I absolutely blew through this one! I loved it! It had the right amount of suspense and I absolutely love the concept of the book! It is a great take on thrillers in a way that is unique and different. It shines a view point on the victims of these horrendous crimes that is not usually shown!

What a great summer thriller for anyone who loves a good thriller!

I’m pretty much aware of what a “final girl” is since slasher films are one of my go-to movies. But in case you don’t have an idea, final girl is the last woman standing in a horror movie. She’s the one who has survived and outwitted the killer. And this book tells us what happens to the final girls after defeating their monsters. I really liked the premise of this book.

The Final Girl Support Group meets secretly on a monthly basis. The group has six members, who are all final girls, and Lynette is one of them. The book is written in her POV and we get to see how her life has drastically changed after what happened to her. It’s still interesting to see the final girls’ backstories eventhough they’re pretty much based on the 80s slasher movies. We also see how they deal with their traumas in their own ways. These characters are flawed and unlikeable but they’re all brave, vigilant, and badass.

It’s my first book by the author and even though it took some time for me to get used to the writing style, I still thought it’s great and very gripping. Some scenes are over the top and unrealistic but these are just some of the elements of a slasher movie. I appreciated the author paying homage to classic slasher movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and Halloween.

I really enjoyed the wild ride. The twists and turns. The gory and bloody scenes. Those moments when I thought I knew things but I didn’t. Overall, this was a very engaging and thrilling read.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Berkley/PRH for providing a free digital review copy via NetGalley. This did not affect my overall opinion of the book.

Grady Hendrix does it again. This book is about a support group of girls who were the last ones standing in serial murder cases. They're trying to live life somewhat normally, and help one another. Then one disappears, and the group knows someone is coming for them.

This is Hendrix at his finest. He takes a subject, in this case, slasher films, explores it, subverts it, and teaches us a lesson about women and misogyny, all while telling a fantastic story. I highly recommend it.

If you're a horror lover and especially love slasher movies, then you are probably all too aware of the final girl and what she stands for. Big respect to them as I surely know I'd be one of the first to die if ever in this type of situation (unless I had a butterfly knife or some deadly chopsticks in my hair or whatever, but I digress). Hendrix is one of my fave horror authors... he brings a bit of campy fun to his stories which I absolutely adore. He does the same here... but it missed the mark for me a bit unfortunately.

Hendrix introduces us to final girls that we are familiar with... but flips the script a bit so that we know what he's talking about without it being a straight steal from the books/movies. Personally, I found this a lot of fun but we never really get any type of dive into these characters outside of some transcripts/notes so we know which one they were.. make sense? And our protagonist is Lynnette, who lives a life of paranoia, is determined to try and save her final girl "sisters" as they get picked off one by one... again.

The premise of this is fantastic. The slasher/final girl lover in me loooove the references and had quite a bit of amusement in their particular stories. I do think it got a bit convoluted with all the red herrings bleeding everwhere and lack of actual suspense/terror that you may expect. Sadly, not my favorite Hendrix but not hateful either.

"Stay alert, stay aware, watch the shoes, don't get stupid, don't get dead. The line between being too careful and not being careful enough is a line you only get to cross once."

Those are words Lynette Tarkington lives by as a Final Girl. She's survived the worst night of her life...twice, but you don't get to be a final girl by letting your guard down. Thanks for the chance to read this one early @berkleypub !

I really wanted to love The Final Girl Support Group because I love slashers and strong female protagonists and I've loved some of Grady Hendrix's other novels. Unfortunately, my high expectations were not met and this one ultimately was just alright.

I loved the concept of a group of Final Girls meeting each month and bitching about their lives, the media coverage, their survivor's guilt and the possibility of a "sequel." I just didn't love how it was all executed. The story felt disjointed as it bounced between present day and retellings of slasher movies. I never connected with Lynette, infact she annoyed the heck outta me.

And speaking of annoying, I've noticed this author has a habit of introducing characters of color, but never giving them enough background or storylines to feel real or important. For instance, there's one mentioned in this story who was interesting, but before you even get to know her she dies.

