The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

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⭐ 5/5 Stars — The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager: A Camp Mystery with Three Twists, Two Timelines, and One Seriously Unreliable Memory

🎨 Buy The Last Time I Lied on Amazon (affiliate link — keeps my coffee fund alive ☕)

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⚠️ Trigger Warnings

Drug and alcohol addiction • Suicidal ideation • Mental illness and outdated psychiatric practices • Death and drowning

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🕵️‍♀️ Spoiler Warning

This review contains major spoilers — including who lives, who dies, and who’s been lying since page one. Proceed only if you’ve read the book or if you, like me, read reviews because you enjoy chaos. 😏

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🌲 Overview

The Last Time I Lied (2018) by Riley Sager is a psychological thriller that proves he can make a summer camp feel as unsettling as a haunted mansion.

After hearing mixed reviews, I went in with low expectations — but wow, this one completely exceeded them. The story is more layered than many of Sager’s others, with multiple characters, timelines, and secrets — but it’s never confusing.

I suspected everyone at one point: Lottie, Ben, Chet, Emma, Theo, Becca, Franny… even the camp ghosts weren’t above suspicion. 👻

And the ending? Not one, not two, but three jaw-dropping twists — all explained logically. It’s that perfect balance between mystery and payoff.

Also, I have to say: Sager’s use of the camp game “Two Truths and a Lie” as a narrative framework is brilliant. It’s not just something the characters play — it’s what the reader ends up doing, too. We’re constantly guessing: Which details are the truths? Which is the lie? And what does it mean if the other two are real? Genius.

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🏕️ Plot Summary (Full Spoilers Ahead!)

At age 13, Emma Davis arrives late to Camp Nightingale, where she’s placed in a cabin with three older girls — Vivian, Allison, and Natalie. Vivian quickly becomes her mentor, teaching her the ropes and introducing her to the camp’s favorite game: Two Truths and a Lie.

The group bonds, but soon Emma discovers Vivian having sex in the camp shower — she thinks it’s Theo, her crush. Humiliated, she lashes out and tells Vivian she never wants to see her again. That same night, Vivian, Allison, and Natalie sneak out and disappear forever.

In shock, Emma tells police Vivian was involved with Theo, making him the prime suspect. But years later, Emma learns she was wrong — it wasn’t Theo. It was Ben, the groundskeeper, who’d been with Vivian that night.

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🎨 Fifteen Years Later...

Now 28, Emma is a successful painter who channels her trauma into art — painting the three missing girls into forest scenes, then covering them up with trees until they vanish. (Symbolism much?)

When Franny Harris-White, the camp’s wealthy owner, shows up at Emma’s art show, she invites her to return to the newly reopened Camp Nightingale as an instructor. Emma reluctantly agrees, seeing a chance to face her past and finally uncover the truth.

But once she’s back at camp, eerie déjà vu sets in. Her cabinmates are now three new girls — Miranda, Sasha, and Krystal — who eerily mirror the missing trio. Emma feels watched, finds a hidden camera outside her cabin, and starts seeing visions of Vivian everywhere.

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🏚️ The Secrets of Peaceful Valley

Emma uncovers Vivian’s old diary, revealing that the camp sits atop the ruins of Peaceful Valley Asylum, a failed psychiatric hospital with a dark past. Convinced this secret connects to the girls’ disappearance, Emma accuses the Harris-White family of a cover-up.

When the new trio of girls disappears, Emma becomes suspect number one. Franny’s assistant Lottie clarifies the asylum’s true story — it wasn’t sinister, just broke. But by now, Emma’s spiraling between fear and hallucination, determined to solve the mystery herself.

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⚡ The Final Showdown

Following a trail of comic book pages, Emma discovers the missing girls trapped in an underground root cellar — alive but terrified. She rescues them, only for Theo to appear, and Emma assumes he’s the villain.

In her escape, she hides in a cave, falls into a submerged cavern, and finds the flooded ruins of the asylum. Beneath the water, she spots bones — and Vivian’s locket.

Then comes the real villain reveal: Chet, Theo’s brother, knocks her unconscious. Chet admits he lured her back to camp for revenge after her false accusations ruined Theo’s life. He planned to frame her for the new disappearances.

Before he can finish her off, police intervene. Chet’s arrested, and Emma’s discovery of the asylum’s bones blows the case wide open.

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🧩 The Final Twist(s)

Months later, DNA confirms the remains belong to Allison and Natalie, but Vivian’s are missing. At Emma’s next gallery show, Vivian appears — alive.

Vivian explains everything: Allison and Natalie once let her little sister drown. Vivian befriended them years later to exact revenge. She led them to the asylum ruins and drowned them.

Emma, stunned but finally understanding, paints Vivian’s portrait and sends it to the detective — her way of closing the chapter on lies and guilt.

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💭 My Thoughts

This is classic Riley Sager — moody, atmospheric, and twisty in the best way. The eerie camp setting, unreliable memories, and slow-build suspense all work beautifully together.

What impressed me most was how “Two Truths and a Lie” isn’t just a gimmick — it’s the heartbeat of the story. Every character plays it, every clue mirrors it, and even the reader’s experience echoes it. We’re all guessing what’s true, what’s false, and what’s hiding in between.

⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5 — Smart, emotional, and packed with tension. The perfect summer thriller to keep you up way past your bedtime.

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🏕️ Recommended Reads

If you loved this mix of eerie camp vibes and twisty psychology, try these next:

• Final Girls by Riley Sager

• The Lake by Natasha Preston

• The It Girl by Ruth Ware

• The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager (for another unreliable-narrator fix)

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💬 Have you read The Last Time I Lied? Did you catch any of the lies, or did Sager have you guessing wrong all the way to the end? 😂 Drop your thoughts below ⬇️