Middle of the Night
Ratings76
Average rating3.7
In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.
The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul-de-sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.
Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul-de-sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?
The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed ghosts roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.
The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
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God this book was awful.
It was so boring, and there wasn't a “twist” I didn't see coming.
It took me forever to get through and it threw me into a few slumps.
Had it not been a Riley Sager book I probably would have DNF'd it but I should have anyways.
It felt like NOTHING happened in the 300+ pages.
Anytime anything started to get interesting it was explained away almost as quickly as it'd come up. I feel like any of the other suspect's being the culprit would have been more interesting than the actual culprit and their story was.
Riley Sager has always been a hit or miss author for me ranging from 2 stars (Lock Every Door) to near 5 Stars (Survive the Night and The Only One Left) but this was the biggest swing and a miss I've ever seen from him and boy am I disappointed. Even prior works that I rated low feel like 5 stars in comparison to this one.
My worst book of the year so far.
This is my second Riley Sager book and while I preferred The Only One Left I still enjoyed this one. The multiple narratives and flashbacks worked well, the 90s was lovingly recreated and the neighbourhood setting felt very real. I found the main character likeable and the supporting characters were given quite a bit of development and fleshing out which I value but that did slow the pace, especially in the middle. The ending wasn't what I was expecting but I wasn't completely disappointed as it felt right for the characters
read for summerween 2024: vlog coming soon
this was honestly a pretty tame thriller for sager but i liked where it went, i was engaged the whole time, and it had that same addicting writing.
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