I've noticed there has been a lot of hype around this book, but frankly I can't see why. I guess I'm not really a "what happens after," kind of girl.

I found myself wanting to know more about what lead up to this story, which distracted me from what was really going on. It was hard to get into, for me.

The writing was well done, but I didn't feel a connection with the characters. I guess I'm going to chalk it up to not being interested in this story. I'm sure if you are a fan of thrillers. you will enjoy this book.

Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.

While the idea behind the plot is intensely intriguing and full of possibility, the execution fails to impress. As a book that appears to be driven by female relationships, it instead falls back on a lot of annoying tropes such as the fact that women have to be catty with one another on an almost constant basis. The women are territorial and obnoxiously jealous when it comes to other women even kind of interacting with the men in their lives. This was frustrating for so many reasons throughout the book. However, the story itself was immensely readable and was one that, once started, it was almost impossible to stop. The latter half was frightening and full of twists that had me turning on a few extra lights as I tried to get to the end at 3am. While overall a forgettable story, it is a perfect thriller to pick up if you want to start a book and not put it down until you're done.

Loved Loved Loved! A psychological thriller that kept me guessing until the very end. In the tradition of "Gone Girl" and "Girl on the Train", Final Girls uses the unreliable narrator trope perfectly to weave a story that is believable, thrilling and a fun ride. It calls to mind some of the great "slasher" films and has a gripping ending that I did not see coming. I would advise anyone getting ready to read this to buckle up and allow yourself to get sucked into the world of the "Final Girls."

I haven't read too many thrillers or mysteries but from the moment I saw this book, I wanted to get my hands on it. When I finally did, I couldn't put it down.

The story follows Quincy, a Final Girl, one of three girls who survived massacres. To say that I <i>loved<i/> Quincy's characterization would be an understatement. Her thoughts and emotions about her survival were turbulent, a mix of guilt, fear, and anger. Everyone around her keeps insisting she's moved past the tragedy but on the inside, Quincy knows this isn't true. I love that she doesn't become this vengeful angel or too damaged to cope. Her character is complex and oh so human that it sucked me into her world, her mind. I wondered what it would be like to be a Final Girl and Quincy was all too willing to show me.

The writing was done well. I'd never read anything by Sager but I'm impressed by her attention to detail and the steady, consuming plot that arrived not too late or too soon but on time. Sager had me on edge, wondering who the killer was. At first, I was sure it was Sam. Then I wondered if it could have been Quincy herself. The more I read, the more desperate I became for the answer. WHO WAS IT? At the end, I was blindsided by the twist and yet, a small voice mumbled about all the little details I overlooked that pointed to the killer. Like I said, I don't have much experience with thrillers/suspence/mysteries. It might have been obvious to someone else but not to me.

The ending was my favorite, I think, but I promise not to spoil it for you.

If you don't know if this book is for you, I encourage you to read it anyways. It might not be your cup of tea but at least you'll be reading a decent thriller that sucks you into the lives of the Final Girls.

This was a quick read that pulled me in on page one, Final Girls by Riley Sager. I’m sure you’ve seen this or read about it because it seems like I can’t go anywhere without seeing a review of it!

Here are the details:

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.

I thought I had it all figured out but I was wrong, which is good. I’m sure the author wants to keep the reader guessing and she did. If you love a mystery/suspense then you will enjoy Final Girls!

This book was INSANE! Such a great thriller, this is going to be a must read for many months.

Brilliantly twisty thriller with a fantastic finale!

First Lisa, then Sam and finally Quincy are the sole survivors at three separate mass murder scenes. The press starts calling them final girls, which is a horror movie term for the last survivor. Quincy has tried to forget her horrible night at Pine Cottage, where all of her friends are killed. She and her long-time live-in boyfriend are talking marriage, She has a successful baking blog. But then Lisa dies by slitting her wrists after sending Quincy a cryptic email. Has a serial killer decided to target the final girls? Can Quincy's boyfriend or the cop who saved her year's ago save her?

Final Girls has the most convoluted plot I've seen this year. Though many books' jackets claim to be the next Gone Girl, I believe this book really deserves the comparison. The plot synopsis above is probably only a tenth of the entire plot. I had read that this book had a surprise at the end. That is a huge understatement. I suspected anyone and everyone of being the villain and still did not see the end coming. The book's effect is like riding a rollercoaster: Final Girls is that good!

Final Girls' whipsaw pace and compelling plot makes this novel highly recommended not just for thriller fans but for anyone looking for an exciting read. Be prepared though for some sleepless nights as the book is extremely difficult to stop reading. 5 stars!

