I have never read a book that had tension building in my body until the very end, until Final Girls. I'm still reeling over the ending, which was unexpected despite my many guesses throughout the reading experience. Best thriller of 2017, a must-read that will have you second guessing all those involved.

Here is probably one of the most talked about thrillers of 2017 - and with good reason! When the King has a blurb on the cover, I'm drawn to it instantly. When he says this is the best thriller of 2017, then I need it! Riley Sager's debut FINAL GIRLS was an incredible thriller with a nonstop pace that had me flipping through pages.

Quincy, Lisa, and Sam are all Final Girls. All three are the survivors of horrific, horror movie worthy killings. Quincy was the only one to make it back from her vacation with five college friends. Lisa survived a knife attack when her nine sorority sisters did now. Sam went up against the Sack Man during her shift at work at the Nightlight Inn. Despite the constant attempts from the media, the three girls have not met. They just want to get on with their lives.

Quincy has finally gotten on with her life - a fiance, job, beautiful apartment, and her Xanax make for a great life. That is until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, from an apparent suicide. Sam, the second Final Girl, shows up on Quincy's doorstep and her world is turned upside down.

Quincy is our narrator, but we alternated between past and present to try and work through all the lies and buried memories. The characters were so well developed - you could relate to Quincy and she felt like a real person. The girls are multi-dimensional and as the story goes on we learn more and more about them. I loved how original this story was - a girl wandering out of the woods and covered in blood. That only happens in horror movies, right? Not for these Final Girls, that is only the beginning of their nightmares.

From the first page this book has you on the edge of your seat. If I didn't have work interrupting, then I would have easily read this in one sitting. The ending! Did not see that coming - I thought I could predict where things were going to end, but then a huge twist was thrown in. Sager tied together everything so well in this novel and I will be waiting for more from this author!

If you want an addictive thriller with nonstop suspense, then stop looking because this is the book you need!!

I give this 5/5 stars!

A big thanks to Dutton for the copy in exchange for my honest review!

Final Girls first came onto my radar last year, I saw someone talking about it on Twitter and when I read the blurb, I was so intrigued! Since then, I’ve seen this book everywhere on social media, it’s getting all of the hype. That always slightly concerns me, I wonder if the hype will be justified or just a major letdown? Let me tell you, the hype is deserved, dare I say this will be THE thriller of the summer?! It really should be.

Quincy is a final girl, along with Sam and Lisa, but what is a final girl? It’s a nickname for the last girls standing in a slasher film and the press dubbed the girls with the ubiquitous title because all three survived horrifying massacres. For some reason, before I started this, I thought they were survivors of the same killer, but that’s not it, they all managed to escape from three separate spree killers. I really liked that they were only connected by being survivors, their three ordeals were all chilling and absolutely frightening.

This is told from Quincy’s viewpoint in the present day and there are also sections set in Pine Cottage where her horror show occurred. The pace is steady until you get closer to the end as you really start to learn about what happened at PC. I loved those parts, the setting was eerily atmospheric and so creepy, exactly like a horror movie. This book toes the line and almost crosses over into the horror genre, especially in these parts because the scenes are so dark, disturbing and gory.

There are tons of diversions throughout the book, it’s a constant guessing game that you can’t quite ever figure out. It’s so twisty and spooky, certain scenes gave me chills up and down my spine. All of the characters behave in a way that makes you question their motivations, no one is trustworthy, making this one all the more fun to try and figure out. It was such a compelling, thrilling read, again I’m calling it the book of the summer, don’t miss out on this one!

Final girls is the phrase used to the last woman standing in a horror film. This story isn’t about a horror film it’s about the real life massacre of five college students in a cottage in the woods and Quincy Carpenter is the only one left alive but with a memory loss of the majority of the blood bath.

There are only two other final girls in the world, Lisa who was the only survivor of nine to a knife wielding madman. Sam who was attacked by the “Sack Man” and fought for her life. They all having these tragedies in common but they have never met.

Years later Sam shoes up at Quincy’s door asking questions about that day at the cottage and slowly inserting herself into her life. Days into Sam living with Quincy the tragic news of Lisa committing suicide is revealed, but everyone that knew her is perplexed, she would never do such a thing.

Sam is pushing Quincy to remember that night at the cottage and only through revealing the truth of what really happened will Sam find peace, Lisa’s death make sense and Quincy finally accept what happened to her.

