fake mystery she states it in the diary that’s why she buried it.
But Vivian never took her to the place marked X on the map! The place she took her to was to the chest with the scissors in, which it says in the book, was a completely different place. In my opinion, Vivian drew the map because she liked the idea of somebod discovering the truth about what happened - Emma had never been to that place before, so that made perfect sense. In terms of the journal being mysterious, Vivian wrote it that way because she wanted Natalie and Alison to read it, so they'd want to go out and discover the true mystery about the lake, so that Vivian could then kill them. I do agree with your point about when the seond group of girls go missing - Emma definitely should have thought about the secret place
I enjoyed it, found it entertainment. I totally understand the detail/plot issues that some people had with it, but the entertainment factor made it an enjoyable read for me. My two cents.
"Sherlock, we don't need you" 😂 THE MAP LOL
I haven't read the book but I enjoyed the spoilers. You should make them even more detailed 😉 I don't like thrillers but I love watching spoilers for them, I always want to know all the twists.
Ps that cardigan is georgeous
I like this idea! next time I'll tell you EVERYTHING haha :D
I agree! I got fed up with this book and DNF'd it, so I came to this video just to find out what happened LOL
I like thriller but too lazy to actually read the whole book so I prefer watching a spoilery videos or reading a spoilery blog for books that I'm interested in lol
Spoiler question:
How did Vivian get away undetected? And then make it back into high society NY life when her family thought she was dead? Where did she go, how did she get there….. etc., etc??????????
Maybe with fake ids
That's the question that haunts me when I finished reading today but yeahh in that fake id thing is hinting
THIS COMMENT HAS SPOILERS:
I totally agree with all your points! One think that bothered me was why Vivian returned to the cabin the night she killed the girl. Like was she planning on killing Emma, if so that does not fit her motive at all. And then when Emma doesn't let her in, does that push Vivian to decide to start a new life and disappear forever? Or was she going back to say goodbye to Emma before she vanished forever? I don't know if that part of the story is meant to be ambiguous or if it's just a plot hole. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Anyways, cool video, just followed you on TH-cam and Goodreads!
I kind of assumed she was going back to grab something she left in the cabin before starting a new life ?? But you’re right that’s not really addressed
Just finished it. Yes, all those trackers out covering "every inch" with dogs and everything, and apparently nobody knew anything about those "hidden" places that are not far away at all 😒😾
I've got his first two books and pre-ordered Lock every door. Gave 4 stars to this one and Final Girls. Riley Sager, as i wrote on one of my reviews, is the M.N. Shyamalan of thrillers, they're fun but don't try to find profound writing quality. Sometimes it's good to read things that don't demand brain activity 😉
I've only read his first two books so far but he honestly writes the most ridiculous characters. I have hated both of his romances as well. I think the only thing I really enjoyed from his books was the atmosphere!
The place Vivian took Emma and the place she buried the diary and drew the map to are two different places. I enjoyed the book but MY big question is *spoilers ahead*.
Why did Vivian return to the cabin after she killed the other two girls? She knew Emma had seen her leave with them. Was she hoping to convince Emma to join her in faking their deaths and running away? Pretty damn risky. Made no sense to me.
LOL I enjoyed this. I loved the book--gave it 5 stars--and the logic holes that bugged you didn't bug me, but.
SPOILERS
You are totally right about not telling the cops about the secret place in the case of the new girls. I was pretty annoyed. DUMB. Definitely a narrative cheat.
I'm also super super curious how the hell Viv has been just kicking around for 15 years without a social security number or money/help. Would love to hear the story from her POV :P
And I agree that Theo/Emma was pretty silly. Talk about a toxic relationship.
Viv honestly was the most interesting character and got way too little screen time
Your videos always put me in the mood to read, even your rants. 😂
haha that's a great outcome, I consider that a win :D
Same
Agreed with your points except for two. (Spoiler)
1. I didn't think it was unimaginable for guilt to consume you this way or to this extent. Considering that she felt that she played a part in the deaths of three whole peers, some people would have been haunted by lesser mistakes. And adding on to the guilt of "causing" her friend's dead is also knowing that she might have wrongly accused someone she did not truly think was guilty.
