Reminiscent of classic sleep away camp summer slasher films. Exciting, fast paced. Reading this story is a great way to spend the end of summer. Thank you Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review

I did not have a good time with this one. The characters were really...not great (irritating, is a better word probably). Being so annoyed by the characters really prevented me from getting into the story (along with the pacing of the story being so slow). I nearly put this down a few times, but I only pushed myself to finish it so that it would be over. I also could have done entirely without the sort-of half baked romance that was thrown in--it really didn't add anything to an already not very compelling story. The ending was okay, but that didn't really make up for the rest of the story. The premise for this one was really interesting, that's why I was so excited to get to read it early, but the execution felt like a rough first draft: the characters needed some umph, the plot was so slow, the romance was not developed enough to make me care at all. I do absolutely love the cover, but the meat of the story was not for me.

Sloan and Cherry are inseparable. Turns out you form pretty close bonds when you’re the only two survivors of a massacre at your summer camp. On that horrific night, 8 others were brutally murdered, but somehow Sloan and Cherry survived.

Months later, the two have become like a single entity. They are always together because they understand each other better than anyone else. Sloan trusts Cherry completely– especially since Sloan has no memory of the traumatic events and relies on Cherry’s account of what happened that night. But as new evidence emerges, Sloan starts to question what really happened. Is Cherry telling the truth? Or is she hiding something? Could this person Sloan loves with all her heart have played a part in the murders?

Whatever direction you think this book is going to go, I guarantee it will surprise you. There were multiple times I thought I had it figured out, but I was wrong every time. I’m not sure how I feel about the ending, but I appreciated that it diverted from my expectations. I also liked that this book was less slasher and more psychological thriller. There are so many summer camp slasher books, it was interesting to read about how the characters cope (or try to) after the fact.

Sloan’s inner dialogue was exhausting at times, as she kept debating whether she could trust Cherry or not. It got a bit repetitive, but it was also realistic inner dialogue, so it’s hard to critique that. I would say I didn’t like the characters, but this is a book filled with unreliable characters, so that’s kind of the point. This is all to say I was frustrated with the characters as I was reading, but that also made me read more because I wanted to know what they were going to do. So while it sounds like negative criticism, it’s actually not.

I have so much more I want to say, but it’s all spoilers, so I will just say that the more I think on it, the more I think I like this book? I can tell I will be going back and forth a lot. But either way, I will be thinking about this one for a long time.

This book has everything: lesbians, slasher sleep away camp, survivors guilt, cults, ritualistic killings, soulmates, annoying little brothers, shitty therapists, and Reddit crime fighters.

Great story for any horror fan. I highly recommend this book! I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for my Ark copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review. Sloan is absolutely enthralled with her girlfriend Cherry they are both survivors of a massacre that happened while training to be counselors at the money Springs summer camp although Sloan has missing memories from that night what she does remember is a man in a screwed up Fawkes mask killing her peers and coming for her. Her mom is forcing her to see a hip note therapist named Beth to recall her missing memories that night has greatly affected Sloan say stop talking to her best friends prior to the event but will soon learn maybe those she is trusting now cannot be trusted. While helping her girlfriend cherry and her mom Magda moved to a new apartment in her town she open the box and sees a rabbit mask that is similar to the fox mesk she saw the night of the massacre. when she asked her girlfriend about it she says it’s too hurtful to talk about. Which totally flies in the face of their mantra never to keep secrets. Until now Sloan has been very codependent on Cherry, but she counters the inner strength to investigate and find out what is going on. Especially after the latest visit to Beth. There is so much more to this year thriller/horror and although I really was getting tired of Sloans inner dialogue the ultimate story was a really good one with Colts conspiracy theories back stabbers Sloan will learn to rely on herself and she will also find out those she thought we’re over her we’re really just waiting on her to depend on them. This was such a great book so much so I wish I could tell you the whole story because she’s also adopted and yeah there’s a whole story along with that this is a

90% of this book is just filler, it should have just been a short story. At least then it wouldn't have taken long to get to that horrible ending. The relationship is toxic and only exists because of trauma bonding.

great psychological thriller that i couldn't put down

thank you to netgalley and to the publisher for this review copy.