Guys I never read when I’m not feeling well but I was sick in bed with the flu and could not put this down! The characters are so complex and the drama so mind bending that you will be raving about this to everyone. It’s scream meets Thelma and Louise.
5⭐️’s

So, what exactly is a final girl? A final girl is the last woman standing at the end of the horror show but these ladies where the only individuals who walked out alive from three separate multiple homicides that gripped the nation. They were Lisa, Samantha and Quincy. Beautiful women who endured while others around them perished. They had each survived an unspeakable nightmare, each of them now carrying their own story, a story that made them all survivors yet they were victims too. Together they were united, a common bond held them together and there was hope of getting these women together so they could talk and share with each other, but it never materialized. When the news of Lisa’s death comes, they were told it was suicide. The press is hot on this news and they do not back down. She was first Final Girl and it was thought that she had come to grips with her past. The girl’s detailed accounts of their experiences are each relived and I feel what they each encountered years ago. There are twists and turns as their stories are rekindled, as no stone is left unturned. There is a mystery to be solved and somewhere in the past, the answer could be buried there.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for providing a copy of this novel to me in exchange for a honest review.

I love a good thriller/horror book and I'm glad I was approved for this! Final Girls is a very compelling story that will have readers itching to find out what happens next. I don't usually get freaked out from reading, but there were definitely a few moments that sent chills down my spine. Since I read a lot of thrillers, I started to become bored in the middle because I thought I had it all figured out and was beginning to find the book was too similar to others to really enjoy. And then I read the twist at the end. Honestly, I probably sat there mouthing the words, "what the f**k" over and over for a good couple of minutes. The fact that it took me by surprise that much says a lot, so kudos to Riley Sager. I gave the book an extra star for that ending alone. Final Girls is a captivating thriller that will have you hooked from the beginning!

When Stephen King calls a book a great thriller, what do you do? You pick it up and read it, that’s what you do!

The Final Girls of the title is what the press has named three women who were the sole survivors of a murderous rampage. The story is mainly about Quincy Carpenter. She seems to be living her life in a “normal” way. She has a baking blog. She lives with her boyfriend Jeff, a public defender. She still talks to Coop, the police officer who’s arms she ran into on the night of the murders at Pine Cottage. But things are not always what they seem. When Lisa Milner, a final girl who wanted to be friends, is found dead of an apparent suicide, things change. The third final girl, Samantha Boyd shows up at Quincy’s and it is obvious that she is after something. She wants Quincy to remember just what happened. You see, Quincy does not remember what happened at the cabin. Why is it important for Samantha and why does she feel the need to bring out a darker side of Quincy? You will just have to read and find out.

The whole book is tinged with an eerie dread. It goes back and forth between the present and the night at Pine Cottage. You know something is going to happen, you feel it coming. You also know that something awful happened and maybe you don’t want her to remember. It is unsettling. It is uncomfortable. It is so hard to put down! I admit there were a few times that I felt a little scared and I was safe and sound, tucked into my bed. It will really take you out of your comfort zone. It takes you exactly where a thriller should. You will not be disappointed. But maybe read it when you are not alone and in bed.

I happily received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton in exchange for an honest review.

Let me start by saying that I don’t watch slasher films, horror movies aren’t my thing, and . . . I’ve never read a Steven King novel. (I know, I know. Don’t come after me with pitchforks.) So when I kept seeing a ton of buzz around Riley Sager’s slasher/thriller novel Final Girls, I wanted to read it, but I was nervous. In the end, the plot description drew me in and I decided to throw caution to the wind and read it. (With all the lights on.) I am SO glad that I did.
The title of the book refers to the final girl always left at the end of a horror movie. In the book, there is a Final Girls club, so to speak. Over the years, three girls, each the sole survivor of their own real-life mass murder stories, become known to the media as the Final Girls. The story centers around the most recent Final Girl, Quincy Carpenter. Ten years earlier she went on a vacation with five friends to a remote cabin in the woods. She was the only one to return. Now, she seems well adjusted, has a popular baking blog, a nice apartment, and a perfect boyfriend. She still keeps in touch with Coop, the police officer who rescued her ten years ago. Everything is going well. Until Lisa, the first Final Girl, turns up dead and Sam, the second Final Girl, shows up in New York looking for Quincy. What follows is a race against time. Quincy is trying to figure out what really happened at the cabin all those years ago before someone else shows up to finish the job.
I really don’t want to say too much more about the plot, because I REALLY want you to read it. In any thriller, I am always suspicious of suspecting the obvious person as the one whodunit. In Final Girls, Riley Sager (a pseudonym for a previously published author-another mystery for you to solve) does a wonderful job of placing suspicious elements on each and every character. I didn’t even want to wager a guess as to who it was or what really happened because a believable case was made for everyone.
I read Final Girls in a day, which is something I rarely do, because I just couldn’t put it down. It’s a thriller without being gory, and with all the suspense you could want. This type of book is not normally in my wheelhouse, but I guess it is now! I hope Riley Sager continues to write more books, because I am all in for every single one.

My rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)

This is the story of Quincy Carpenter, a "final girl". Quincy was the only survivor of a massacre that happened while she was vacationing in a cabin with other college friends. The thing is, that Quincy does not remember what happened that night, it's been years since the massacre happened and when somebody from the past shows up in the present Quincy's world is shaken.

First, let's clarify what the title means:

"Final Girl: The final girl is a trope in horror films (particularly slasher films). It refers to the last woman alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in many films including Alien and Halloween" (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_girl)

The story is told from the point of view of Quincy, and it alternates between her present life and flashbacks from the past.

Overall the book was GREAT. It captivated me and kept my heart beating fast till the very end. It has all the elements that a good mystery should have like complex characters, good pacing and an interesting story. I HIGHLY recommend it to all thrill-seekers and book-loving people.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

About the author:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/riley_sager
Website: https://www.rileysagerbooks.com/

Oh.. a final note, the book started by describing the main character baking chocolate-cherries cupcakes and that grabbed my attention right away. Baking goods and murder, you know the book is going to be good.

"We were, for whatever reason, the lucky ones who survived when no one else had."

Quincy Carpenter is the sole survivor of a bloody massacre ten years ago. She has tried to put all the memories and notoriety behind her, in fact remembering very few details of that terrible night. She keeps in touch with the cop that rescued her but otherwise lives her life anew, with her attorney boyfriend and a baking blog that keeps her occupied.

But all of a sudden she starts hearing from and about other Final Girls, as the sole survivors of these tragic events have been labelled. And her life is turning topsy turvy again.

This was a fast-paced thriller, with lots of turns and false leads. The characters were well described but I didn't find any of them especially likeable. Some of the happenings stretched the "believability" factor too. It was an okay story but not one I would read again.

I received this book from Net Galley and Edelweiss in exchange for my unbiased review.

I was intrigued by the concept but by 50% I was forcing myself to read. I don't care about any of the characters but I am still kind of curious about a resolution. I may finish it at some point just to answer the questions, but I didn't find it compelling or gripping enough to make me HAVE to keep reading...

Guys I am super excited to be a part of this Blog Tour. This is my first one ever and I’m honestly so happy it was for this book. The moment I saw the blurb by Stephen King, “The first great thriller of 2017”, I was very intrigued by this book. When I saw the opportunity I had to take a chance. I am very happy that I did. So now let’s get into it.
So I have to say I overall really enjoyed this book. I really thought it was going to go in one direction which I thought for most of the book and I was like okay this is going to be super predictable but it ended up not being so I’m happy for that. I should have realized that because it was super obvious and I feel if that was how it was going to be then you’re not doing the whole thriller/mystery genre correctly. I always get mad at myself for not realizing but it also makes me enjoy a book a lot more because I wasn’t expecting the outcome.
I didn’t love Quincy as a main character but she wasn’t bad. She obviously had been through a lot. Nobody should have to go through what she had been through. I did have to say I was a bit annoyed how easily she let Sam into her life. Sam is another girl who was the only survivor of a horrible tragedy. I understand why she ended up making that choice but I didn’t like Sam at all. So I spent the whole time questioning her and wasn’t thrilled that she was allowed to stay at Quincy’s apartment when they just met. I obviously didn’t like Sam at all. None of the other characters really stood out to me.
One thing I thought was really cool was the way the book would go back and forth in time. You would get a couple chapters in the present and then it would go to the past for a chapter and repeat. The cool thing about this was that the past I felt was suppose to give you a horror movie type feel. It wasn’t written in first person like the present was. I would assume that’s what the author was going for. I thought that was really interesting. I mean I know the whole book is you looking in on what is happening but I feel with the first person you’re suppose to be going through the motions and then in the third person you really are just someone looking in. I haven’t seen that much with books that go from past to present. I felt it really worked for this book. I was never really creeped out but I enjoyed that it was written to be like I was watching a horror film.
One thing I didn’t like was that Quincy’s best friend that was one of the people that died at Pine Cottage was one of those girls you’re friends with that you’re always doing things you don’t like for but you do it to please them and she does messed up stuff to you but you’re still friends. I caught that in another thriller I read and I guess I’m not a huge fan of that. I know I’ve dealt with people like that before and it sucks. I guess that’s why I don’t like that but I’ve caught that in a couple of books. It wasn’t brought up too much but when it was I couldn’t help think of the other book.
Overall I enjoyed this enjoyed this book. I thought it was a quick read. I would have finished it sooner if work wasn’t in the way. I had bad luck with books lately so it was nice to have this one help with that. I am extremely thankful for getting the chance to read this. I am super curious who Riley Sager actually is. I will be trying to figure this out. I would love to check out more books by them

