Ten years ago, student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came home alone -the only survivor of a gruesome massacre. Together with three other women who are also the sole survivors of violent crime, she becomes a member of a group the press calls the Final Girls. The girls have never met but when one of them is found dead, the remaining Final Girl turns up on Quincy's doorstep.
This is a psychological thriller done right. The suspense builds right until the end and the details are ambiguous enough to keep you on the edge of your seat..
The characters are well-developed and the plot is full of twists and turns. Endorsed by Stephen King, it's hard to believe that this book is the author's debut! Five stars from me - a refreshing and very clever roller coaster ride of a book.

This book had me with its title and cover but I'm so glad it lived up to my expectations!

Horror movie fans know the meaning of a final girl - the girl who survives the carnage to see another day. Well Quincy Carpenter is a final girl but doesn't want to be a final girl. She wants to be "normal", running her successful cooking blog, living in her well decorated NYC apartment and almost-engaged to a really nice guy. But is she really "normal"?

Quincy is perfect on the outside but drinks to much and takes Xanax with her grape soda. It isn't until another final girl shows up on her door after the death of a third final girl, that the cracks start to show in her carefully created facade. Is Quincy really the victim of a brutal killing spree or is she the killer herself?

Sager's writing kept me up way past my bedtime trying to figure out what really happened that night ten years ago in Pine Cottage. This book is perfect for fans of suspense thrillers and one of my favorites of the year. Highly recommend.

Quincy, Lisa, and Sam are the Final Girls. Dubbed so by the media, the three women were the sole survivors of three separate, horrible crimes. For Quincy, the moniker is an ever present reminder of the day her best friends were murdered. But she herself has very few memories of that terrible night.

Then Lisa is found dead. The verdict is suicide, but Quincy isn't sure. And when Sam shows up at her door, she becomes even more certain that Lisa wouldn't have killed herself. Together, the remaining Final Girls begin searching for answers, but as they do, Quincy starts to wonder if she can truly trust Sam - or anyone. And as their investigation gets closer to the truth, she starts to remember.

"Final Girl" as you may know, is a term coined to describe the last woman standing in typical horror fare. There are multiple books and movies that bear the name (the film starring Taissa Farming and Malin Akerman is my favorite so far). And given that Riley Sager's debut (Riley Sager is apparently a pseudonym for a previously published author) has been hyped as THE thriller of the summer, blurbed by no less that Stephen King himself, you can imagine I was pretty excited to get my hands on a copy.

The attention this one is getting is not completely unfounded, but I think my own expectations of it may have been too high.

Quincy is a survivor. She's on meds to keep her stable, and abuses them to an extent, which is understandable. And she's shielded by the fact that she has virtually no memory of the crime that claimed her friends' lives. But when Sam appears in her life, she goes off the rails in a way that I didn't quite think worked.

She trusts Sam, as a fellow survivor. But we already know that she's made a point of never really interacting with the other final girls. She's spoken to Lisa a few times but Sam has remained hidden and fairly anonymous from the world. So I wasn't completely sold on the fact that Quincy would trust Sam so quickly. Her attraction to the fellow survivor, who is admittedly more outgoing and manic, and her quickness to follow just didn't quite mesh with the caution I thought Quincy displayed when the book began.

The story progresses quickly, with Quincy soon setting off to find out what really happened to Lisa. And it turns out Lisa herself had been keeping information on all three of them, which kicks off Quincy's returning memories.

Final Girls, by author Riley Sager, isn't to be confused with the 2015 "The Final Girls" slasher comedy film featuring Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman, Alexander Ludwig, & Nina Dobrev. Nope. This isn't a story about characters being sucked into a movie, and then finding themselves being targeted by a Michael wannabe who cuts his way through the film in a comedic and dare I say, over the top way. Instead, this story about a woman named Quincy Carpenter who is the sole survive of a bloody rampage called the Pine Cottage Massacre.

"You can't change what's happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it."

Since the synopsis pretty much tells you all you need to know about this movie, except how it ends and who the villains are, let's chat about the story itself. Have to say that this story had me going for awhile. Why you ask? Because Quincy has zero recollection (Dissociative Amnesia, repressed memories) of her time at Pine Cottage. Her addiction to Xanax and grape soda is a curiosity that takes time to understand. Her failing to respond to an email because she was either too busy, or didn't want to bother, was an issue that could have been resolved quickly. How are we to trust an unreliable narrator who was able to survive when her friends weren't as lucky?

How are we to trust that Quincy didn't kill her friends in a fit of rage? Quincy's dreams and nightmares are filled with guilt and grief that still linger 10 years later. But, why? Then strange things start to happen. Lisa Milner, the first so called Final Girl, is found dead apparently by her own hand. A second girl named Samantha Boyd, who was the second named Final Girl, suddenly shows up at Quincy's door after disappearing without a trace. Sam is a woman who has some issues, and those issues start to affect Quincy's life. Quincy's life with her boyfriend and her cooking blog and her relationship with the cop who came to Quincy's rescue after all her friends had been murdered, suddenly gets turned upside down.

