Final Girls: A Novel

Quincy Chandler is a final girl, the only survivor of a mass murder. As a college student on a weekend trip with her friends to a cabin in the woods, she was the only one to come out alive. There are two other final girls, each having survived similar situations. When one of the others, Lisa, is found dead in Lisa's bathtub, Quincy is visited by the remaining girl, Sam, and together they try to discover exactly where the emotions Quincy has hidden for so long have gone.Can Quincy trust her memories of that night? Can she trust Sam?I really enjoyed this thriller from Riley Sager. He's a very good writer at providing excellent character development and twists the reader doesn't see coming. This was fast paced and a good read from beginning to end.

I wasnt expecting to love this book as much as I did! I'm not a big horror fan but wanted to read something a little scary for October. This book was perfect for that, the mystery kept me really engaged and at about 65% I had to stay up late and finish reading it. The end has so many twists and turns that I couldn't put it down!

FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager is right up my wheelhouse since I am the kind of guy who read MEN, WOMEN, AND CHAINSAWS by Carol J. Clover for the intellectual stimulating discussion of the slasher movie with not a trace of irony. The premise of the novel is a simple and intriguing one: what if a typical slasher movie plot "really" happened? Well, the survivors would be traumatized as well as media sensations.Quincy Carpenter, a nice reference to Quincy Harker and John Carpenter probably, is the survivor of a camp ground massacre in her college years. A twisted maniac went on a rampage and murdered all of her friends, leaving her as the sole one to escape. It's been ten years and she is a baking vlogger with an apartment she pays for with money from a number of lawsuits filed on her behalf. She's an emotional mess kept going by Xanax and grape soda but a fairly realistic model of a trauma survivor.Quincy just wants to pretend that her life is fine and she's moved past her horrific ordeal but this is impossible due to the inability to fully confront it. Quincy doesn't remember what happened for an hour of events and the media enjoyed bringing it up repeatedly. Not only was her ordeal similar to a horror movie but she and the other two "Final Girls" who suffered similar experiences are conventionally beautiful women who are perfect for generating cheap ratings.Quincy's faux-perfect life takes a downturn when Lisa, the strongest of the Final Girls, seemingly commits suicide. This results in the other Final Girl, Samantha Boyd, coming to visit Quincy in New York. Quickly, events start to spiral out of control as Samantha repeatedly tries to trigger Quincy's long-suppressed rage. Was Lisa's suicide really that and why does Sam want to force Quincy to remember what really happened that night?The book is entertaining for about 90% of its page count but doesn't quite manage to successfully land. The best part of the book is following Quincy through her daily routine and how she's adjusted to being a survivor of a horror movie in "real life." I also enjoyed the flashbacks to the Pinewood Cottage massacre even if they're a deliberately cliche (camp ground, Indian burial ground, insane asylum). The final answer to the mystery is actually more cliche than all of the invoked tropes and I wish the author had gone with a more original twist.Fans expecting a book that reads like a slasher pic are going to be disappointed as this is mostly a psychological horror piece. Quincy is badly damaged by her experience while simultaneously irritated with how everyone treats her like a fragile piece of china. I like her relationship with Samantha and was interested in seeing them develop a friendship that puts a wedge in her relationship with her boyfriend. I was a bit reminded of the Anna Kendrick/Blake Lively movie, A Simple Favor, that had similar characters to Quincy and Samantha but the roles reversed.I think the biggest problem of the ending is the fact that it doesn't really tie into the rest of the book's themes. Much of the book is about how there's no such thing as a "Final Girl" and that it's a media created moniker to cover up a traumatizing event. One of the other characters suffered horrific child abuse and killer her attacker but was labeled a monster because, presumably, it wasn't Hollywood-esque enough a premise. Then the ending introduces a villain straight out of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning and we're meant to treat her Final Girl status seriously.Still, I enjoyed reading the book and if you're a fan of 80s horror films then you'll enjoy most of the references even if they strain credulity that there's been three or four incidents that perfectly mirror a typical horror movie, complete with beautiful survivors. Then again, we're living in a time with spree killers so what do I know. I recommend the audiobook version narrated by Erin Bennett and Hillary Huber as they do an amazing job bringing the main characters to life.