Was hoping for so much more with this book. The characters were annoying, the plot was fine but I didn't really care at all about what was happening to the people we followed throughout it at all.

DNF.

Thank you to PRH and NetGalley for an ARC.

This was not at all what I was expecting -- and I just couldn't get into it. The two main characters were annoying from the getgo, and I get it was supposed to be twisty psychological, but I couldn't get into it. I found the pacing unbearably slow for me.

I did end up skimming to the end to find out what happened and well. Hmm.

Sloan and Cherry are the only survivors of a brutal summer camp massacre, and only Cherry still remembers what happened that night. This book mostly deals with Sloan trying to remember what happened. Unfortunately we don’t get hardly any scenes showing the girls meeting at camp or anything that happened at camp leading up to or during the massacre, which I think would have been a nice addition to the story. The characters and “romance” fell pretty flat for me. Overall I just wasn’t invested in the story and I thought the ending was rushed and unsatisfactory.

Reading this after Dugan's adult romance debut was massive genre whiplash but I still had fun. I don't read horror really at all, so I am not the best person to say if this was a good horror, but I thought the concept of following the "final girls" after the events of the mass murder, was really interesting. I haven't seen that happen before but again, I don't really read horror. In general, I had fun, it was kinda predictable but I don't really see that as a bad thing, and I think the way it handled trauma and PTSD was very nuanced.

"In this queer YA psychological thriller from the author of Some Girls Do and Hot Dog Girl, the sole surviving counselors of a summer camp massacre search to uncover the truth of what happened that fateful night, but what they find out might just get them killed.

Sloan and Cherry. Cherry and Sloan. They met only a few days before masked men with machetes attacked the summer camp where they worked, a massacre that left the rest of their fellow counselors dead. Now, months later, the two are inseparable, their traumatic experience bonding them in ways no one else can understand.

But as new evidence comes to light and Sloan learns more about the motives behind the ritual killing that brought them together, she begins to suspect that her girlfriend may be more than just a survivor - she may actually have been a part of it. Cherry tries to reassure her, but Sloan only becomes more distraught. Is this gaslighting or reality? Is Cherry a victim or a perpetrator? Is Sloan confused, or is she seeing things clearly for the very first time? Against all odds, Sloan survived that hot summer night. But will she survive what comes next?"

Always here for the final girls!

YA have been delivering really good thrillers this year. I enjoyed this book a lot. I always appreciate when the characters don’t come off immature. The mystery was easy to piece together and the representation was good. Overall I think it’s a good summer read to stay entertained.

Omg Jennifer Dugan really did that!!!

I’d say the book as a whole is more 3 stars, but I had to round up for the ending and to help the overall rating. We don’t get nearly enough queer (especially sapphic) horror novels, and I would like Dugan to keep doing what she’s doing!

It’s wild that authors who normally write romance/contemporary are so good at thrillers/horror. Stephanie Perkins, Ashley Winstead and now Dugan are up there for me! (Though full disclosure I did not read Perkins’ or Winstead’s romance books, as romance is not my fave genre.) You definitely get Dugan’s classic romanticism between Cherry and Sloan, with a side of suspicion and secrets.

The story focuses on the trauma following a horrific event, as well as the strain on prior relationships it can have. Sloan and Cherry’s codependency was at times so maddening/nonsensical (and the way Cherry treated Sloan’s mom?? Omg) but that’s how it was supposed to be, because trauma does not make sense. I can’t say it was successful portrayal of PTSD or anything like that, as I don’t have experience there, but I will say Sloan’s anxiety was familiar to me.

