Survive the Night is a psychological thriller novel written by Todd Ritter under the pseudonym Riley Sager in 2021. The novel follows movie fan and college student Charlie Jordan as she takes a car ride with a stranger named Josh Baxter to her hometown in Ohio in November 1991. During this car ride, she comes to suspect that Josh is the Campus Killer who murdered three young women, including her best friend Maddy. However, her trauma and movie-style hallucinations cause her to question her reality. Survive the Night explores the themes of The Blurred Line Between Reality and Imagination, Trust Versus Paranoia, The Wrongful Blaming of Women for Misogynistic Violence, and The Devastation of Grief. Riley Sager has written several other thriller novels, including his 2017 debut novel Final Girls, his 2018 novel The Last Time I Lied, and the 2020 novel Home Before Dark.

This study guide refers to the 2022 paperback edition.

Content Warning: This novel contains depictions of mental health crises, misrepresentation of mental health conditions, psychological manipulation, suicidal ideation and attempted suicide, and mentions of sexual violence, which this guide discusses.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with a brief Prologue in which Charlie Jordan sits in a car with a male driver. The narrator, framing the moment as a scene from a film, says simply that Charlie knows he is a killer and that only one of them will survive until dawn.

Hopping slightly back in time, the narrative returns to earlier that same day, as Charlie is preparing for her departure from Olyphant to her hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. As she packs, Charlie questions whether she will regret leaving, but she knows that she must go. A hallucination strikes, featuring Charlie’s recently murdered friend and roommate, Maddy; these hallucinations are common for her. Her boyfriend, Robbie, arrives and disrupts it, prompting her to finish and head outside with the last of her things, including her late friend’s coat, a gift from the young woman’s grandmother. Fairly confident that leaving will mean the end of their relationship too, Charlie bids farewell to Robbie. Shortly after, the driver taking her to her hometown—a charming man named Josh Baxter—arrives to pick her up. Despite a whisper of misgivings, Charlie enters his car.

As their road trip starts, Charlie and Josh talk about Charlie’s hometown and her love of movies. She reveals that she lives with her grandmother following the deaths of her parents in a car accident. She bonded with her grandmother over movies in their grief, and, as a result, she hallucinates in a cinematic style to cope with feelings such as grief, stress, and fear. Charlie recalls having argued with Maddy on the night her friend was murdered having seen a shadowy figure that she believes is Maddy’s killer, the Campus Killer. Charlie blames herself for Maddy’s death and left the university shortly afterward. During the trip, Charlie starts to realize that Josh is not who he says he is.

Charlie asks Josh questions, hoping to find inconsistencies. After he mentions a tooth, the memento that Maddy’s killer took after her death, Charlie starts to suspect that he’s the Campus Killer. She starts planning her escape, but Josh realizes her suspicion and uses his knowledge about her hallucinations to gaslight her. She has a hallucination in a rest stop bathroom that leads her to question her grip on reality. Josh soon reveals himself to have an interest in Charlie and numerous concerning objects, including rope, handcuffs, and a knife.

Josh slips up, accidentally making Charlie aware of his gaslighting, and Charlie’s anxiety regarding him spikes again. Josh takes her to a diner, where she attempts to call 911 before calling her boyfriend and using code words to alert him of her situation. The waitress at the diner, Marge, stains Charlie’s coat; in the bathroom, Marge talks to Charlie as she cleans it. Charlie realizes that she is not to blame for Maddy’s death and decides to keep Josh from hurting other women. Resolved, she goes with him, taking a steak knife with her.

When they leave the diner, Josh tells Charlie that his real name is Jake Collins and that he had been lying to her most of the night. He tells her, though, that he enjoys talking to her. Josh almost hits a deer and stops to inspect the car. Charlie climbs into the driver’s seat, but Josh catches her. He tries to force her to put on the handcuffs. Terrified, she stabs him. In the midst of their fight, she has another hallucination that prompts her to run away. She returns to the diner and seeks help from Marge, but the waitress knocks Charlie unconscious with chloroform.

After a nightmarish dream about Maddy, Charlie wakes up tied to a chair in a storage room. Marge tells her to keep quiet. When Robbie comes to find Charlie, Marge lies and sends him away. The woman reveals to Charlie that Josh/Jake works for her. She then forces Charlie into her car at gunpoint. Robbie, who is suspicious, follows the car. Josh/Jake also follows, still caring about Charlie even though she stabbed him. Marge drives Charlie to a mountain lodge, where she reveals that she is dying of cancer and that she kidnapped Charlie so she could tell her about her granddaughter.

Josh/Jake reveals that he is a bounty hunter who Marge hired to find and deliver Charlie. Marge said she merely wanted to find out who killed her granddaughter, Maddy, and promised him a large amount of money, which he needed. Concerned about Charlie now, however, Josh/Jake decides to try and save her. Marge tells Charlie about her grief over losing Maddy and interrogates her about the man Charlie saw. Charlie tells her she does not know who killed Maddy, driving Marge to try to torture her. Josh/Jake manages to save her, but Marge shoots him and then accidentally sets the lodge on fire. Josh/Jake tells Charlie to leave, and she does. Charlie hallucinates seeing Marge as she goes through the lodge. On exiting the lodge, Charlie then hallucinates Maddy and the alley where they last talked. In that moment, Charlie decides to live solely in the real world and makes peace with Maddy’s death. She confronts Marge about their shared grief before Robbie intervenes. Marge accidentally shoots him in the shoulder and tries to get Charlie to shoot her, but Charlie refuses. As the fire consumes the lodge, Charlie and Robbie leave.

Forced to drive Robbie’s car, Charlie has trouble leaving the lodge entrance. She opens a glove box where she finds a box with the missing teeth of the Campus Killer’s victims, including Maddy’s. Robbie confesses that he killed the women because he thought they were self-important and not special like him and Charlie. Angry and disgusted, she drives the car into the ravine. She tries to escape, but Robbie hits her and holds her underwater. He thinks about his murders and laments that he must kill Charlie. However, Charlie handcuffs his wrist to the steering wheel. She pulls out his tooth, escapes, and leaves him to drown.

The following morning, Charlie, Josh/Jake, and Marge are taken to the hospital, and Robbie’s body is retrieved from the ravine. Charlie visits Marge in the hospital, where she gives her Robbie’s tooth and makes peace with her. Charlie also visits Josh/Jake in the hospital and thanks him. He gives her the keys to his car and invites her to see a movie. She accepts, and they become friends. Charlie returns to the lodge and resolves to stop indulging in her movie-style hallucinations and live her life. She then takes Josh’s/Jake’s car for a drive. In the Epilogue, Charlie sees the movie adaptation of her experience six years later. She finds things she likes and dislikes, but she enjoys the movie. She shares her reaction with Jake, now her husband, making clear that she prefers real life.