2. Didn't thought the being vague thing in her diary was that weird either. Like some people in the comments suggested, maybe it was written that way on purpose to entice nat and alli into wanting to be in on the mystery. Or else, she just didn't find it necessary to detail the entire plot in the diary like the classic villian trope where they go into a whole confession to give time for the hero to arrive. As someone who have kept a diary and blogs since young, so often i have no clue what i was writing about because i wrote about my feelings instead of the actual events. Because i didn't felt the need to narrate what i already knew happened. So i ended up with things like, "my best friend still has not forgiven me for last week." Or "mum is gonna be so mad when she found out what i did last week."
But i honestly could not agree more with the rest of your points, especially about Theo!!!
I just finished the book and yes I agree with a lot of the things you mentioned. You make valid points. At one point I did start to roll my eyes and laugh a bit especially the way the main character found what her friend left behind all those years. The map you made did make my laugh out loud. I mean lets be real, realistically this would NEVER happen in real life. But in a way that is kind of the point of it all. That's why it's a fictional book. The author does try to take you to a place which is a familiar reality but really tries to stay on the side of imaginative. I think it takes a special someone to appreciate that kind of art even though there are disturbing parts in the book. I think that's why a lot of people either love the book or find it distasteful. With that being said, I would have approached the storyline differently after a certain point but Im not made at how it ended either. Those are just my thoughts.
My nightmare. I write a book and most booktubers like it. Then Theresa reads it, and mild mannered Dr. Theresa Jekyll turns into ranty Ms Theresa Hyde.
And ya gotta stop drinkin'...from that fountain. And Ring's gotta go.
SPOILER ALERT: STAY AWAY FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK YET
That Chet plot twist was bullshit. It didn't have enough build-up for me. I was disappointed. He didn't even have enough screen time to give us time to doubt him. It's so out of the blue, his motivations and all.
Totally agree! 15 YEARS LATER he plots this ridiculous revenge that makes absolutely no sense. That was my main problem with this book. Enjoyed the twists but cannot get past Suddenly-Insane-Cher 🙄
I meant Chet. Cher is obviously not insane 😂
Haven't read a Riley Sager book I like yet. A million red herrings for the sake of red herrings and flat twists
How is the page numbers of this very book?
Emma didn't tell the authorities about the secret place because she didn't know about it until 15 years later. She was never taken there, she was taken to a different random tree
I was a lot harder on this book than you I think and the main reason for that is that the twists were all a giant ass-pull.
We spend SO.LONG. on this red herring plot about the asylum only for it amount to absolutely nothing. It doesn't develop the characters, it doesn't have any bearing on anyone's motivations, it was all ultimately just page filler. Then we get the twist that Emma believed Theo's brother was the killer/kidnapper only to discover that she was right! Only not really because he didn't do it the first time, but now he's been accused of it he might as well lure her out onto the lake and try and drown her anyway?? And then Viv is alive the entire time and murdered her pals for... I dunno, some reason (this last one might have actually been explained but it's been an entire year since I even thought about this book)
Big step down from Final Girls imo, it just didn't work. Emma was obsessed with being a liar and teased some world shattering lie the entire book only to reveal that she didn't even really lie in the first place, and her omission of information was so pathetically mundane that it wasn't worth talking about. Lots of twists out of nowhere in the 3rd act just to make it all seem like it was smarter than it was basically.
you're not wrong haha I definitely cut this book too much slack but the plot twists were surprising to me, which happens rarely enough, so I think it made me more lenient :P but you think Final Girls was better?
@@ivymuse I preferred it, it didn't have such a meandering red herring plot, it was a lot more focused. I think Sager might have stretched himself a bit thin with this story by adding in way too many characters but Final Girls has smaller cast which leads to a tighter plot
Your reviews give me so much joy ... event your rant reviews 😂❤️
I read this book as part of a book club. I have nothing nice to say about the book. Not sure why the reviews are so good. Agreed with many of your points!