I feel like the story was a little slow, and there was quite the repetition of Sloan suspecting Cherry—wait no it’s fine—actually she’s sketchy—well maybe she’s not… and I get how that played into the story as a whole, but I wish there had been more action/unraveling/layers. Something to give us an even better look into Sloan’s psyche. Because the ending (while glorious) was kind of abrupt.

Jennifer Dugan's debut YA thriller was unfortunately a miss for me. I wanted to love this one so much: sapphics! Summer camp! That cover! But the ending didn't have the payoff I was expecting, and the mystery took too long to get going.

I came into this book expecting something of a fun summer slasher, but that's not what this book is. Ever leave a horror movie thinking: okay, that was fun, but if this were real the Final Girl would be super messed up...how do you deal with surviving after?

Dugan deserves an immense amount of credit for crafting a narrative around a character who is suffering from a deteriorating mental state in the aftermath of trauma. Because Sloan is so unreliable, the reader is constantly torn between thinking she's jumping at shadows and suspecting she's being gaslit. It's a masterclass of character development that has the reader hanging on to the last page, desperate for the answers!

I wish the ending lived up to its promise.

Not because the answers are disappointing, but because so much is left unanswered. The story basically set up two outcomes: either Sloan was right to be suspicious, or sometimes trauma survivors have to come to grips with the idea that horrific things can happen to us for no reason.

Somehow, we ended up getting a worse, third path: repeating cycles of violence with no clarity as to the mysteries we were set up for.

As a reader, I was also left deeply troubled by the implications of telling a story about a deteriorating, repeatedly traumatized person that basically ends with her being destroyed by what happened to her and taking other people down with her. You don't always have to leave readers with a happy ending, but this one leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

I'd give this book 2.5 stars for the plot. I round up to 3 for Dugan's demonstrable skill in the craft of writing.

**spoiler alert** this book was compulsively readable and i flew through it! unfortunately i don't think it was ultimately for me—i'm a little worried that the way this book portrayed PTSD can perpetuate harmful stereotypes about mental illness and trauma victims. although i appreciated the central (toxic!) sapphic relationship, i thought this book was ramping up to a wildly different conclusion—but ending didn't sit very well with me. there's unreliable narrators, and then there are portrayals of unreliable narrators that feel harmful, and this struck me as the latter—still, though, i love dugan's voice in this, and i will likely pick up more books by her after this. in the end though, i couldn't quite look past the portrayal of PTSD and the unaddressed validation of toxic relationships and gaslighters in this one.

thank you to netgalley for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin, and Jennifer Dugan for the advanced copy of The Last Girls Standing.

As a fan of horror, I’m a sucker for anything that has a summer camp theme to it, even in boom form, so I was excited to read Dugan’s The Last Girls Standing. And while I wasn’t disappointed, I wish there had been *more* to the story.

The book follows Sloan and Cherry, the only two survivors of a summer camp murder, as they’re trying to navigate their lives after the tragedy. Unfortunately, neither one of them is particularly likable as a character. Sloan was okay for me, but I couldn’t stand any time Cherry was on the page.

The romance to me felt weird as well, I would have LOVED to see more scenes of them at camp getting to know each other, but any scenes of the camp is scant, even though it’s the one thing Sloan thinks about constantly.

There’s not really much else to say about the book other than the writing style was fun in my opinion and I really liked it, but characters and plot felt lacking to me.

Overall if you’re looking for a quick read as a fan of horror movies/books I would for sure give it a try, it just wasn’t a favorite of mine.

Sloan and Cherry are the only survivors from a massacre at summer camp. Sloan has lost her memory, and is seeking to find out ‘why’. Cherry has become her love interest and is very overprotective of Sloan to the point of controlling. Now Sloan worries that Cherry may have secrets regarding her involvement in the horrible incident. No matter where Sloan goes it seems Cherry is tracking her and following her. Very intense, Some romance. And murder.

A solid thriller with a slow start. I would've preferred more slasher fun and maybe a deep dive into the massacre and all things culty, but I still had fun.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC!