In horror movies, the final girl is the one who’s left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her?
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she’s not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette’s worst fears are realized–someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.
But the thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
I was so intrigued by this book. I’m a huge fan of films like Scream, Halloween, and Friday the 13th. I suppose they’re slasher films but as a total wuss, I do Google all the spoilers first. I refuse to get caught out by a jump scare. This book definitely appealed to my love of slasher films!
I really enjoyed all of the main characters. They each had their own coping mechanisms, they did what they needed to in order to go on after surviving their individual massacres. They felt well rounded and felt like real characters. I loved that while they drove each other up the wall, they loved and cared for each other. I didn’t expect found family joy but I got it. A pleasant surprise! I absolutely loved the way that the character names nodded towards the characters/actors of the Final Girls of so many enjoyable scary film series. This was such a nice touch.
This book was super fast paced and so easy to consume! When the book reached just after halfway, the pace picked up even more and it was just pure excitement and danger.
I absolutely loved the first and last 45%…but the middle 10% I hated. I hated the middle so much that I genuinely considered giving up on the book entirely. I was encouraged to continue and I’m really glad that I did. Although I’d recommend skipping all of the chapters in the police station to anyone going in. I just think the book would be fantastic without those chapters.
Due to the nature of this genre, there were a lot of moments of violence. I didn’t find the violence to be too gratuitous or gory. I’m really not one for blood and gore and I feel like this book gave just the right amount of gore while remaining in the spirit of the source material.
This just felt like reading a scary movie. It was full of twists and turns and I just did not see the reveals coming. I was so sure that I knew who the baddie was, I was certain! I was also wrong, wrong, wrong. When the reveal came I audibly gasped!
I have seen a few reviews where people were unhappy with the ending of this book but I loved it. It felt like the perfect ending to this book.
This was my third book by this author so I’m feeling pretty confident about reading more books by Grady Hendrix as I’ve enjoyed each of their books that I’ve read so far.
Kapowski Reads 