Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media's attempts, they never meet. Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past. That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa's death come to light, Quincy's life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.
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Really quick & crazyyy read! Here are my thoughts:
Overall rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Characters : ⭐️⭐️/5
Twists : ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Season : October & fall vibes
0This book is fun. I love the "final girl" idea. What happens to the ONE person who survives a tragedy? A murder massacre?
I love thrillers and this is the first one I've read in awhile that truly gripped me from beginning to end. I've read some reviews that the beginning was slow for some readers, or that the whole thing was slow besides Quinn's flashbacks, but I was enthralled the entire time.
I'm also usually pretty weary of flashback novels - it can seem like a cheap way to tell a story, but in Final Girls it worked. Not only did it work, I think it was what made the book so good!
Today, a thriller is hardly considered a thriller without a surprise twist at the end. You'll get a few twists throughout this story. The author throws out many red herrings, and I have to say that I did not have the ending predicted. I find it's usually pretty easy to predict a twist lately, and I was glad to find a thriller that totally surprised me. Unfortunately, I think the reason it surprised me was that it is so not realistic, and it didn't fit. I almost felt like the author was feeling the Gone Girl hype pressure, trying too hard to put an unpredictable twist at the end, that she wrote the entire book and closed her eyes, pointed to a sheet of paper, and chose whatever her finger landed on.
Even though the ending twist seemed to be out of the realm of possibility, it didn't ruin the book for me. It was still a fun, page turning read.
Definitely read this if you're into thrillers or feeling nostalgic for old school horror movies that leave one hot blonde alive at the end. This is a story less about the massacre, and more about what happens next, how you move forward in the face of tragedy, and how tragedy bonds strangers.
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