In this story, Final Girls is another name for Pretty Girls who end up covered in blood, or are the last one's to survive. They are often the one's who stop the killer before the killer can get away with his demented crimes. Final Girls alternatives between present day, and the past. This is a story that will truly keep you interested in finding out if Quincy was actually a villain, or if someone else is responsible for the things that have happened to the so called Final Girls. There are plenty of twists to give you just enough of a shock to be impressed.

The final girl trope in horror movies is one of my favourite tropes. I like the idea of one strong, kickass woman taking down the killer and surviving. In fact, this trope was turned into a movie called The Final Girls. The thing is, you never see what happens to the final girl after the murderer is dead and she begins her new life.

Enter Riley Sager. Riley Sager is a pseudonym for a (famous?) published author, which I found interesting. This book is an imagining of what happens when the final girls, the lone survivors of serial killers and mass murderers, are forced to come to terms with what happened to them. Obviously, there is a lot of psychological trauma that comes after such experiences and this book is about how different women react to horrific events.

I absolutely loved this novel. Everything about it works so well. The characterization in this novel was absolutely fantastic. The main character, Quincy, is trying so hard to be normal and live her life, but she has this hidden trauma that comes to the surface once one of the Final Girls is killed. She’s forced to examine the life she’s built and see just how much she’s lying to herself and everyone around her. I also really liked the character of Sam because she was so different from Quincy. You got to really delve into the lives of the Final Girls and see what kind of people they had become. You saw how differently tragedy can shape a person.

The plot was so fast-paced and exciting. There are so many twists in this book and it feels like a race to the conclusion. Quincy has blocked out the events of Pine Cottage, and the reader realizes things just as Quincy does. There are snippets of the past juxtaposed with the present, which I thought worked really well. I thought I knew where this book was going and I thought I knew exactly what had happened, but I wasn’t even close to guessing the truth. It was a really dark and complex story, but still quite exciting. I think this book could be turned into a really interesting movie if done correctly.

I was focused on the writing of this novel too because I was trying to guess who the author was. While the writing is good, there’s nothing very distinctive about it. It’s perfectly written for a thriller, but this isn’t a literary novel at all.

I think this book is going to be really huge this summer. It has all the markings of a big summer thriller that everyone has rave reviews for. I’m so eager to read anything else this author decides to write. I highly recommend this novel to people who like slasher movies, psychological thrillers, or fast paced thrillers in general.

In following up on my thriller kick, I requested Final Girls, by Riley Sager, from Netgalley. Not to be confused with the Mira Grant book by the same title, this is a thriller about a woman who survived a horror movie scenario as a teenager and, ten years later, finds the safe boundaries of her comfortable life tested by a visit from a fellow "final girl."

Let me summarize my feelings with an anecdote. I was looking at a list of summer's best thrillers on Kirkus and when this book popped up (with a star!) my response was, "dammit, now I can't trust the rest of the list!" Sadly and in short, I did not love this book.

It started out really promising: Quinn lives with her perfect boyfriend in a perfect apartment in New York and runs a perfect baking blog. All is well. She is completely over what happened to her ten years ago, when her spring break trip to Pine Cottage ended with a slasher murdering all her friends and her running screaming out of the woods with no memories of the past hour. She's fine. Even if the only people in her life besides her boyfriend are the cop who rescued her that night and another Final Girl.

The Final Girls are a club of three women who survived similar horror stories. Lisa was the sole survivor or a sorority house massacre; Samantha survived a murderous rampage at a motel. They've never met, but they've emailed, and the press is fascinated with them. Mostly that's in the past, though, until the beginning of this book, when we find out that Lisa--the oldest of the three, their den mother and emotional center--has committed suicide.

As Quinn's carefully composed life starts to fray at the edges, she's in for another surprise--Samantha, who dropped off the map years ago to avoid the press, appears on her doorstep. Quinn is torn between wanting nothing to do with the role of final girl that they share and a strange fascination with the other woman. Thrillerly hijinks ensue.

I didn't hate this book, but I might under other circumstances have stopped reading it. There are two ways to do this kind of heavy-handed thriller--one, go serious. Throw the horror movie script out the window and think about how real people would behave in the very real scenario of something ridiculous and unbelievable. Two, go the other way--total camp. Maybe this is a world where horror movies don't exist, so no one can even imagine this situation. Or maybe you just go over the top in a Cabin in the Woods type homage to the tropes.

What you can't do is use the tools of camp--heavy-handed adherence to tropes--and take yourself this seriously. Like, we're not just talking murderers, we're talking murderers with interesting weapons and face masks. You can't treat that like a real thing that happens without building a whole world around this. This book set up the horror to be too campy and then took it way too seriously.

