I didn't enjoy this as much as the rest of Dugan's works. It definitely took me places I didn't expect, but it felt unfulfilling and like the payoff for some great moments wasn't there for me.

I really wanted to love this book, it sounded so good from the summary. Sadly I just couldn’t seem to get into. I found it a chore to continue to pick back up so I ended up DNFing it. The main character also really got on my nerves, so that made it really hard to get into as well.

I enjoyed this book!!! I though this book was wild ride and i loved the twist and turns this book was the defination of unlikable characters but the plot kept me reading and so many twists and turns. I enjoyed the lgbt+ rep in this book,i struggled a little bit with the ending but def a quick read!!

This book was okay for me. I like the idea behind it, but it honestly felt like I was reading Final Girls by Riley Sager again. I gave it three stars. It was too predictable and didn’t really hold my focus.

This was my first read from Jennifer Dugan, but it certainly won't be the last! This novel is the campy, sapphic, semi-horror that I wish I had in high school. I thoroughly enjoyed The Last Girls Standing. I wish there had been more action or the novel's timeline had been expanded to include the massacre. I also would have classed this as middle grade or teen rather than YA, as the plot was straightforward, and it lacked the maturity of YA. The character interaction studies and world-building details were the strong points in this novel. I also love that this book gaslit me.

I wanted to really love this book! I didn't think it met up to the mark but I was able to finish it fairly quickly. I appreciate the opportunity to review this story.

The Last Girls Standing
2.5/5
Disclaimer: I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Penguin and Netgalley!

I think my younger self would have eaten this up, but unfortunately my adult self…Not so much.

I’m a sucker for a slasher but this one fell a bit flat for me. It missed out on all the fun summer campiness and I sadly found it to be a bit slow and boring.

That being said I think I would have liked this book much more if I had gone in with different expectations. While I was expecting a goofy teen slasher, this book more so tells the traumatic after story of said slasher.

I love Jennifer Dugan and I hope she writes other thrillers in the future as I believe they will only improve from here.

I can't quite get a grasp on Jennifer Dugan and it's confusing me. Dugan's graphic novel, Coven, is literally one of my favorite graphic novels ever. I enjoyed Melt With You, and hated Some Girls Do. I never know what I'm going to get with a Jennifer Dugan novel. That said, I wasn't a big fan of this one. Not because it was inherently, but it didn't have me guessing and at the edge of my seat like a lot of thrillers typically do. I found the story to be kind of predictable, so I kept guessing there'd be this huge twist that would make all the focus on the little obvious details make more sense, but that just never happened. I also think that just...not a lot happens in this for a thriller? There have been some huge thrillers to come out this year and I just don't think this one stacks up to the truly phenomenal ones that have come out. I think there's some decent things in this, but ultimately I just couldn't get into it!

Meh. I called the ending extremely early and then just proceeded to roll my eyes throughout the entirety of the book. Very predictable, very boring, this makes [book:Final Girls|32796253] look like a good book.

Failed to pull me in. Too much time was spent on minute details and not enough time building the story in a way I personally enjoy.
Unfortunately, it's a DNF for me.

I am a sucker for summer camps and thriller/slasher books and was so excited to read this since it also had queer representation. However, I would not consider this good or healthy queer representation and I was so disappointed. The relationship was so toxic and I felt horrible reading this book. It made me sad and I wanted to DNF if so much and not that I’m finished, I wish I did. Overall, very disappointing read.

I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

When I read the synopsis and saw sapphic thriller, I knew I had to read this one. While we have seen a wave of new sapphic books releasing, I always get super excited whenever we get new releases in the thriller, fantasy, and sci-fi genres. And while I do think this book will find its readers and its fans, I don’t think I’ll be one of them in the end, unfortunately.

I think this book played up the expectations of a thriller a bit too much, where it’s more of a psychological look at characters falling apart after surviving a shared, traumatic event. Most of the action of the book actually happens before the book has even begun, with both the main characters and readers unsure of what actually happened. I do think this book could have worked for me if structured a bit differently because the build-up of the book does seem to play up the thriller/mystery aspect of the main character’s past and the truth of this event, when in reality this book ends up focusing on different aspects of this story. It’s more about what the unknowing does to the MC, rather than what the truth actually is. While this is a unique premise, and one I can definitely get behind, it just wasn’t what I was expecting, and it made the ending and the book as a whole feel unsatisfying.

