Final Girls follows Quincy Carpenter, who is the sole survivor of the massacre that happened at Pine Cottage and claimed the lives of her five friends. Quincy is now a final girl along with Lisa, who lost 9 sorority sisters, and Sam, who survived her shift at the Nightlight Inn. 10 years later, Quincy appears to be doing well and has a caring boyfriend and popular baking blog. However, Lisa is found dead, and Sam appears on Quincy's doorstep. From there, her life starts spiraling.
Quincy is a flawed character. She went through a traumatic experience and is trying to put the past behind her, but she does questionable things throughout the book. You also do not get to know Lisa, and I found Sam unlikable. As the story progresses, you learn about what happened to Lisa, what Sam is hiding, and what really happened at Pine Cottage.
The story is told in the present, with Quincy meeting Sam after Lisa's death, as well as flashbacks to events that happened at Pine Cottage. Quincy does not remember everything that happened at Pine Cottage due to the trauma, but you do learn the truth at the end. The book kept me guessing, and I did not expect a twist at the end, which is great. I thought Final Goods was a good thriller, and I would recommend it.

Enjoyed this one, but I couldn't help but be disappointed by the life choices of Quincy. She seemed to make bad choice even though she was a smart woman.

Quincy, the Final Girl survivor, faces a haunting past when old secrets resurface, making Final Girls a gripping and suspenseful page-turner.

Quincy is the lone survivor of a serial killing spree, therefore she’s a final girl. She knows two other final girls from completely different murder scenes, Lisa and Samantha. Lisa wrote a book about her experience and went on to become a psychologist to help others cope and overcome trauma. When Quincy hears that Lisa committed suicide, she has a hard time understanding or believing it. Samantha has disappeared or at least kept herself hidden from the public until she arrives to visit Quincy with concerns of her own. The lives of the three final girls become intertwined and complicated beyond what should be a logical possibility. Final Girls kept me glued to the pages and it didn’t disappoint! A mystery thriller worth every moment spent reading it, 5 stars!

’m a little sad that I have now caught up on reading all of the books Riley Sager currently has published. I have decided Sager is an author I can always count on, and I have enjoyed every one of his books. This was actually his first book, but it does not read like a debut novel. Once again, this was a page-turning thrill ride having me wondering what was really going on with Sam when she enters the picture. You never quite know, even though you think you might have things worked out. There is always a surprise, but it is always an intoxicating journey. At times I did have a problem with Quincy just going along with her, but that created the thrill as well. So even though I wasn’t convinced how believable that would be if this was real life and not fiction, it was necessary for the story. If you haven’t checked out any of Riley Sager’s books yet, I highly encourage you to do so if you are looking for a superb psychological thriller.

THIS BOOK WAS SO SO GOOD. I HAVE BEEN A FAN OF HORROR FILMS, MAINLY SCREAM, ALL MY LIFE SO READING A BOOK ABOUT "FINAL GIRLS" WAS A DREAM. FOR ANYONE THAT IS A FAN OF CLASSIC HORROR FILMS, LIKE HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH AND SCREAM THIS BOOK WILL APPEAL TO YOU.

THIS WAS RILEY SAGER'S FIRST BOOK AND IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT. THE TWISTS! THE PLOT! THE CHARACTERS! IT WAS ALL SO SO GOOD. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!

Final girls are those girls who are left behind after everyone else has been killed. That's what Quincy Carpenter, Lisa Milner, and Samantha Boyd are, final girls. All three deal will their histories differently. Quincy's choice is Xanax and wine along with her protector, police officer, Cooper who found her that fateful night. Outwardly, Quincy appears to have moved on with her life and doing well. It's not until Lisa is killed and Samantha shows up in her life that everything comes back to haunt her. Who can she trust?

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

This one was a "I think I know who the bad guy is", skip to the end "oh, I was right" book for me. I don't often read suspense/murder mystery books and I usually don't try to figure out the twist or the bad guy/s, so the fact that I guessed who it was right off of the bat kind of surprised me.