Thanks to the publisher, Dutton, and Netgalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review. It was truly an exceptional book!

Final Girls was a pretty good thriller.  As with lots of thrillers, I went through almost all of the characters thinking they were the ones who did it.  Once you find out, the reveal is somewhat disturbing.  But in these types of books, disturbing is a good thing.  I want a thriller to bother me to the point that I cannot put the book down.  This one was gripping and I highly recommend.

3.5 stars--somewhere between liked and really liked.

If you enjoy thrillers, give this a try. I found it compulsive reading and gulped it down very quickly. It's dark and bloody, and full of a bunch of pretty scummy characters. I think thriller readers will enjoy this one.

There are lots of twists here, and red herrings galore, but I was slightly disappointed by the reveal. It seemed like it wasn't foreshadowed enough. (Though if there were too many hints, I'd dislike that too, so likely I'm just overly picky, haha.)

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

This thriller is honestly one that I feel took half of my breath away. We follow Quincy, one of the remaining "final girls" which is a term dubbed by the media to describe survivors of these massacres. She is deeply affected by the news of Lisa, the first final girl who supposedly committed suicide, which makes her rethink about the many dark choices a human can make and what leads to that.

One day after the news of Lisa's suicide, a women comes to Quincy's door, claiming to be Samantha (Sam), the last other surviving final girl. From there we follow a twisty path as Quincy tries to recover the memory of Pine Cottage and figure out what really happened that life-changing night.

The flashbacks to the worst moments of Quincy's life were just fascinating puzzle pieces into putting the big picture together. hey provide backstory and foreshadowing, which is incredibly difficult to do in such a short format, however Sager managed this balancing act masterfully. I would also say that if you're fan of slasher movies, this is one for you to read.

All the characters were deeply unlikable mysterious character with a closet of skeletons. They were complicated twisty characters, and I thought that the author did an excellent job of developing them to be portrayed in a certain untrustworthy way. One things that irritated me was the author using the trope of dissociative amnesia that made Quincy have an black spot of memory, because this book could have been so much more to the point if she'd known the history.

I think my problem is that I might have stepped into this book with too high expectations, and I felt like the twist was something that I could have easily seen coming (even though I personally didn't pick up on the foreshadowing). The first two thirds of the book were so slow, the pacing was off whilst Quincy baked cupcakes for her blog and exercised. The last third of the book really picked up with the pace; it could be described as a whirlwind of an ending, with the big reveal happening and things getting rapidly wrapped up.

The thing was, that the ending make no sense, and it feels like the only reason that the author wrote it this way was for shock affect. I was just unsatisfied with it, because it didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the story or even be in-character for the character. Overall, while this was a purely fun and addictive read, the hype let me down a bit, causing me to write this mixed-feelings review.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

I was nervous going into this book, because I thought that I would be disappointed, since it's been hyped up so much. However, that was definitely not the case. I was kept on my toes the whole time, trying to guess who exactly was telling the truth, and what exactly that truth was. The first half of the book dragged a tiny bit for me, but the second half kept me up late into the night (not quite a good idea, I got more paranoid the later it got!) and BOOM the ending shocked me. I'd definitely recommend this to any and all loves of a good mystery and thriller.

Definitely a gripping, thrilling read! I could not put this one down and didn't see the ending coming. A must read for horror and thriller readers alike!

Its a neat idea. Taking one of the classic tropes of horror movies, the sole surviving, emotionally scarred girl who, alone among all her horribly massacred friends has managed to survive the wrath of a psychotic killer and building a thriller around her. What happens to the survivor once the monster is dead and her friends have all been buried?

Riley Sager really did have a terrific premise here. Unfortunately what starts out as a solid thriller with just a touch of delightful B-movie torture porn quickly unravels into a pretty predictable and not very exciting grown up R.L. Stine novel.

As the story opens we meet Quincy Carpenter. Ten years ago she went on a spring break vacation with her best friends to a cabin by a lake and ended up the only survivor of what would come to be known as The Pine Cottage Massacre. She believes she's made her peace with her past. She has a wonderful public defender boyfriend and a successful baking blog and more money than she needs from all the lawsuits that were waged in the aftermath of the murders. She knows there are other girls like her out there, they've reached out to offer support. There's Lisa who survived a literal "sorority house massacre" and went on to become a beacon of support and hope for other victims and Sam who fended off a monster pop culture has come to call "The Sack Man" but retreated from the spotlight to live on her own. But Quincy prefers to stay off the grid. She's over it. She's moved on.