Plot-wise, I couldn't figure out where things were going for a long time, and I actually found that most confusing. The best part of the book was the last quarter, when I had finally figured out the trajectory of the story (and the twist, probably too early). The mystery here is whether Sam is who she claims to be, and whether she's got evil intentions or not. But the thing is, she's so clearly and completely messed up that I just didn't care if she was explicitly sinister or just kind of a jerk.

There is a thing that happens where you're drawn to someone horrible and you fight with them and try to walk away but it doesn't work and you just keep sitting down to drink Wild Turkey with them after midnight. But--and maybe this is just me--I would never, ever do that with someone I didn't trust, so I could not understand Quinn's behavior toward Sam. It made the book feel like a random assortment of happenings, rather than character development around a plot.

I think this speaks to a bigger problem with getting involved in a genre that's new to you. I know my favorite genres (sci fi, fantasy) inside and out. I know the tropes and can see them from a distance, and recognize pretty well who's going to play with them vs. adhere to them vs. butcher them. I know the backlist and the frontlist and what's coming next season and can winnow down what I want to read with comps and recommendations.

But in a new genre, everything is unknown. Who's advice do a trust? Whose taste do I agree with? Not just which writers are good, but what style of thriller to I even enjoy?

I'm still learning. And with romance or mystery, I can find trusted recommenders from other genres who can get me started. Thrillers, though, I'm flying blind.

So let's see what's next.

Final Girls - named by the horror industry as the only girl left alive after a massacre. In Quincy's world, there are three of them - the first being Lisa, the second being Sam and then Quincy. Quincy survived a night with her friends at Pine Cottage that was supposed to be a fun weekend. Stabbed and somehow left alive, Quincy's tried hard to make her life as normal as possible. With a successful blog on baking and an understanding boyfriend, she's moving forward as much as she can. For ten years she's managed with the blessing (?) that she remembers almost nothing about that night. But she does hold secrets on how she handles some of her post traumatic stress and she keeps that secret close to her chest.

Then one day, she gets a call that Lisa has been found dead in her bathtub and shortly after, Sam shows up on her doorstep. Bound by their survival stories, Lisa brings Sam into her home. Sam tests her and pushes her to remember and deal with her residual feelings of anger. But can Sam be trusted? Can she trust her own memories?

This book has been EVERYWHERE and it holds up to its hype. Written almost like a slasher film, it's taut, tense, action packed and keeps you on your toes. Trust me when I say that what you think it is, probably isn't... and it isn't THAT either. Flashing back to the night in question, we get a deep look into Quincy ten years ago and to her today - building up into a final reveal you really won't see coming. Riley Sager has a way of seamlessly building Quincy's world and everyone in it. I read this in one sitting and couldn't put it down. After turning the last page, I immediately went into conversations with others who have read it and we all readily agree - it's a shocker... and a good one! Already being touted as the thriller of the year, this book will be talked about for quite some time - get yourself a copy and join the conversation!

“They did it! They’re the killer. I figured out. WAIT! I changed my mind! It’s definitely this person! Damn it!”

At some point, you will assume every character is the killer. I read this in two sittings. It was only two because I started it after 11:00 p.m. It’s a ride. There are two stories running through the book, present day and flashbacks to when Quincy, the main character, became a Final Girl (the horror movie troupe of having one girl survive an atrocity). Sometimes dual timelines can be hard but this one was done really well. The narrative of the book is compelling and the characters aren’t written to make you love them. There are times when even Quincy is *almost* unlikable but the reader is prone to forgive some of her choices given the traumas of her past. This book has received a lot of pre-publication height and it definitely lived up to it. So many thrillers have poor foreshadowing and you can guess the ending about halfway through. While I suspected the reveal at one point, I was convinced later that it definitely wasn’t that person. Of course, at some point, Sagar makes you think that each and every character could’ve been the killer. I usually don’t read a ton of thrillers because I see the endings coming but this one did it really well.

Highly recommend if you’re into thrillers. There’s not a ton of graphic violence if that’s a concern. There is a teeny but nothing like some thrillers have and certainly not like horror books, despite the tie-in to the horror move troupe. Pick it up!

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 Stars. Quincy Carpenter is the lone survivor of the Pine Cottage Massacre, making her the third member of an elite group that nobody wants to join: the Final Girls. Lisa Milner, Samantha Boyd, and Quincy each endured real-life horrors and survived against all odds. Of all the crimes that have occurred over the years, their cases are the ones that captured the nation's imagination. Ten years after the massacre, Quincy still has no memory of what happened that night. She has managed to put the past behind her and live a relatively normal life as a successful baking blogger. Unfortunately, it's not going so well for all of the Final Girls. Lisa is found dead in her bathtub, in a suspected suicide. After the news of Lisa's death becomes public, Sam emerges from hiding and shows up on Quincy's doorstep. Quincy is suspicious of Sam at first, but she welcomes her into her home. Sam claims that she just wants to make sure Quincy is doing okay, but she's secretive about what she's been up to all these years. Who is Sam and what does she really want? Will Sam's presence help Quincy remember what really happened that night at Pine Cottage?