Not a neg on the author, maybe I just felt the vibe or guessed right. Wish I could guess the winning lotto numbers correctly, but I digress.

Not a bad book and one that I think will resonate with horror movie fans and those who enjoy strong, but realistic female protagonists.

2, it wasn't my jam but I will recommend it to our customers who enjoy horror movies and murder mystery/suspense books, stars.

This was my first Riley Sager and yes, it took me a long time to read it. Here's the thing - I'm used to romance books. lol I love horror and true crime, but you know what romance has made me expect? Usually a quickly unfolding story with a usually good ending. They say the romance genre is formulaic and that's because it is...because it works.

So, what does this have to do with Final Girls?

It means I had to be a whole lotta patient with the story. The story takes a bit to get into - the reader is left to wonder just what happened to Quincy that fateful night when someone killed her five friends. We learn a bit more about her even though she remains something of a mystery throughout most of the book.

It was really in the last third of the book where I felt, whoa, okay...here we go. Did I think all the build up was worth it? Ehhhh. I could have done with less of it, but the in all honesty, it really is the third of the book that made this book go from a 2 star to a 3 star for me. I wish it would have been higher. I am, however, looking forward to reading more of Sager's books because that last third...it was fantastic.

A great premise, suspense that keeps ratcheting up, and one hell of a twist. I like that there is a female protagonist who isn't unlikable and might have a brain. More please!

Riley Sager never disappoints. I always feel such an affinity with they main characters and enjoy unraveling whatever mystery is cooked up. It’s always a good day when there’s a new Sager book.

The final girls, those who lived through hell and survived one way or another. I was expecting to be at the edge of my seat, biting my nails, but alas it didn't happen.

The story was slow and not in the building tension slow kind of way, I didn't like the main character and the plot twist wasn't that shocking. I gave it 3 stars because it picked the pace in the last pages.

I am tiring of the victimized woman trope so popular in mystery fiction. I felt the twist ending was unearned. Thumbs down.

They call them Final Girls. There's Lisa, the only survivor of ten sorority girls who died when a man broke into the house. Samantha who survived a horrific attack at a hotel where she was on her first shift as a maid. Quincy Carpenter who went with her friends on a weekend getaway to a cabin in the woods only to have it become a slaughter house when a man broke out of a nearby mental hospital. The world and media was fascinated with their stories and wanted to know why, why, why were they the only ones to survive?

Years later, there are still consequences to surviving such horror. Lisa, who is the oldest, finished her education and became a psychologist helping others. Samantha went off the grid and no one has heard from her in years. Quincy seems to be doing the best. She has a lovely apartment in New York, a fiance who is supportive and loving and a baking blog which allows her to turn her therapeutic baking into a career.

Then it happens. Quincy gets a call from the policeman who saved her all those years ago and who has remained a constant force in her life. Coop is the man who has always been there for her, always available by phone or text and coming for visits to make sure Quincy is okay. He calls to give her the news. Lisa is dead, a suicide. As Quincy is struggling to deal with the news, she gets an even bigger shock. Someone stops her outside her apartment and it is Samantha or Sam as she likes to be called.

Quincy invites her in. Sam as she likes to be called, is rough around the edges. She dresses to shock and it's clear she has been living off the radar. She has heard the news and as the only person alive who really understands what Quincy's life is, she has come to join forces. Quincy's fiance is skeptical and dismayed, sure Sam is there to try to get money from them or some other sketchy plan. But when Quincy and Sam find out that Lisa's suicide is instead murder, nothing can make them separate.

As the days go by, Quincy finds that the roughness she sees in Sam is deeply ingrained. Sam is defiant and reckless, tempting men to see her as a victim so that she can turn around and work out her anger on them. Quincy is appalled and intrigued in equal measure. But none of Sam's stories seem to check out and soon Quincy is scared of her and not sure how to disentangle herself or what Sam might do next. Has she traded one nightmare for another?