A great summer thrill beach read! I can't wait to show this to my customers looking for a little suspense in their reading.

Well, then. This just might be my biggest disappointment of the year so far.

Let’s start with the things that I kind of liked. I thought the flashback chapters to what happened at the cottage were more entertaining than anything else. It reads very much like any number of horror movies and while it was basically just one big cliché, it was entertaining. There was also several chapters towards the end of the book where the writing was a little more suspenseful and even though I could guess pretty much everything that was happening, I didn’t want to put it down during that short time.

This book could’ve been a little better for me if the characters weren’t so dang annoying. I HATED them. Quincy was ok in the very beginning, but then Sam showed up and it just all went down hill from there. Sam was the clichéd bad girl psycho who was there to lead Quincy off the straight and narrow. But you can’t really feel that bad for Quincy because she was so easily manipulated and made so many bad decisions and she’s kind of a psycho herself. I spent the vast majority of this book being so unbearably annoyed by both Sam and Quincy that it just ruined the whole experience for me.

I know there are a lot of people that have really loved this book, so I’m sure I’m in the minority opinion here. But, as someone who has seen a good deal of horror movies and reads a lot of this genre, this was not very mysterious or thrilling. I also recently read another book that had a similar storyline with a girl who escapes a murderer and has no memory about what happened and the conclusion was pretty similar. Overall, this was a big disappointment for me.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 2 Stars

Quincy and Jeff live in a quaint apartment in Manhattan, where Jeff practices law and Quincy has a successful baking blog where she shows off her culinary creations. On the surface their lives are idealistic and enviable, but Quincy has a dark past that just won't let go and an unexpected visitor is coming to make certain of it. When Sam shows up she's destitute with no money and nowhere else to go, so Quincy agrees to let her stay for a few days and that's when the secrets begin to unravel. Secrets that threaten to destroy Quincy and everything she loves, but who can she trust and why can't she remember that night?

Sager has written a stunning debut that will keep readers up at night turning the pages. Highly recommended!

I am so excited to bring you my review of Final Girls today! I’ve been dying to read this one and it absolutely did not disappoint!

The main character, Quincy Carpenter, is what the media calls “a final girl.” She earned that title being the only survivor of a brutal massacre ten years earlier while staying at a cabin in the woods, Pine Cottage. The other final girls are Lisa, who survived a sorority house massacre and Samantha, who survived a hotel attack by someone named “The Sack Man.” The media attempted to bring the three final girls together at various times over the years, but they have never met. Quincy did speak to Lisa on the phone but never met Samantha.

Quincy’s character displayed strength in the fact that she was living a somewhat normal life (as normal as possible taking several Xanax each day) living in a gorgeous NYC apartment with a wonderful man and maintaining a baking blog that had earned her several high-profile jobs. But then she receives an urgent message from Coop, the police officer that she found the night of the murders at Pine Cottage, and the one that shot and killed the attacker that was chasing her. When she meets Coop at their normal coffee shop, she learns that Lisa has been found dead, apparently from suicide.

I really liked Quincy’s character from the start, especially the way she had still managed to create a somewhat happy and successful life for herself despite the physical and emotional wounds incurred at Pine Cottage. Then again, it probably helped that she remembered almost nothing from that night. I also liked her live-in boyfriend, Jeff, although at times I felt like he tried too hard reminding and assuring her that she was normal and happy. Besides Jeff and the occasional chat with her mother, the only other person in her life was the cop that saved her, Coop. He checked in with her off and on and visited her a few times a year just to see how she was doing and to make sure that she didn’t need him for anything. Coop seemed to be Quincy’s rock that she could count on, and although he was very handsome, their relationship remained platonic as if he were a concerned big brother.