Final Girl is "film‑geek speak for the last woman standing at the end of a horror movie." This book is the story of a Final Girl's life after the last "scene." In horror movies, the Final Girl usually has a unisex name and abstains from sex, drugs, and alcohol. Quincy definitely fits the role! She has a “goodness" that arouses sympathy, a vulnerability that inspires people's protective instincts, and a strength that shows anyone can overcome trauma and come out better in the end. To the outside world, she emerged from the rubble as an archetype, not an actual human being with complex emotions who watched her best friends get murdered. When there’s an anniversary or new developments, the media descends on her doorstep and she’s expected to make herself available to the masses. Surviving a massacre has become her defining quality. She's expected to rise above it all and be the perfect victim. Even those closest to Quincy want her to forget the massacre ever happened, yet are still willing to reduce her to an "object of pity" when it's useful. She is shamed when she shows any sign of weakness. In the midst of all these expectations, Quincy feels herself disappearing. Her entire life is a performance.


The three Final Girls have different ways of handling their trauma. Lisa surrounded herself with friends and dedicated her life to helping others. Samantha went off the grid. Quincy keeps people at a distance and dedicates herself to her baking blog and a highly curated life. Baking allows Quincy to "pour [her] runny, sloshing existence into a human‑shaped mold and crank up the heat, emerging soft, springy, and new." When Sam shows up her door, Quincy's perfect facade begins to fade away. Sam is one of the only people in the world who understands what she went through, so she doesn’t have to pretend around her. Sam injects chaos into Quincy's life and encourages her to make the messy parts visible. One of my favorite scenes is when Sam helps Quincy set up shots for her baking blog. After spending time with Sam, Quincy gets even more dependent on Xanax and wine and becomes a completely different person. The rage she has been forced to lock up begins to seep out. Will the memories she keeps locked up finally break free?


I loved the atmosphere! My favorite parts were the flashbacks to the night at Pine Cottage. All the ingredients for disaster are there and the lead up to the massacre is tense. The flashback chapters are few and far between at first, but they get closer together as it gets closer to the conclusion. There were a few things that kept this book from being a favorite. In books with amnesiacs + first-person perspective, there's almost always a lull after the first third where I get sick of being stuck in the main character's head (In a Dark, Dark Wood, Gone Without a Trace, The Trap). The characters didn't come alive for me so much that I was invested in their fates. (Honestly, Quincy didn't always seem invested in her own fate!) The conclusion was the exact one I was hoping against and it made the parts that intrigued me not so interesting anymore. Some events seemed to not have much of a purpose except to mislead me. However, I also couldn't put it down, which is sometimes exactly what I'm looking for. I read 90% of the book in one day. It's a good summer read, and probably an even better autumn one.

As Quincy reads articles about Lisa's death, she gets a glimpse of what her own obituary will look like. The journalists focus "on the horrors Lisa witnessed that long‑ago night, as if no other moments of her life mattered." Quincy hates that other people see her as a Final Girl or a victim, but sometimes that's exactly what she sees when she looks in the mirror. Will she ever be able to see herself as a survivor? The Final Girls shows how horror movie tropes have roots in reality--the fetishization of young women who endured unspeakable horrors, while ignoring the reality of their situation. The sordid details of their ordeals are what sells papers, but few are comfortable recognizing the resulting trauma. I wasn't completely on board by the end, but I enjoyed it while reading it. This book is a good choice if you're looking for an all-consuming weekend read.