This was a debut novel for Riley Sager, a former journalist and editor. It burst onto the scene in 2017 and in 2018 was the winner of the International Thriller Award for Best Novel. The story is written at a pace that moves the reader along with it, never quite sure what the next page will bring. The truth is slowly revealed as the reader discovers it along with Quincy. This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars
CWs: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, gaslighting, ableist themes

I don't think there was a single character in "Final Girls" that I felt inclined to root for. Except Lisa. And the reporter, whose name I think was Jonah? I don't know, whatever, but there was no character I loathed more than Jeff. The gaslighting, the narcissism, the "you're not a victim, you've moved past it", like surviving a massacre was supposed to be a blip on Quincy's radar. I understand why Quincy put up with him for as long as she did, she had deep-rooted issues to tend to, but yikes. I was seriously rooting for the Pine Cottage killer to come back and kill Jeff.

Hating Jeff was fun because a lot of the other characters couldn't stand him either. Glad we were all on the same page.

"Final Girls" surprised me. I mean, it was cliché in the ways that slasher films tend to be: psych ward escapees, cabin in the woods, college kids partying, mystery killer(s), sex on an ancient burial ground... The usual problematic storylines. But it still managed to surprise me. It was raw, showing the "after" that nobody really thinks about beyond crime scene tape and paramedics. It wasn't a happy story about finding inner peace and moving on with all of your faculties in tact, it was about suppressing the horrific memories and dealing with survivor's guilt and trying to survive the day without beating a random stranger into a coma one sleepless night in Central Park. It's about finding a way to live, not just survive. It's about owning your shit, not escaping it with one addiction or another.

What surprised me was Quincy.

I had gone into this book wanting to read a story about a badass young girl trying to live her life the best she can, post-massacre. In a way, that's exactly what I got. It just took longer for her to get there.

Quincy wasn't a likable character, most of the time; I don't think she was supposed to be. I did appreciate how Sam called her out on her crap and woke her up a bit. Honestly, the thing getting me through the book was wanting to find out what happened at Pine Cottage. Does that make me any better than those "final girl" fanatics Quincy loathed so much? Probably not. Somewhere along the way, I grew to care about her. Granted, it was pretty far along the road, but hey.

Clearly, I have a lot of feelings about "Final Girls". Are they all negative? No. I think this book was structured well. The story was what it needed to be. The killer's storyline was a little weird, but, again, slasher films. *shrug* All in all, I don't believe I regret the experience. There was mystery, there was blood, there was Quincy's growing resentment for Jeff...

Do I recommend this book? Crap, I don't know. If you like the slasher genre, go for it.

Disclaimer: I was given an ARC of "Final Girls" through NetGalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. I didn't get around to reading the book back in 2017, but I did recently borrow a copy from my local library!

I’ve given it 1 star, because It won’t let me continue unless I rate the book, although I haven’t read it. The format that we are given to download had font that was so tiny, I couldn’t read it. There was no way to adjust the size of the font on a Nook, on the version we are given.

OMG 😱

YA’LL THIS WAS A LONG, WILD RIDE

This. Book. Left. Me. Speechless 😶
Though there were some parts that dragged a bit, the TWISTS and TURNS came so unexpectedly and there were a lot of red herrings that I thought was said person, but wasn't and that was the best part-being able to turn my views completely around.

Can you trust just anyone? This was a great thriller and I love how mysterious it was! Great twists throughout the book!!

I enjoyed the story. The parts that jumped back to the past were entertaining. The only part I was disappointed with was the ending. I felt like it was a bit of a letdown. I think I might have come to this book with high expectations. I had been reading a lot of thrillers and was hoping for just as much excitement. If you haven't read many thrillers, this one might be more exciting.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this early copy!

It took me way too long to finally read this thriller. I've been wanting to read a book by Sager for ages and finally dove into this one. It was a solid 4 star read for me. Parts of the novel dragged but the twists and mystery was great. I recommend checking it out!