Review: "The Only One Left" by Riley Sager

The Only One Left by Riley Sager
Published June 2023 via Dutton
★★★

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

4 stars for most of the book. No stars for the ending.

It's the early 80s, and Kit's been called in to work as a live-in caregiver for the last person she can imagine caring for—Lenora Hope, the Lizzie Borden of the 1920s. Lenora was suspected of killing her entire family, and though it's never been proven, general consensus is that she did it...and for decades since then, she's lived as a paralyzed invalid, isolated in a mansion on a cliff.

I've read most of Sager's books by now. I'm always drawn in by the premise, and this was no exception. I love the premise, I love the setting, I love most of the execution. But oh man. I know most people seem to love the twist!s, and I'm an outlier here—but I tend to wish Sager's books, or at least his twist!s, stopped a chapter or two earlier. There's a rhythm to his twist!s—I've read most of his books on my Kindle, so I go by percentage, and I know that if there hasn't been a big twist! by 75% of the way through the book, I'm in for one soon; I should expect another twist! by 90%, and 93%, and somewhere between 95% and the ending. (You get a twist! And you get a twist!) Few of the twist!s in this one come completely out of nowhere, which is satisfying (I fell for a couple of red herrings but guessed at some other things, which is always a satisfying mix), but. My god. I stand firm in my assessment that the biggest twist! that Sager could pull at this point would be to write a book with no twist!s at all.