Final Girls by Riley Sager is the must read book of 2017. I was blown away as I read, constantly on the edge of my seat, biting my nails because this is the ultimate horror/thriller that will give you the chills. You do not want to read this book alone or in an empty house later at night. You’ll definitely won’t want to go camping or spend a relaxing weekend at a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Riley Sager ups the terror tenfold in a way I can’t compare to other thrillers of this magnitude. The horror aspect isn’t supernatural, but it does feel like that at times, especially during the flashbacks. This has a great horror atmosphere on par with Friday the 13th, Evil Dead, Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The twists and turns will you keep you guessing until the very end. The main protagonist is unreliable at times, much like the ones in Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, but Riley doesn’t stereotype her protagonist or copy her traits we’ve seen in both these prior blockbuster novels. Final Girls is on a level all it’s own that will be one of the most talked about books of the summer.
Quincy is a food blogger who lives with her district attorney boyfriend in New York City. Ten years ago Quincy survived a horrible massacre by a deranged killer who murdered her friends from college, including her best friend and boyfriend. She was dubbed as one of  the Final Girls, a trio of young women who were the only survivors of serial killers. Quincy has recovered from her trauma, but barely. She doesn’t speak to her mother, and she is always looking over her shoulder. She hides in plain sight, but is cautious because of the press and paparazzi who would love her to give them a tell all about herself. She is also friends with Coop. the police officer who found her that night, and ended up shooting to death the man who brutally killed her friends. They have kept in touch, but Coop keeps her at a distant for some reason. But then one day he ends up in NYC suddenly because he wants to warn her. The first Final Girl Lisa, has killed herself by slitting her wrists in her bathtub. And then out of the blue, the second Final Girl shows up to speak to Quincy. She’s Sam who survived from a serial killer at a motel she worked at.
Quincy is suspicious of Sam because she has trouble trusting people in general, but as she gets to know Sam, they bond. Quincy even invites Sam to stay with her and her boyfriend for a few days. But as Sam asks Quincy about that night of horror, which Quincy can’t remember, she begins to have flashbacks of that weekend, leading up to the night everyone she cared for was murdered. As her memories return, Quincy is finding out things she doesn’t want to acknowledge, including an anger and rage she has kept hidden below the surface that’s ready to bubble over.
The best parts of Final Girls are Quincy’s flashbacks when she and her friends were carefree and enjoying their weekend at the cabin in the woods. As Quincy’s memory slow returns of that weekend, the terror and tension increases in a way that you’ll be holding your breath. The last 50 pages will make your heart race and cause major breathing problems because you’re taken on a rollercoaster of a ride as Quincy figures out everything. When all is revealed, it’s a major shock; and what a shock it is.
The only issue I had, which is very small, are the ways Sam forced Quincy to confront her past and the fear and rage she had inside of her. Their actions that takes place in Central Park to battle their demons was a little out of left field and felt fake, as if to set up a certain path for Quincy, a possible red herring to keep readers guessing. But if you can get past this plot device, Final Girls delivers the goods. This is one book that deserves all the praise.
MUST READ BOOK OF 2017!

This book was great! I didn't see the ending coming and was totally hooked!

Every so often, there's a book that is heavily hyped up, and the book actually delivers. Final Girls is one of those books. All the amazing reviews I'd read had not been lying. The Stephen King blurb on the cover that this is the first great thriller of 2017? TRUE.

Quincy is part of a club to which no one wants admittance. She's a Final Girl, the one who survived a horrific night at a cabin where all her friends were murdered. Years later, she's getting by with the help of a steady routine of Xanex when she finds out that one of the other Final Girls has died, and the other, Sam, has shown up on her doorstep. Sam reeks of trouble, and Quincy is already struggling to keep at bay her demons.

I won't write too much more about the plot, because as is often true with blurbs and plot summaries for thrillers, the less you think you know about this book going into it, the better. I will say that the pace for the first 100 pages or so is fine, but the book is an avalanche that picks up as it rolls along, until you will find yourself frantically reading and turning pages as you get toward the end. It's accessibly written, with the kind of detailed description necessary to induce the feelings of a great thriller, without language that bogs down the reading. It's plot driven, but Quincy is not a character you'll soon forget.

My Review:
Loved it.  I'm a lover of horror flicks that seem to know exactly how ridiculous they are and play on just this side of satirical and this book was the first book I read that was a wonderful version of that.

I'm gonna go ahead and date myself and compare this book to the movie Scream (I loved Scream, it opened up a whole new genre to me, as I'm sure many others of a certain age - or if you want to date yourself further, Halloween) but this book was more than that, it was more like the entire Scream franchise wrapped up into one single book - it had layers people!  We have our heroine, Final Girl Quincy, and we get to travel back through her original horror story which is perfectly woven throughout this book and written in a way where you can just picture those classic slasher film shots and cast the characters in their classic horror movie roles, and we also get to see how that horror story ended and push ourselves through the layers of that afterstory and the ultimate mystery of her current horrifying reality all the while questioning just how adjuster and functional she really is.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book; I read it in 2 sittings and couldn't put it down.  It wasn't earth shattering or eye opening, but it was an enjoyable way to spend my time.  Final Girls was a guilty pleasure read in the best way possible.

What I liked:
-The way the original horror story, the reason Quincy is a Final Girl, is told throughout the book not all at once; it was part of what kept me hooked and flipping pages as quickly as possible throughout most of the book.
-That it made me think of the aftermath of the heroines in these horror stories we are all familiar with, it made me think of how some people learn how to pick up the pieces of their lives, and some people don't.
-The realness of the story of Quincy dealing with the press, both presently and after her original saga.
-The pace of this book.  It was told at a perfect pace that had me both hooked and savoring the book all at the same time.
-That this book didn't stop twisting.  No spoilers here, but I definitely enjoyed the way it kept flipping on itself.