I see Riley Sager's books popping up in my timeline all the time but I've never actually read any of his work until now. FINAL GIRLS intrigued me because I kind of loved the idea of a group of "final girls" (those girls in horror flicks who end up becoming the last women standing) overcoming the tragedies of their pasts, only to end up finding themselves playing the real life scream queens yet again in a new slew of horrors.Horror was my go-to genre before I fell in love with romance and even though I no longer like it as much as I used to, I still return to it occasionally whenever I find myself in a slump. I know it's strange, but I find it comforting. It kind of transports me back to my high school years, when focusing on slasher films and pulpy novels about killer cults and demonic worms took my mind of the everyday anxieties of being an unhappy teenager. FINAL GIRLS is especially fun because it's like 90s horror movie meets crime thriller.Our heroine, Quincey, is one of the final girls. About ten years ago, she and her friends went to a cabin in the woods-- and all of them were brutally killed except for Quincey herself. She has dissociative amnesia and can't remember the events from that night, which some people found suspicious. Others were more sympathetic. Either way, she's now trying to rebuild her life, and bar some substance abuse and emotional PTSD, she's become a successful baking blogger with a successful lawyer fiance, and it seems like everything's coming up roses....Until another final girl, Lisa, dies. Killing herself allegedly. And then, a few days later, Sam shows up on her doorstep. Wanting to help, she claims, and haunted by her own miserable past of being the only one to survive a series of gruesome tortures at a motel. But Lisa's death doesn't add up and Sam's motivations are questionable, and pretty soon it becomes clear that all three women have more secrets than their dark pasts, and at least one of them might be in mortal danger.Was this book literature? No. Did I devour it in a single day? YAS. I said to someone that this kind of reminds me of Rachel Caine's Stillhouse Lake series in that it's about a woman recovering from past encounters with violent crime, only to find herself victim to it yet again while trying to recover. Like the heroine in that novel, she's also flawed as all get out and morally ambiguous, but still easy to root for even as you might question whether she's truly the victim others would like her to be. It had the right amount of suspense to keep me turning the pages and some interesting twists that weren't what I was expecting. This turned out to be exactly the book I needed for my current mood.I would definitely read more by this author. If you like slasher movies or fast-paced crime thrillers, you'll probably like this, too.3.5 out of 5 stars

This is a bit of an odd one to rate and I'm toying between two and three stars. It's slow and superficial, with few characters who really stand out from the crowd. Even Quincey, our key Final Girl, is rather wet in reality and somewhere between her obsession with home baking and the sappy relationship, I got bored. Cooper was the only character I actually connected with and he's a satellite character for much of the novel.Quincey's degradation with the arrival of Sam Boyd was overdone, rushed and unbelievable. As indeed was the entire character of Sam Boyd in general. Undoubtedly messed up beyond belief, but aggravating so rather than believably or empathisably so. The author also seems to have a band-aid view of virtually irrevocably damaged relationships seems naive to the point of cringe-worthy so what could have been touching aspects... aren't. Even the moments in the past just before the massacre are somehow angst ridden and tedious.And the ending. Dear God, the ending. It's as though the author couldn't quite figure out what to do with it and so just pulled a name out of a hat and ran with it, little caring how unbelievable or forced it would seem. The fact that he forces an entirely new character in within the last fifth of the novel is a desperate attempt to shoehorn the forced solution even though it really doesn't fit. That is just desperation.Hell, I've nearly convinced myself to downgrade the rating to a single star...

This book is not what I expected at all. The first maybe half of the book it feels like not a lot is happening, it's a good thing small snippets of what happened (to our main character Quincy on the night all her friends were murdered and she survived) are sprinkled throughout, otherwise it would have been a rather boring, non eventful reading experience. It felt like the same things over and over - we get it, Quincy takes Xanax with grape soda as a chaser, you don't have to remind us every three pages - surrounded by mundane day to day things.But, when the story finally starts getting interesting, it goes in a really strange direction that I never would have imagined (maybe that's a good thing? It's not predictable. But it isn't compelling either) Yeah, I get it. The author wanted to do the whole 'is this an unreliable narrator' shtick, but it just seemed like a weird choice.There are quite a few twists in here, some I enjoyed more than others. The first 'big reveal' I thought was a great explanation of why Quincy acted the way she did. Guilt, disgust, shame - I totally get it. Another important one was 'who is Sam?' Again, I really liked how this one played out.The twist I wished was the main one - brilliant! love that! Leave it there! Imagine an open ending...but this is a thriller, and thrillers need to wrap up...But the last twist. That's the one I didn't like. It felt so cheap. I know thrillers are meant to set you up with all the main players, then you find out who is who etc etc. But...I just didn't like it. It felt both left field and obvious at the same time somehow. Slightly eye roll. It could have been so clever, but it didn't quit hit for me.All in all, it was a decent read. I am slightly disappointed though, the synopsis and idea of the final girls and them mysteriously dying is such a great concept, that could have been explored in so many other, more interesting ways. Instead we got half a book of not much, and half a book of slightly lack lustre suspense.