Anyways, this is probably an unpopular opinion, but it's my opinion.

I am a big fan of slasher horror movies so I knew this would be the perfect book for me! If you’re a fan of slasher movies you’ll appreciate the nods to some of our favourite slashers throughout this book!

The Final Girl Support group was a fast paced thriller/horror that I flew through! I was definitely hoping for more horror than thriller, but still, this book was a lot of fun!

I did really enjoy the spin on the “final girl” story. Hendrix always puts his own unique spin on things and, although, I did not enjoy this one as much as The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, it was still a solid read and I would recommend to any of you slasher fans.

This May shock you, because I am
Shocked myself, but this one didn’t wow me. It was kind of just MEH. I was really looking forward to a unique plot, that Hendrix writing touch, and what I read was kinda basic.
This was a typical slasher book, I don’t think anything really stood out about it.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a solid book, but very forgettable. It wasn’t the best, it wasn’t the worst, but there was nothing to make it shine. It has a few twists, but they were so out there, it was unfathomable, or easily figured out.

Overall it was ok, but my highly anticipated book, was a let down.

Pub Day Review!!

4.25⭐️

🩸 The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix is everything that Final Girls by Riley Sager wishes it was.
🩸 This book was honestly fantastic. The story follows Lynette, one member of a support group for women who were the sole survivors of terrible massacres. Lynette is haunted by the horrifying ordeal she endured in her youth, and lives in constant fear and suspicion of everything around her. When it seems that the final girls are being targeted, Lynette will do anything to stop the killer before it’s too late.
🩸This book was really hard to put down. I stayed up until 1AM finishing it, and then stayed up for another hour after that because every little noise my house made caused me to think there was some killer moving through the halls. 😂 Grady Hendrix really went for it with this book. There was so much classic horror movie nostalgia, while at the same time the plot felt unpredictable and fresh. The plots got me good, the thrills had me on the edge of my seat, and the horror was pretty dang unsettling.
🩸This book is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. There were some genuinely gut wrenching descriptions, and some truly horrid scenes either take place on page or are told about through interview notes, or the like. That being said, if you feel like you can stomach it, I think you should definitely pick up this book. It was wildly entertaining and compelling in the best way. This was my first Grady Hendrix novel, but I plan on starting my next one this week!

Thank you Netgalley, Grady Hendrix, and Berkley Publishing for the early copy of this book!

We're constantly obsessed with the serial killers and the mass murderers, you hear their names all over the news over and over again, but what about the victims, what about those that survive? This support group is made up of those women, the last ones that lived, as they talk their way through their fears and their hopes as they learn to move on with life. But Lynette can't move on with life, she spends her days locked in her apartment, barricaded against the world, her only friend is her plant Fine. This life works for her, until they receive the news, one of the killers is back and he murdered a fellow final girl. Lynette begins the frantic race of saving her friends' lives, following all the important rules she's learned throughout the years. Fast paced, high energy, filled with twists you should have expected. Lots of fun, but also a great commentary about modern media and what we focus on. A chilling horror, but one you don't have to be concerned with unless you're a final girl.

Many thanks to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced reading copy of <i>The Final Girl Support Group</I>, available everywhere now!

Lynette Tarkington is part of a group she hoped to never be part of: The Final Girl Support Group, a support group for a group of women who have all survived horrible attacks and seen their pain milked for the consumer at the end of it. From movies to constant sequels, the massacre never ends on the night of, not when there's money to be made for everyone else.

After a tragedy took the lives of her family, boyfriend, and foster family, Lynette shut herself off from the rest of the world. Her mantra, "one is none and two is one," is specifically designed to ensure that she'll never be a victim again. She has no friends and her only contact with the outside world has been the therapy sessions she has attended with the other final girls for decades. When one woman announces that she will no longer be attending the meetings and another one misses a meeting, Lynette's world is thrown off-kilter. She immediately (and accurately) assumes the worst about what happened to the missing woman. Soon, a killer is stalking all the women that attended the therapy sessions. Lynette is determined not to be the killer's next victim but with the killer too close to home, she might not be the final girl standing the third time around.