What I didn’t like:
Honestly, there wasn't much I didn't like.    
- I did think this book was slightly predictable in a student-of-horror-movies kind of way, but like I said - that's a little of what I liked about it too; it knows what it is.
- I was partly expecting more of a scare before picking this book up.  I will say that while some books have kept me up at night, scared to fall asleep and succumb to the nightmares I know my mind has conjured up after reading them, I didn't lose any sleep after this one at all.  It didn't invade my mind like some thrillers do.

Conclusion:
I give this book 4/5 stars. This was a fun thrill ride, fun house of a read that kept me hooked the entire time.  I know it was a horror story, but it was one I happily read with a smile on my face.  It was perfect parts heroine story, fun scare and nostalgia to me.  I didn't give it a full 5/5 rating because its not a book that I think changed my life in any way, I'm not better for reading it and it didn't really make the think about anything a little differently or put me in to another person's shoes for a bit, I'm just a little happier for the time being after reading it :)  That's why I put it in the guilty pleasure read column.  I'm definitely happy that it is something I chose to spend my valuable free time reading.

A REVIEW COPY AS PROVIDED IN EXCHANGE FOR A FAIR AND HONEST REVIEW

Title: Final Girls
Author: Riley Sager
Release Date: July 11, 2017
Publisher: Dutton
Review Spoilers: Mild

Anyone who knows me knows I love a good slasher film and Final Girls gives the classic slasher tropes new life. It’s an engrossing thriller with enough twists to keep readers hooked from start to finish. It plays out on the page just as well as it would the big screen. In fact, it’s probably better as a book. Because as a book, it’s one of my favorite reads of 2017 so far.
Final Girls imagines a reality where a handful of horror movie-style murders really have occurred. Our main character is Quincy, a survivor and one of three ‘final girls’ who have caught the media’s attention. Quincy was the only survivor of a massacre at a remote cabin. She and some friends from college decided to take a quick, weekend vacation for a friend’s birthday. But an escaped mental patient from a nearby asylum ended up killing everyone.

Everyone but her, of course.

The bulk of the book takes place about ten years after the events that took place at Pine Cottage. Quincy is living with her boyfriend, she runs a successful cooking blog, and she seems to have put it all behind her. But then the first final girl, Lisa, turns up dead. And the other, Sam, shows up on her doorstep. Suddenly she’s forced to embrace her ‘final girl’ status once again.

As the story progresses Quincy flashes back to the fateful evening at Pine Cottage.For the last ten years Quincy hasn’t really remembered much. But Lisa’s death and Sam’s appearance lead her to question what really happened that night. The moments leading up to her friends’ deaths unfold over the course of the book. It adds an extra sense mystery as even the flashbacks bounce around. The scenes don’t necessarily come in chronological order. And their meaning changes over time.

What she remembers from the past often matches what she’s remembering in her present. The twists and turns unfold in tandem leading to some seriously tense moments and jaw-dropping revelations. With multiple mysteries going on at once and more than one person hiding devastating secrets, you’ll want to keep reading long into the night just to find out what happens next. (But maybe keep the lights on!)

Now, I will say that some of the book’s big twists felt a bit familiar. If you’ve watched as many horror movies as I have it can be hard to be surprised any more. But the twists and revelations felt natural and when they happened I was definitely surprised. They’re all very well written, too, and Quincy’s reactions feel reel.

Quincy is an interesting character. She’s dealt with her final girl status the way I would expect most people to do if real life were like the movies. She’s desperately tried to move on with understandably mixed results. Lisa seemed like a character with a lot of potential and I’m sad we didn’t get to spend more time with her. Part of that could be, however, due to Quincy’s own growth in this book and the potential for her to fill a similar role in any possible sequels. I admittedly wasn’t a huge fan of Sam though by the end I had a newfound understanding of the character.

All in all, Final Girls was easily one of the most my most captivating reads this year.

It gave me everything I had been hoping for from a book like this. We got a great story, interesting characters, and a decent new take on the classic slasher film. Sager did a fantastic job of bringing slasher-style murders and their aftermath into the real world. And I loved Quincy’s progression from the reluctant final girl to a much more empowered survivor by the end. I was hooked from start to finish and finished – and I know other readers will be, too.

Final Girls is a must read for horror fans and it’s easily one of the best horror thrillers of the year!

“We were, for whatever reason, the lucky ones who survived when no one else had. Pretty girls covered in blood. As such, we were each in turn treated like something rare and exotic. A beautiful bird that spreads its bright wings only once a decade.”

Let me start this review by saying that I wanted to love this book. I honestly went into it expecting it to be amazing. Everyone I know who had read it gave it 4+ stars, so that must mean it’s flawless, right? Sadly… I must have missed something, because I almost DNF’d this about a dozen times.

PLOT ➳➳
This book starts off by following Quincy, who is a “final girl”; this term is derived from horror films, and refers to the last girl standing. Almost a decade prior, Quinn and her friends were savagely attacked by a mass murderer while on a weekend cabin trip, and only Quinn survived. The biggest problem? She has no memory of anything that happened between the moments before the attack and the moment she was rescued.

