“Everything is a game, Em. Whether you know it or not. Which means that sometimes a lie is more than just a lie. Sometimes it's the only way to win.”

When Emma was thirteen, she was lucky enough to be sent to Camp Nightingale, the place to be for rich girls in the summer. However, her dream come true quickly turns into a nightmare when the girls in her cabin disappear into the night, never to be seen again. With public opinion and the camp’s reputation in shambles, Nightingale is forced to shut it’s doors. Fifteen years later, Emma is an up and coming artist, and Camp Nightingale is looking to re-open its doors. The camp founder, Franny, wants Emma there, and Emma wants nothing more than to find out what happened to her friends fifteen summers ago. Told in alternating glimpses of past and present, The Last Time I Lied follows Emma as she digs through the lies both told to her and told by herself as she searches for what truly happened to the girls, as well as the new suspicious events around camp.

I enjoyed this so much more than [b:Final Girls|32796253|Final Girls|Riley Sager|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1496658340l/32796253._SY75_.jpg|50669966], and I could really tell that Sager grew as an author between these two works. The same base and writing style is there, the same sort of set up, but there's much more thinking going towards how things are revealed to the reader as well as the characterization of both the suspects and the victims. You're still made to suspect everyone, as most thrillers do, but it's in a much more subtle way. Evidence slowly stacks against certain characters until key information marks them innocent, and the process starts over again. On top of that, the parallel plots of this novel were much more intriguing than those in Final Girls, as they seemed more interconnected with the mystery itself than just background character building.

I also listened to this one rather than read it, and this novel works extremely well as an audiobook. There were so many narrative choices that blended extremely well into the audiobook format, with some being even more successful when read aloud. Not only did this book shock me in terms of plot, I appreciated many of the tricks Sager used to hide information from the narrator + reader, as well as how he later revealed it.

I also just liked the characters of this one more and was way more invested in the mystery. Instead of simply a 'who' digging at you the entire story, you had the 'where', the 'how', and the 'why' digging at you as well. You wanted to know where the girls were, why they left the cabin that night, as well as who was the reason for their disappearance.

I also loved how the ending was done overall, though I can't talk too much on it without spoiling the surprise. Let's just say the twists don't stop coming, even after you think you have all the answers.