On a number of levels, this was not the novel for me. While I originally found Lynette entertaining, I grew tired of her personality very quickly. She runs from one terrible decision to another, never stopping to assess her options or thoughtfully plan her next move. The journey just becomes more outlandish the deeper we get into the novel, with several fake-outs for the villain. I had to frequently re-read the text because the flashbacks, flash forwards, the transcripts, etc. There were also some racist descriptions i.e., when someone planned to get beat up, he was going to blame two black guys and a skinhead for doing it. It was racist. He even admitted it was racist because he mentioned blaming two skinheads and one black guy so it’s less racist. In addition, a few other choice sentences that should have been left on the editing floor.

We never got to see the women as fleshed out characters so you couldn't tell them apart. Even by the end, I was only able to differentiate two of the women. The book is meant to be a homage to 70's and 80's slasher classic films but as I am not a big horror buff, some of the references went over my head.

Growing up in the eighties I was absolutely terrified of slasher movies. I hated watching films like the Friday the 13th series, Halloween, or even the knock offs like, ‘Happy Birthday To Me’. However when the ‘Scream’ movies came out, I loved them. Between the meta idea of sending up classic slasher films, while also paying homage to the genre I thought was brilliant. Grady Hendrix gets big props for doing something similar here, taking the idea of the surviving girls from slasher franchises, throwing them in group support, and having a killer begin to take them all out for good. The focus of the book is on one of the women, Lynette, who lives her current life in a constant state of hyper survival mode. She effectively has barred herself in her apartment, any reason to leave it sending her anxiety soaring. All the other women in the group are arefrom fictional franchises, that are played as real here, again a wink to lovers of the genre. When one of the group is murdered, Lynette knows the reaper has returned for all of them, and is determined the deaths will stop once and for all. I loved how clever the book was and the detail Hendrix put into it, including fun touches like starting every chapter with interview excerpts or clips from articles either reviewing the various slasher films or critical analysis. What I had problems with was a pretty unlikeable leading lady, who is so off putting I found her hard to completely key into. Additionally as fast as the book moved, by the end the other women all began to run together for me, muddying their distinctiveness, and infecting the story climax with a slight bit of ‘meh’.
Still, there’s a lot of this that’s very fun, and I certainly think many people, especially fans of these movies will find a lot to love here.
Thank you to @berkely and @netgalley for the advance copy.

The Final Girl Support Group is a clever, meta sort-of sequel to the slasher flicks of the 80s, one set in a Los Angeles where those killings actually happened, albeit under different names, spawning a cinematic universe where the social injustice of violence against women is magnified by a genre of exploitation

Grady Hendrix has made a name for himself as an author of weirdly, darkly humorous horror, and that blend of tones is perfect for the story of a genre that devolved into 90s parody. All you have to do is look at the chapter headings to get a feel for what's coming.

The plot of The Final Girl Support Group is interwoven with its commentary, and that's where I found it most intriguing. Hendrix has a lot to say about a society that makes heroes of the monsters, turning hockey masks and razor gloves into celebrity memorabilia, leaving the final girl survivors largely forgotten. Two final girl backstories illustrate this, with one claiming her own story, suing the movie producers to get control of her own franchise, and another making a living off their misery, selling and collecting that memorabilia with the help of a monster.

As for the plot, Lynnette Tarkington is a final girl, although she's not accepted by the group as a 'real' final girl because of how she survived her ordeal. She's paranoid and frightened, expecting stalkers and serial killers around every corner, and her instability makes it hard for the other girls to accept it when she begins to see the patterns in what's happening to them all.

In a story of suspicion and mistrust, of red herrings and surprise twists, the pacing lags a bit in the middle, but it picks up enough in the end to make up for it. I guessed one of the big twists early on, but the second successfully knocked me upside the head, and the girl-power climax was one of those rare horror finales that actually pay off.

If you grew up with Alice (and Jason), Nancy (and Freddy), Laurie (and Michael), and Sally (and Leatherface), then you're the target audience for this, but if your only exposure to the genre is the watered-down parody of Sidney (and Ghostface), then this is the perfect excuse to do some cinematic research.