There is also a lot of filler content in this book, especially for a thriller. It feels like there are a lot of breaks and pauses between finding out new things and plot events unraveling, and while that might be to show how the MC is also unraveling, it actually just becomes repetitive quickly. The MC has a few thought patterns that all events seem to lead into, and while this can show how her mind is twisting and warping, it was also just a bit too repetitive. As a reader, I got the point after the first few times, it didn’t need to keep repeating it for me. I saw another review mention that this book could’ve been a novella, and I agree! I think it actually would have been extremely strong in novella format, and would’ve changed the expectations I had going into the book, and would’ve led to a lot of repetition being removed.

Overall, I do think there were strong aspects to the ideas and character building of this story, and I do want to try other and future books by this author, but I think this book was hindered by the expectations of both the longer novel format and being sold as a thriller. It feels more psychological in nature (and not necessarily in a ‘thrillery’ way, except for certain bits), and hopefully, new readers will come into this book knowing that, and enjoy it more than I did!

Thank you to Penguin Group for the e-arc of this book!

The Last Girls Standing is a book about Sloan and Cherry - Cherry and Sloan. They are the only survivors of a camp massacre and are forever intertwined after their shared traumatic experience leaves them bonded for life. This book was right up my alley - except I DNF'd it at 40%.

Sloan's trauma was not handled properly. Or, at all. Cherry and Sloan's relationship was toxic, and while the author did good parts to explore it, the longer you spent with the Sloan, the worse her character got. Cherry, while being a big part of this. book, felt one dimensional to me. It was almost baffling that we were told about this camp massacre and it was marketed towards that, but it was an event in the past that Sloan spends the entire book trying to recover. In the end, we don't even know the whole truth, which I think really ruins the book and solidified me not picking it back. The fact that Sloan was so in love with Cherry, and desperate for her to be who she said she was, just for her to kill her, was wild.

The ambiguous ending was not a good fit. Overall, the concept was amazing, but the execution left a lot to be desired.

A book my teenage self would have loved just as much my adult self. I thought it was a slasher but it was the aftermath and I loved that. I always want to know what happens after these type of situations. I love a messy codepended relationship and this was done in away I think is so fitting for older teens. It was suffocation and sweet. I still don't know what is true and false in this book. Both sides of what could have happened was believable to me.

Dugan is an auto buy author for me. She writes YA queer romances beautifully and I have had many students find themselves represented in her stories. I am also sure many of my students will love this take on a thriller. That’s why I’m giving it 4 stars. From the perspective of the intended audience I can see this being a hit. For me? Not so much. I found our main character Sloane to be a bit too whiny. Cherry was eerily possessive. And I’m not going to lie, I did NOT see the plot twist coming, but the ending? I have way too many unanswered questions. I don’t want a second book. I feel like a lot could’ve been resolved in the final pages and it was just left there. If it were solely for me this would be a 3 star book.

This was a crazy ride. I wasn’t sure who to believe about what happened. I felt that Sloane couldn’t trust anyone and the person she was relying on the most wasn’t reliable.

I felt that her relationship with Cherry was toxic and I didn’t like or trust Cherry all the way to the end.

I felt the storyline was a bit all over the place. You think it’s a random murder spree one second and then a cult conspiracy the next. But why did they spare Cherry and Sloan? I even asked my friend who buddy read it with me if the murders themselves actually happened.

The ending was wild and then abruptly came to a close. I thought this had some great potential but in the end I was left confused and conflicted about how it made me feel overall.

I liked that this started after the murders and we follow two survivors as they try to move on with their lives and process what happened to them. It was a different way of telling a slasher story and we see how Sloane is struggling with PTSD and unsure what actually happened that night.

I thought there would be more flashbacks than there were and was a bit disappointed. I wanted to see how everything went down, but Sloane is so unsure of her memories that I didn't know if what we got was real or not.

Sloane and Cherry have a co-dependent relationship that I found toxic and I wanted them apart. The characters in general weren't that likeable and I was just rooting for Sloane to find out what really happened and if there was a conspiracy.

The story did a good job making me question if anyone was telling the truth and who could be trusted. The ending didn't go in the direction I had hoped, but it wasn't a bad read.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for the copy.

Sigh….. I wanted to like this book based on the synopsis. I thought it was about the survivors of a slasher (Friday the 13th), but then the author brought in cults, soul mates, end of the world rituals, etc. The author just tried to do too much with this story. I did not like Sloan and Cherry. Their relationship was way too toxic.

I was not a big fan of this book for some reason :( It seemed a bit cheesy and unoriginal to me. I give this book a 2.8/10

This book started of slow. So slow I almost put it down and did not pick it back up again. The pacing was wonky throughout, but I did enjoy the little tributes to horror tropes and famous slashers throughout.