Maybe part of my problem with this book was the fact that I went into it expecting it to pick up with some sort of action right from the start. Nope! The first 60% of this book had me beyond bored. It turns out that the bulk of the plot for the first while is just Quinn coping with what happened to her, getting to know her asshole public defender boyfriend, her Super-McSteamy-cop-who’s-clearly-in-love-with-me-but-of-course-I-don’t-want-to-sleep-with-him-who-me-nope-no-way-teehee savior Coop, finding out that the oldest “Final Girl” has just mysteriously committed suicide, and meeting the middle “Final Girl”, Sam, who is established as being Pretty Freaking Strange from the get-go.

The second half of the book is a slew of twists and turns that mostly just didn’t make a whole lot of sense and/or felt superpredictable. I think I guessed both of the “big twists” 30% in? And one of those big twists, when I finished the book, made me realize… why was it even there? What sense did it make? It was this huge build-up and yet it ultimately added nothing of value.

CHARACTERS ➳➳
Alright, y’all already know I’m a sucker for good characters; I’ll ignore a poorly developed plot all day long if there’s some good, solid character development and at least one likable starring role. Sadly, this book was not having ANY of my nonsense.

• Quinn is awful. I mean genuinely, 100% awful. She is so self-contradicting it’s pathetic, and she just makes one terrible decision after another. I rolled my eyes so many times I’m surprised they didn’t fall out of my head.
• Jeff, the public defender boyfriend? Also awful. He spends most of the book demanding Quinn to fit into his little box of Perfect Survivor Girl Who Never Dwells on the Traumas of Her Past™, and every time she slips outside of it and shows any form of weakness, he strikes.
• Sam is boring, and annoying, and she ends every other sentence with “babe”. That’s all I really can say.
• Everyone else is either too minor to mention or their entire existence is a ~twist~ so I don’t wanna spoil anything for you lovely folks.

FINAL VERDICT ➳➳
I wanted to love this book. I tried to love this book. I couldn’t do it. I would still encourage anyone who’s a fan of adult thrillers to check this book out, because seriously, guys, my entire friends list seems to be head over heels for this book, and if that’s the case, I want people to pick it up and read it and hopefully fall in love with it. That just didn’t happen for me.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Dutton for providing me with this ARC! As you can see, my opinions are entirely my own.

A special thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Group, and Dutton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ten years ago, a group of college friends went on a getaway to a cabin in the woods, and only one of them came back. Quincey Carpenter was the lone survivor of this horror movie-style massacre at Pine Cottage. The press has dubbed her as a "Final Girl" (a term that refers to the last woman standing in a horror movie). There are two other women in this club: Lisa Milner, who survived a knife attack that claimed the life of nine of her sorority sisters, and Samantha Boyd, who survived the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn. The women have never met despite attempts to get them together, they all want to put the past behind them and move on.

On the surface, Quincey seems to be holding it together—she has a successful baking blog, an understanding fiancé, Jeff, and a beautiful apartment. In actuality, she is using Xanax, and relies on the steadfast support of Coop, the police officer who saved her life that night in the woods. She also has no recollection of what actually happened. It is not until Lisa, the first Final Girl is found dead, and Sam, the second girl shows up on her doorway, that Quincey is forced to deal with the past and what actually happened that night.

Quincey invites Samantha, who now goes by Sam, to stay with her and Jeff at the apartment. Sam begins to influence Quincey and she engages in some destructive behaviour which is completely uncharacteristic and her actions are threatening to jeopardize the "normal" life she has worked so hard to build. Quincey begins to question Sam's motives—what are the truths and what are the lies? Why after all this time did Sam decide to show up? And why is she pushing Quincey to remember things she has blocked out? Can she trust Sam?

I didn't fully buy in. How could a complete stranger influence Quincey's behaviour so much? I understand that Sagar was using Sam as a vehicle for Quincey to deal with the past and uncover what happened, but it was forced. Unfortunately I had it figured out before the big reveal.

Great book, fast, cinematic, sharp wonderful characters. I couldn't put it down and will be featuring this as my saff rec upon arrival. Perfect for teens to adults, bound to be a hit. Can't wait to buy a copy! Perfect thriller to red during summer travel, from the beach to before bed. A real page turner!

MY REVIEW
After seeing more than one comparison to Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, I’ll admit I was a little hesitant about whether or not I wanted to read Final Girls. That just seemed like hype that few books could live up to. That said, however, when I then saw that Stephen King had dubbed Final Girls “the first great thriller of 2017,” my entire perspective changed. I mean, seriously, when Stephen King says I should read a book. I’m darn well going to read the book. And let me tell you, that man knows a great thriller when he reads one. It took me a few pages to really get into Final Girls and connect with the main character, but once I did, I literally could NOT put this book down until I reached the end.
Final Girls is a psychological thriller that follows Quincy Carpenter, a young woman who is known as a ‘Final Girl.’ A ‘Final Girl’ is a young woman that is the sole survivor of a mass killing. Sounds like something out of a horror movie, right? Well, it basically is.
Ten years ago, Quincy and five friends went to Pine Cottage, cabin in the woods, to celebrate her best friend, Janelle’s, birthday. Instead of the weekend of fun they had planned, however, their time at Pine Cottage quickly turns into the stuff nightmares are made of as all of Quincy’s friends are brutally murdered. Quincy remembers little or nothing of what happened the night of the attack; all she knows is that she was being chased through the woods, while drenched in blood, and thankfully was found by a police officer, who killed the man who was chasing her.
Although Quincy is the primary focus of this novel, she is actually one of three ‘Final Girls’ who have a presence in the story. There’s also Lisa, who was the sole survivor of an attack on her sorority house that left nine sisters dead, and there’s Samantha, who survived a late night, massacre-style attack at the motel where she was working. Dogged by the press and a cult-like following, as well as haunted by survivor’s guilt (Why did they survive when no one else did?), all these three women really want is to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on.
When we meet Quincy, she appears, with the help of a Xanax prescription, to have mostly moved past this traumatic incident in her life and now has a successful baking blog and a devoted live-in boyfriend named Jeff. She has also maintained a somewhat friendly relationship with Coop, the officer who rescued her that fateful night.
Quincy’s life is turned upside down once again, however, when she learns that Lisa, one of the other two Final Girls, has apparently taken her own life. Quincy had occasionally been in contact with Lisa because of their shared bond as survivors of such terrible attacks, and so she really can’t believe that after all she went through to survive, that Lisa would then commit suicide. And then when the third Final Girl, Samantha, suddenly shows up on her doorstep, even though she had dropped off the grid and disappeared years ago, Quincy’s life is yet again rattled especially because Samantha seems intent on forcing Quincy to confront and relive that night at Pine Cottage. The more Samantha pushes, the more Quincy questions what her real motives are for seeking her out after all these years. And then when new information comes to light about Lisa’s death, all bets are off. Quincy has no idea who she can trust, who she can turn to, and especially no idea if she can handle possibly remembering the details of what really happened the night her friends were murdered.
And believe it or not, all of that barely even scratches the surface in terms of what happens on this wild ride!

LIKES
Flawed and Complicated Characters. Just by virtue of what they have been through, both Quincy and Samantha are flawed characters. Sager does a fantastic job of fleshing them out, adding more and more layers to each character the further we move into the story. I was especially fascinated to watch Quincy’s seemingly together life practically crumble around her the more Samantha kept trying to push her out of her comfort zone and confront her past. Even though Quincy seems to have her act together, it becomes clear pretty quickly that it was more of a façade than anything else and that without that healthy daily dose of Xanax, she would be a real mess.
Samantha is such an enigmatic character. It’s impossible to tell what’s going on with her, what her motivations are for seeking out Quincy after all this time, and what her end game is. She’s also very evasive about where she has been for all these years – “here and there” and what she has been doing – “this and that.” It becomes a little unnerving that she won’t offer up any real information about herself, especially when she’s pushing Quincy like she is.
Endless Twists and Turns. Final Girls is one of those wonderfully well-crafted thrill rides that constantly keeps the reader guessing about where the story is going and who the bad guy really is. Every single time I thought I had things all figured out, I ended up being dead wrong. Sager is an incredible story teller and takes you on a journey that is full of suspense and twists and turns, and never once, even remotely predictable.
Past vs. Present. Sager has structured the story so that most of what we see comes from Quincy’s perspective. The chapters basically alternate between Quincy’s present day life and what happened when she and her friends went to Pine Cottage. So while we’re following Quincy’s day-to-day life in the present – how she’s coping, especially in light of the new interest in “Final Girls” following Lisa’s death, etc., we’re also being fed bits and pieces about what happened at Pine Cottage. It added so much suspense to have both stories, - the past and the present – unfold this way. I thought it was very effective storytelling.
The Ending. All I’m going to say here is OMG, I never saw it coming. Wow.

DISLIKES
This is so random and nitpicky, but the constant mentioning of the grape soda drove me a little crazy as I was reading. I have no idea why it bothered me so much, but by about the halfway point, I just kept thinking “No More Grape Soda!” This is obviously a quirk with me and I’m sure thousands of other readers will have absolutely no issue with the soda, haha!

FINAL THOUGHTS
If you’re looking for a well written thriller with a unique and unpredictable storyline, this is your book. And if you don’t believe me, you can believe Stephen King since he is the master when it comes to thrillers.

RATING: 4.5 STARS

I wasn't expecting a roller-coaster, but I got one. I loved the way that the main character was discovering her story right along with the reader. I enjoyed the twists and turns. I am expecting this one to be a summer hit!