What a great premise for a book and even better it works. The last surviving girl in a horror event is a final girl. There is a group of final girls that meet to support each other, since they share a unique experience. This group weaves the stories of these girls around the actual 80s and 90s flicks of Halloween, Friday the 13th and Scream. I loved these movies and this genre before it moved to what it is today. While the book is a solid horror story, it almost seemed like some of the references were a little tongue in cheek. Especially since it references the film series made from their tramas. Sound familiar?

Lynette is a final girl that never feels safe. And it is alluded to but not fully explained for much of the book, that Lynette is not a true final girl. I like that you’re never really sure what that means. While the plot mainly revolves around her and includes the other final girls, you must decide if she is paranoid based upon her experiences or if everything is really happening as seen through her eyes.

I must admit the can we trust Lynette is well done. I spent a lot of time flipping back and forth deciding if she is a reliable narrator. The suspense was intense and I could not piece together what was happening. It is a twisty story, sure to surprise you over and over.

I am not sure if the book falls short if you are not familiar with or a fan of the old horror genre, but I enjoyed the ride and couldn’t put the book down.

This was quite the ride! In addition to being a fan of thriller books, I'm also a big fan of horror movies. To have the two combined sounded perfect for me! That said, I felt like the execution of The Final Girl Support Group was a little off. The premise sounded awesome - Final Girls (traditionally the last surviving girl at the end of a horror movie, or in this case, at the end of a real life mass murder) get together for therapy, but start being attacked again.

What I struggled with was the fact that there was SO MUCH happening. It felt like the climax of the book was at 40% in, then 50%, and so on...there was never a lull in the action to give the reader time to breathe or think about what's happening or what might happen next. While that did lend for a binge-able read, it made the book feel more over the top and campy than truly scary. It was hard to feel the suspense when the action was non-stop if this made sense.

Fans of classic slasher movies may pick up on the fact that the characters names in the book are based off of actresses who played in slasher movies similar to the book character's own story (for example, in the book, a character named 'Adrienne' worked at Camp Red Lake, very similar to Camp Crystal Lake that movie Alice worked at in Friday the 13th - the character of Alice was played by actress Adrienne King in the movie). That was a super cool touch, and I loved that element!

If you liked the CW show Scream Queens, you'd probably enjoy this book! It's very campy, over the top, and you'll likely need to suspend disbelief for this one. I will say that despite the long-drawn out ending, I did enjoy the reveal when all of the pieces of the puzzle fell in place.

This was the first book I've read by Grady Hendrix, and I've been meaning to read some of Hendrix's other work, so I'll be eager to pick those up!

I recently read Final Girl by Riley Sager and was a huge fan, so of course I jumped at the chance to read The Final Girls Support Group, seeing as it had a similar premise.

I love the whole idea of “the final girl”, the one that survived, the one that killed the killer, the one who we see bloodied, beaten, and drained at the end of the movie, but they’re alive.

This book explores a group of Final Girls, that meet up and support each other. One thing I really loved was that this showed how different people deal with similar trauma; one turned to drinking and drugs, one barricaded herself from the world, one married rich and built herself a security team and safe house, one became a counselor for others trauma, one moved into the middle of nowhere….

The fact that each one of them lived through similar traumatic events but live very different lives after felt so realistic, it wasn’t a carbon copy guide of “how to deal with trauma” but showed that there’s different coping methods and different ways our brains function and react to events. I loved seeing how their pre- final girl personalities shaped how they dealt with life after.

The story is told from the POV of Lynnette: she’s the “fake final girl”, the one who didn’t kill her killer, the one who is only alive by chance. She’s extremely paranoid, only leaves her house for meetings. Has backups of her computer backups, hidden compartments, hidden guns, security doors, hidden money, fake ID’s…..you get it. So when Lynnette thinks that someone is specifically targeting the final girls, she’s not altogether taken seriously.