The guilt thing is associated with PTSD. Like, a famous example that caused (or at least significantly added to) a lifetime of mental problems & drug abuse is Waylon Jennings & the Day the Music Died. It's not logical, but it has killed people, sometimes decades after the incident. But idk I'm wary of its use in thrillers.
Also, the basic premise (girl goes to camp, makes a close friend, friend dies, camp closes, girl has survivor's guilt forever) sounds like Death by Landscape by Margaret Atwood. The girl in that short story isn't a painter, but she surrounds herself with paintings that remind her of the camp.
Anyway, thanks for the review! I was thinking of checking this out, but now I think I'll pass.
oh I had no idea, thanks for letting me know! :)
Seit Pretty Little Liars im TV gelaufen ist, scheißt irgendwie jeder auf Logik in seinen Thrillern. Aber wem kann man's verübeln? Die Show hat eine Riesenfanbase, und nichts davon ist logisch (zumindest ab Anfang der 3. Staffel XD). Also kann man so auch Erfolg haben :D
Ich hatte so einen Lachflash, als du das mit der Karte erklärt hast. Meine Güte, ist das dämlich! XDDDD
19 und 13 ... solche Altersunterschiede sind ja immer so eine Ansichtssache :D Mein erster Freund war auch 20, während ich 15 war. Aber wir hatten uns halt immer was zu sagen und waren halt auf einem Level von den Interessen, den Ansichten, etc.. Aber da ist man wenigstens schon mitten in der Pubertät, während man mit 13 halt noch null Ahnung von gar nichts hat :D
Klasse Review. Ist immer wieder unterhaltsam, wenn du rantest :3
I kind of liked the book purely because of the "plot twists". I was not a fan of the 3 truths 1 lie for no reason situation.
great review. thanks
The main thing I don’t get about the book is that if the girls disappeared around a body of water, wouldn’t that have been searched 15 years ago?
The book mentions why, basically since the lake is manmade over a valley, the trees and stuff that were once there made the water too dangerous for divers so they had to rely on police boats just doing surface searches. But that ended quickly because Vivian put her sweatshirt out in the woods so they would focus there and not on the lake as much.
@@aalllllllexx yeah but clearly it wasn’t too dangerous because Emma was able to magically stumble across the bones from just falling in the lake ?! Lol such a bad plot hole
I have this book 1 star but I think I hated it for a bunch of different reasons. I feel like a lot of the choices Sager makes are around making the book more profitable than telling a good story.
I don't disagree with that assessment ^^
I completely agree on the fact it was so unrealistic for Emma to be lingering around her past, she defines her 15 year of life regretting. that was like😤. Another 😤😤moment when Emma couldn't think where her present Dogwood girls would be,😒dah the secret place you took them the other day.
I just read this book, hated it, youtube'd it, found this video and made myself a cup of tea 😎 thanks for the video!
GIRL, THANK YOU
Awful painful book to read. Never read the ending. Can someone tell me how it ends?
Chet abducted modern 3 girls to frame Emma as revenge for ruining Theo's life. Vivian was responsible for killing Natalie and Allison because they didn't help her sister when she drowned and then ran away.
"Sheer nonsense" 😂
Love Your accent!
I feel like all of his books are basically same story.
😂😂 I loved this rant review. I really did not like this book, it was so ridiculous and there was no need for a “romance” at all and it wasn’t even good! The asylum thing was so ducking stupid, absolutely hated that. And the ending had so much potential but I was also annoyed by it and I was hoping it was going to make the book better for me but it didn’t 🙈. Also, I don’t like how Riley Sager writes his female main characters, just please stop 🤦🏽♀️
If you decided to read Final Girls by him, just be aware it also sucks 😂 and actually hated that one. The Last Time I Lied was a little bit better
I just DNF'd this 😂 thank you for confirming my thoughts
I think Riley Sager is a really fantastic author for those who don't have a brain or common sense. If you happen to have those, you need to shut them off before reading one of his novels to be able to enjoy him.
hahahahaha
This book is a waste of money!!