Things take a very strange and creepy turn when Sam (Samantha Boyd, a final girl) suddenly appears at Quincy’s apartment. Having “been off the grid” for years, no one knows much about Sam other than from her initial interview after “The Sack Man” murders. Sam’s character seemed very suspicious to me from the moment she entered Quincy’s life and there were little to no moments that I felt any trust or admiration for her character. Quincy begins to transform into a completely different character once Sam is around, and even more so after new information comes out about Lisa’s death.

Without giving anything away, I can say that every theory I developed while reading this novel was completely off-base. I would think I had figured things out, but then something else happened blowing my suspicions out of the water. Riley Sager created compelling and complex characters and weaved them into a story of endless layers of suspense. I love it when a suspense/thriller proves me wrong, but Final Girls did this several times as she peeled back more and more layers of the characters. I was floored by the outcome but in a fabulous way!

If I had to mention anything at all that I was not crazy about, it would have to be the sudden and extreme changes in Quincy after Sam came along. Some of it seemed almost absurd to me, however, it all created a great deal of tension just making me want to continue on to learn the outcome of everything.

Final Girls is full of deliciously complex characters that created endless twists and turns throughout this novel. Raw emotions, no matter how ugly, were consistently put on display just strengthening the creepy, uneasy feeling about all of the murders and the idea of being a final girl. This was an amazing novel that I will not soon forget. I look forward to more from author Riley Sager in the future.

*Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Kept me on the edge of my seat. Blindsided at the end. Never saw it coming.

Thanks to Netgalley, Dutton, and Riley Sager. This was a great book! I loved Quincy. Her character was interesting and complex at times. There was a lot of mystery and suspense in that I had a hard time putting it down, always wanting to read one more chapter..I loved the ending, so perfect ! I can see this story continuing if the author wanted it to. It was a great read. I would definitely recommend this book and author.
My reviews are on Goodreads, Twitter. FB, Amazon.

Um….you guys….this book is fantastic.

Riley Sager knocks the ‘thriller’ out of the park with “ Final Girls”

Ten years ago, Quincy Carpenter is the only survivor after a weekend getaway with her college friends. All the other were brutally murdered. Instantly, Quincy is a member of a club that no one is rushing to be a member of …. the Final Girls. Quincy moves on with her life, finishing college, moving to New York and is now a successful baking blogger. (not as lame as it sounds)

Then…Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead.

And that’s where this story begins. Twists, turns and insane amounts of grape soda follow. There are shifts in time, from present day to the time of the Pine Cottage incident. This goes beyond the normal “it was X who did it”. I was guessing the entire time.

There’s a reason Stephen King liked this book.

Thanks to NetGalley, Riley Sager and Penguin Group Dutton for the advance copy of this book in exchange for this review.

This is another highly touted book of summer that just didn't work for me. I grew up in the 80s with the classic horror films of Friday the 13th, Halloween, Scream, etc and several blurbs have likened this book to a combination of those films....I didn't see it at all. I had an issue from the get go with Quincy, the main character, and her convenient total memory loss of the night at Pine Cottage. For me, that's a pretty 'take the easy way out' type of plot technique that requires the reader to suspend a whole lot of disbelief. When we first meet Quincy she's presented to us as a fairly stable girl who does have some issues and is on medication for anxiety but overall she's in a pretty good place with her boyfriend, apartment, and her baking blog. When Sam, one of the 3 Final Girls shows up on her doorstep out of the blue saying she wants to get to know her after they've both just found out that the other final girl has been killed, she not only lets her in but invites her to stay...knowing nothing about her and not bothering to even check to see if she is who she says. Almost immediately Quincy's personality changes and she starts behaving completely erratically and the 2 of them start behaving in completely unbelievable and implausible ways. None of it gelled for me plot wise and I found the whole story far fetched and not in any way scary. I also felt the author pounded me over the head with the use of the word Xanax which was repeated over and over again...I get it, she's addicted to Xanax but I didn't need it repeated to me tons of times. The Pine cottage storyline of flashbacks was underwhelming for me as well and by the end I had already figured out most of it but found I didn't really care what had happened anyway.