I want to praise this novel for bringing us a sapphic-centric horror novel. The Last Girls Standing has an intriguing core mystery. Still, when reading this book, Dugan presents a contemporary novel wrapped in a horror premise but rarely delivers on the horror. In the end, you get a rather dull and repetitive novel that falls flat.

I really enjoyed the last girls standing! I have been a sucker for summer camp stories since I was young and saw Friday the thirteenth, so that was an added bonus. The writing was great and the characters were phenomenal.

Summer camp stories 10/10

However the characters weren’t likable nor did they make me feel like I needed to finish. I wasn’t interested in finishing this..

Loved the idea of the storyline

Absolutely riveting! I was so compelled by this story and what was going to happen next! I loved the characters. I loved the way it was written. I am slowly becoming obsessed with this author's work!

I love summer camp stories so much, they are my favorite. Cherry and Sloan had some what of a toxic relationship at times and this was a little slow but I enjoyed the plot.

The premise of this book immediately intrigued me. Two girls reeling in the aftermath of a Friday the 13th style summer camp massacre. Yes, please. Being unfamiliar with Dugan's work, I didn't initially realize this was a LGBTQIA+ novel, but I jumped in with an open mind as I regularly read novels featuring queer relationships. That being said, the relationship in this book is so so so off putting. Regardless of the final outcome of the story, Cherry is a walking red-flag and Slone is clearly in need of some serious psychological help and some time away from Cherry. Trauma bonding is one thing, but the amount of obsession and possessiveness these girls display was honestly hard to sit through. When the characters are this off-putting, it's hard to form a connection with the story. Don't get me wrong, there are other issues with the story. The pacing is off with the beginning going so slow that the book almost became a DNF for me. Also, without giving too much of the ending away, it felt like such a letdown. There was this huge buildup to what should have been this grand reveal and then...we got what we got.

Ultimately, the book was fine. Not great. But fine.

I will be honest I DNF'ed this book about 30 pages in. I couldn't get into the characters and I found them annoying. I also think when I tried reading it I was entering a reading slump I will try to read again later in life.

Always supportive of seeing lgbtqia characters represented. Add in a summer camp massacre and you've got a deal.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review*

This book was pretty good - great thriller with a nice twist at the end.

This is was a thrilling read! I loved this from start to finish. I always adore queer rep but this was especially great representation wise. The plot twists and story were thrilling and had me on the edge of my seat. The memory loss of the main character made for a sense of unreliability.

Absolutely loved this book! The characters were so well-developed, and the storyline kept me hooked from start to finish. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a captivating read!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing this e-ARC. I am anticipating reading this soon and reviewing on my socials.

I feel like the depiction of trauma in this was detrimental especially by the end. I honestly don’t even know what that ending was. The book did keep me wanting to read because I wanted to find out answers like Sloan did, but the ending did feel like a “wtf” and not in the good way.

I have read and enjoy some of Dugans other works and enjoyed them. This however just felt…unfinished? odd?
It seemed like there was a lot of content that could have been filtered down or edited out completely. And the end with the way people dealt with the trauma of the girls was so uncomfortable to me.

I just don’t think this was the best representation of the authors talents

I wanted to love this one but it wasn’t my favorite. The characters weren’t as fleshed out as I would have liked. Fun, but not as good as other YA thrillers.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for access to an eARC of The Last Girls Standing in exchange for my honest review!

Everything seemed like it was going to be okay. It was the Summer after senior year and Sloan was a camp counselor at Camp Money Springs. She made friends, she had fun, and she started falling for another counselor, Cherry. And all of this before the kids even arrived for the Summer! But things go quickly off the rails when a group of attackers in animal masks charge through the camp in the middle of the night, killing everyone except for Sloan and Cherry. And now they're both back home--Cherry even moved with her mom to be closer--and they're still trying to come to terms with what happened to them, especially because Sloan has no recollection of the events of that night and has to rely on Cherry to tell their story for her. Even multiple attempts at hypnosis with a counselor have not helped Sloan to recover her memories of the massacre, and as her mind tries to piece together the few things she does remember, she alienates herself from everyone in her life other than Cherry. And when the last surviving attacker asks to speak with them, their whole world is toppled yet again, and Sloan begins to doubt even Cherry's involvement in the massacre and the truth of what happened that night.

There were so many wild twists and turns throughout this book. My sister and I read it together, and while we were reading, we were literally placing bets on what we thought was going to happen and how the plot was going to pan out. All in all, it was a really fun time. I loved getting to watch the characters go through the process of solving the mystery of the attack and the drama was *insane*.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for introducing me to Jennifer Dugan.

Given that I have never read any of Jennifer Dugan's previous books, I did not go into this book with any expectations.

So while the description made it sound like a thriller, it almost reads as a story about a trauma bond.

Sloan and Cherry survived a massacre at their camp where they were counselors. They were the only two who survived and it almost seems as if I very deep trauma bond forms between them. There is a lot of focus on mental illness and PTSD. Sloan seems to be more affected than Cherry as she struggles much much more.

So while I was half expecting a thriller, I thought the book was so much better than I initially thought it would be. There is fantastic character development. Now when I saw development, I don't mean about how the characters "grew" because the reality is, they didn't change but Sloan's journey into the dark world of mental illness was detailed so well, I have to call it a development. Sloan never came across as crazy. My heart actually broke for her, broke for both of them.

As I said earlier this was my first book by Jennifer Dugan, so I'm going to end this to go find her other books.

Jennifer Dugan has been a hit or miss author for me! Sometimes her books hit and others that feel rushed and disjointed. I wanted more from this book but didnt get it.

A killer strikes a summer camp and two girls are the last to live. Sloan and Cherry are two girls who experience the same trauma and their only way to cope is to be around each other and try to find out what happened to them. Jennifer Dugan writes this thriller in a way that the narrator's story is unreliable so it leaves you questioning up to the last chapter of the book.