Then Lisa commits suicide and suddenly the elusive Sam, who Quincy has never met or spoken to, is on her doorstep acting super shady and convinced that something sinister is going on. Is it possible Lisa didn't kill herself? But with all the men who attacked them dead who could be after them and why?

Alas neither the journey to find these answers nor the answers themselves are all that interesting. What we've got here is a very, very stereotypical thriller that has all right thriller buzz words and characters and scary moments but none of the passion, depth, or story telling ability that might elevate it beyond any other cheesy beach read.

For the most part this "final girl" just sort of sits around being a final girl. The books ends up feeling totally unfocused because Sager can't seem to decide if she's telling the story of a survivor rebuilding her life or that of a victim who's nightmare has never really ended. Both those stories are worthy of being told but it doesn't really work to mash them together. She gets incredibly bogged down in stuff like Quincy's relationship with her jerkface of a boyfriend and her non-existent one with her mother both of which are just repeated versions of the same conversation. Mom wants to know why she can't "be normal" and jerkface just repeats ad nauseum how much he admires how Quincy has moved on I guess to emphasize that he totally doesn't get her because we all know she hasn't moved on? I not only don't know, I don't care.

The whole thing is just very blah. The "revelations" about what really happened at the cabin aren't really all that revelatory nor do they really seem like something Quincy would have repressed. They're what you expect from a story like this which sort of sucks because with a thriller the last thing you want is to see what's coming. While its true these discoveries do help reveal what happened to Lisa and what the deal is with Sam its not in like an exciting "oh my god I never saw that coming way" or a "wow that totally makes sense now when you put it together with all this other stuff" way. The person "behind it all" makes sense but its only because given the bland, cookie cutter book this is there was really only one person it could be.

I've said this before with thrillers, they have to stand on their own merit as solid stories with characters to get invested in because they've got a rich inner life and personalities you can really feel for. Your story can't just be word salad leading up to your big switcheroo. You can't just present the idea of "final girls" and then assume that concept is just going to become a riveting story by itself without any support or that its somehow interesting enough that you don't even need a story.

I'm not going to care about your character just because she's a victim and you've given her a clever pop culture label. That kind of thing works in a movie where we expect big, shocking visuals to be part of telling the story and we have that visceral response ourselves to what we see happening to someone on screen. In a book like this investment in the story is totally dependent on whether you give your readers something to envision and believe in for themselves, something they can relate to. A writer's job is a helluva lot harder than a filmmakers because they don't have the luxury of sets and actors to do a lot of the work for them. But that's why I also hold them to a much higher standard.

Its unfortunate because Sager had a good idea that could have been a lot of fun. I'd love to see a book that takes this idea and does a really clever satire of the thriller/slasher genre like "Scream" and even "Scary Movie" did. Actually there's a pretty excellent movie called "The Final Girls" that does just that and it ends up being hilarious and also heartfelt. Or alternatively you could try something that really delved into the psychology of being a "Final Girl" with all the unwanted celebrity and mind fuckery that would go along with that. Heck I'd have enjoyed the hell out of a gore fest of a book that pitted Quincy against someone who's just trying to take out the "final girls" because they should have died the first time or something.

I just didn't really care about this book. The writing isn't terrible but its not great either. Its got some exciting moments but they're too few and far between. The flashbacks to the night at Pine Cottage are appropriately bloody and a little hair raising but there's no big emotional impact as you finally see what Quincy went through because you don't really know her. Ultimately she's just a final girl, that hysterical scream queen who stumbles out of the woods at the end of that stupid "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" knock off you caught on Starz at three in the morning, she's crying and carrying on and covered in blood but you're already changing the channel wondering if "The Daily Show" might be on and you never bother to catch her name.

First line: The forest had claws and teeth.

Summary: Quincy is one of a select group of people: the Final Girls. Girls who were the only survivors of a mass murder. There were three Final Girls, only three. Then one of them ends up dead. At first, her death is ruled a suicide. Quincy had worked hard to become known as more than just a Final Girl, and had her life all set, she thought. But when Lisa ends up dead, and the only remaining Final Girl besides Quincy, Sam, showed up at Quinn's apartment, everything Quincy thought she knew was in question.

Highlights: This book is tightly written and explores what happens when everything we thought we knew is thrown into question. There are interesting characters, and a well-developed plot. I found myself thinking I knew what was coming, and then I'd be wrong. Then it would happen again. And I didn't see the end coming. I love a book that does that.

Lowlights (or what could have been better): I felt like Quincy's boyfriend was just kind of a shell of a character, but I'm not sure that's a big thing. The story is really about Quincy, but I would have liked to know more about why Jeff was who he was and how he and Quinn had such a relationship.