I really enjoyed this story, which I found extremely surprising because slasher films are NOT my thing, but there’s something a lot different about reading one versus watching one. I got so engrossed in the story, the running from the villain, trying to figure out WHO the villain was….which honestly was a freakin TWIST and I was absolutely blown away when the truth came to light. It all fit so well with the story and was the obvious answer, but I also was barely able to put the pieces together myself.

There’s just so much I loved about this story and I can’t quite put it all into words without talking about major spoilers, but this was essentially everything I didn’t know I wanted in a thriller/horror novel. I loved the characters, even the batshit crazy ones like freakin Chrissy, the mental health rep, the throwbacks to classic slasher films, all of it was just so well done. I think this book is going to begin leading me into a new journey of reading more thriller/horror novels…and I’m okay with that.

Despite me being the ultimate scaredy-cat, I like horror movies, because most of the times at their hearts they are mysteries. (I just watch them between my fingers. With every light in the house on. And all closets firmly shut. And never alone.) Slasher movies don't usually have that same heart so I'm not usually a fan, but this slasher book was different. It played like a movie in my head, and even with an unlikeable, kinda (but justifiably) cuckoo lead character and her sisterhood no one aims to be a part of, it turns out to be pretty compelling. The story has multiple mysteries, but the first big one for me was what had happened to Lynnette. We don't even get her story until mid-way through the book. With lots of twists and red herrings, it kept me on the edge of my seat. What sealed the deal for me really liking this book was the commentary on what was up with entertainment centering on killing women, while this was exactly that. But ultimately I saw the heroism, the sacrifice, and the goodness in the end. That's what conquers the baddies. So there.

This was a great idea for a horror novel. What happens to the girl left alive after the credits role in a horror film? How does she cope? How does she go on? I really liked the concept, but the execution was just okay to me. First of all, I totally missed the connection to Hendrix’s characters and popular movie scream queens until later on in the story (i.e. Julie’s background story was reminiscent of “Scream”), but that’s just my fault. Guess I need to watch more scary movies. There were just a lot of characters in general and I found they and their stories tended to get muddled together. I did like how we’re shown how each final girl is flawed and how they managed their life after their traumas. And in classic slasher fashion, it was full of gory and gruesome scenes. However in the end I felt the story was a bit too outlandish and Lynette’s actions were just too unrealistic and crazy for me to really get absorbed in the story.

I really wanted to like this book. The premise is great, especially for fans of the old-school slasher movies, but it fell short for me. The characters were not likable (although as more backstory comes out later, they become more developed and slightly more likable). I think I may have enjoyed this more in a physical book format, because the narrator was hard to listen to. There were numerous plot twists, some better than others, and some kind of pointless. Overall, the idea is great and the idea of the Final Girls support group had so much potential, but this book just wasn’t all I’d hoped.

As a big horror film fan, I had high expectations for this book, and it didn't disappoint. The expectations were raised when I realized this is the same author who wrote the Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Slaying. This new book did not disappoint and it was a good, quick read. Lynnette is a survivor of a gruesome mass murder, but she might as well be dead. She lives in fear and isolation. The only thing that seems to keep her going is her "final girl support group" - a group therapy circle for women who are the only survivors of mass murderers (and whose stories have been turned into horror film franchises and items associated with them are sold as "murderbilia"). When their most functional member is murdered, Lynnette believes someone is coming to finish off the final girls. Will anyone believe her? As a reader, do you believe her?
If you like horror films, you'll probably get a kick out of this smart, fast-paced thriller. Grady - keep'em coming please!

Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, teen horror movies were a staple. No sleepover was complete without at least one Freddy/Jason/Michael flick being shown. So when I heard about The Final Girls Support Group I was very curious - how would this book approaches those hugely popular movies?

Well let me tell you I so enjoyed what Grady Hendrix created. Taking the final girls from the 89s/90s and putting them together in a modern setting was an excellent plot. I loved seeing how they work through today’s society and mindsets to try and survive in a time that has vastly changed since their near deadly assaults.

Filled with with twists, turns, and some pretty messed up situations, Final Girls Support Group was a tale I didn’t want to put down. Thank you Netgalley and Berkley for a DRC in exchange for my honest review.