Anyone who liked Gone Girl will love this book. Three victims all connected by the fact that they survived horrendous massacres.Quincy or Quinn is the protagonist who survived the slaughter at Pine Cottage. The book starts with her escaping the carnage and running to the safety of a police officer who was at the scene. It is the Pine Cottage chapters which form the basis of her memories. After the incident she has total amnesia about what had happened at the cottage and it is as her memory gradually returns that our views shift one way and the other. All these chapters are in the third person which allows the author to be more objective and explain what happened with the other characters, even though these are Quincy’s memories, so there are some restrictions on what is revealed. For example we do not know exactly what happened to Janelle, but as she stumbles out of the wood into Quincy’s arms we know her throat was cut. The interspersing of the Pine Cottage chapters throughout the book form the basis of the tension and the intrigue, although circumstances in Quincy’s life do act as trigger points for her memories.Quincy has two men in her life, Jeff her partner and Coop the officer who was at the scene of the murder at Pine Cottage. Both are involved with law enforcement, Coop as a police officer and Jeff as a public defender. The author does not make it clear if this is a need to feel protected following her experience, certainly her use of Xanax would suggest she is suffering the after affects. Her choice of profession, a cake blogger and baker, also suggests a withdrawal from society. Into this sedate world comes Sam/Tina another final girl, a survivor of another massacre. She enters the story just after we find out the first final girl Lisa Milner is dead, presumed suicide. Introducing herself as Sam she explains she changed her name in order to avoid the press and publicity. Her role in the story is to provoke, to make Quincy angry, to disturb her neatly ordered life, to shock her into remembering what happened. This she does very effectively and makes us question deep down what Quincy is really capable of? Perhaps what we are all capable of, deep down?Lisa’s death provides the suspicion needed to prompt Quincy into looking at Sam/Tina’s background and provides another strand of intrigue and tension in the book. We also learn about Joe’s background, the man accused and convicted of the Pine Cottage murders and how he had spent time in a mental institute. This reinforces the guilt of the criminally insane and plays into the hands of readers assumptions of what must be true. Yet at the end of the book Joe’s name is cleared.My main criticism is the ending. From chapter 38 onwards where the memories start flooding back things get messy and confusing. This may be deliberate on the part of the author who wants to show Quincy’s distress and confusion as she tries to put the remaining pieces into place. In terms of the reader I found it difficult to follow. I am not sure the perpetrator of the crime was exactly logical either. I’m not convinced we needed to know the background of Tina’s story either. The chapters detailing the time after Pine Cottage seemed to slow the pace. Her role was one of provocateur and I’m not convinced readers would necessarily be emotionally invested in her character.Overall I thought this book was really good and will definitely go on my favourite shelf, despite the ending.

This book has been sitting on my Kindle since July 2018, so thanks to #beatthebacklog it was my next read!Quincy is the sole survivor of a massacre from when she was a teenager and is now just trying to get on with her life baking in her kitchen for her blog. She is famous for being a 'Final Girl', the only thing that links her two others who have also survived traumatic situations. But when one of them dies and the other turns up at Quincy's apartment, she could have no idea where it was going to lead her.This was a pretty slow burn yet very easy to read. With a past and present narrative from a few different character perspectives, it was a well-rounded story that built up the tension to the end.

You could shave half the tedium of this book by devoting less of the first 60% to the main characters PTSD from prior events which causes her to make incredibly stupid decisions and do incredibly stupid things.The main gist of the story is around our heroine eventually remembering what happened years ago when her friends were murdered...she’s conveniently forgotten. When she does remember none of it will come as a surprise to anyone.What may come as a surprise is how any of this would have got past police forensics at the time..so there have to be huge leaps of faith to keep the story on track. There’s also the incredible acceptance of the character Sam into our heroines life which screams mistake from the off.It’s not awful, but it’s not very clever either.