FYI: This book has some language and some references to violence.

Quincy and her friends were on vacation at Pine Cottage when there’s a massacre. All of her 6 friends are murdered and she’s the only survivor. The media dubbed her one of the Final Girls, joining Lisa and Samantha, who were both survivors of murders. Ten years later, Quincy is still trying to move past it and is doing well, until Lisa is found with her wrists slit. Quincy is left rattled by this apparent suicide. Samantha ends up showing up at Quincy’s house, making Quincy relive her past. As new details surface about Lisa’s death, Quincy tries to unravel Sam’s truth from her lies, and trying to remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.

Right from the start, this book had that suspenseful feel to it. It starts off ten years ago, with Quincy bleeding from stab wounds and running away from the cottage where her friends have been murdered. The media calls Quincy a Final Girl, which means it’s the last woman left alive at the end of a horror film. But Quincy doesn’t consider herself one of them, not even when another Final Girl, Lisa, calls her to teach her how to be a Final Girl.

All Quincy wants is to move past it all and in a way, she has. She’s living with her boyfriend, has a her hobby of baking. Everything seems fine, until Lisa is found with her wrists slit. This shatters Quincy’s life. Because of this apparent suicide, Samantha, another Final Girl, appears at Quincy’s house. Instead of Samantha helping Quincy, Sam pushes her to recover her memories, to really think of what happened, which in turn has Quincy questioning everything.

There were so many twists and turns! The plot is incredibly well-written. I thought I was understanding where the author was taking me, only to have to go back to where I started because I obviously knew nothing! My mind was reeling with all the possibilities. What left me completely stunned was seeing Quincy piece together her memories of what went down and when it all came together, I was completely shocked and speechless. Final Girls kept me up until very late at night. I couldn’t go to sleep because this book demanded I read it. And I demanded answers! It was beyond addicting. I loved how the author wove together this intricate story. I still can’t believe this is a debut novel. It’s so very well done! I mean, I couldn’t even trust the narrator. I questioned everybody! Without a doubt, this was a thrilling ride!

Final Girls is an intense, addictive and intricate mystery thriller that will leave readers biting their nails, on the edge of their seat and their minds reeling, trying to guess what happened. It’s a must-read for 2017 and definitely a favorite of mine.

As a reader who enjoys modern day thrillers, I have to say that lately its becoming more difficult to mind myself amused with the plot. However, Final Girls did it in for me! I immediately liked the main character, but I did have those moments where I thought she was making the horrible stereotypical horror movie decisions. The suspense built throughout the novel, climaxing at the point of no return. I was captivated by the way the story was woven through with episodes of not knowing who could be trusted.

'Final Girls' held my interest from page one until the very end. It was well-written and twisty and kept me guessing about what really happened in the cabin in the woods. The ending was a surprise for me (I didn't see that coming). It wasn't entirely what I expected--it is mostly about Quincy and her relationship with Sam and how she has moved on with her life since that night in the cabin. We don't find out the details of what really happened until nearly the end of the book, but that just kept me turning the pages. I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys a good thriller.

I read this in one sitting - it's a compelling thriller with tons of twists and turns. If it hasn't already been optioned to be turned into a movie, I can easily see it happening soon. It has it's ups and downs - there were points in the book I was a bit bored, but it always sucked me back in. Overall, if you like thrillers, I would recommend it.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Penguin Group Dutton, and Riley Sager for the opportunity to read and review this book. Another fantastic debut novel! I could not put this book down - clear your schedules and settle in for an intense psychological thriller.

Ten years ago, Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with college friends - and was the only one to return home alive. At that point, she became a member of the Final Girls - a term given to the lone survivor of a massacre. There are two other members - Lisa, who survived an attack at her sorority, and Samantha - who lived through an attack at the motel where she worked.

Quincy thought she had moved on - she has a great boyfriend and a job as a baking blogger. But then Lisa is found dead in her bathtub and Sam shows up on Quincy's doorstep wanting to drag her back into the past.

Told in alternating timelines of the present and the events that happened to Quincy that night in Pine College. I literally couldn't put this book down - a must read!

This book had me going back and forth about who I thought the killer was. Without spoiling it I will say the killer was on my list of suspects. I read 80% of the book in one sitting. I didn't read it all because my family forced me to go out for lunch. Then I finished the rest of the book before bed. It's probably the librarian in me but why is this published under a pseudonym? That bothers me. I feel like it's a marketing ploy. Obliviously it worked since I'm talking about it.