Thank you NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP penguin Young Readers Group for the opportunity to read rate and review this arc which is available August 15!

This is a queer psychological YA thriller. It is also a summer camp slash fest. I actually dig it. It is about Cherry and Sloan. They met only days before masked men with machetes decided to Voorhees the crap outta everybody at the summer camp where they worked. They trauma bond naturally. But new evidence comes to light and Sloan begins to question everything months later. Gaslighting or reality? Is Cherry a victim or the perpetrator?

Yes there is some moments where you wanna throw the book but honestly this was refreshing and spooky and had me biting my nails to the quick.

The Last Girls Standing is a great YA thriller about Cherry and Sloan who are survivors of a camp massacre. I really enjoyed it and thought the characters were well-written. The plot was nuts and it really keeps you guessing as to what is going on all the way through the end. The ending was crazy and I am not entirely sure how I feel about it. I feel like I am missing something and that some of the threads did not connect, however, it was really unexpected, and in some ways that is a good thing. This will make for a great spooky season read.

Jennifer Dugan proves once again why she is the queen of sapphic YA books, this time with a physiological thriller bound to keep you guessing till the very end!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review. This book hooked me right away! I love camper/slasher movies and the beginning of this book is just that! But, the rest of the book is all about Sloan and Cherry, the two sole survivors of the camp massacre.

Sloan and Cherry somehow survive a complete massacre that might be connected to a cult of some sort. Cherry says she remembers everything, but Sloan's memories of that night are nonexistent. Sloan and Cherry are in an intense relationship which is definitely stronger because of their survival. But, Sloan can't handle not remembering what happened and she begins to question everything that she thinks is true. She spins further and further into paranoia as she goes deeper down the "rabbit" hole (pun not intended!)

I was gripped by this story and couldn't decide who was telling the truth up until the end. But, I wasn't satisfied with the ending, which is what knocked it down to 3 stars for me. Still a good read!

3.75 / 5 stars

I really enjoyed the premise of this book, the idea of two survivors of a horrific event coming together and becoming fixated on what happened. I would have liked to see more of Sloan uncovering more of her memories, that part was interesting to me. Personally, it felt like it started to drag in the middle to the end and then the ending felt extremely rushed. I had a hard time finishing the book, but I needed to know how it ended.


!!!!SPOILERS!!!!!
The ending was not my favorite, it felt rushed and maybe a bit dark for a YA novel. I tend to like more clarity with the ending. With Sloan killing Cherry at the end, I felt it was a bit strange how quickly she started to buy into the soul mate theory.

Yet another Summer Camp Slasher book. How does this one hold up -

Summer Camp - Sloan took a job at a summer before she starts college and meets Cherry.

Survivors - and a few days later she and Cherry are the sole survivors of a tragic event

What’s true - this sets Sloan out to try to get her memories back, because she doesn’t know what’s true, and why it all happened to them.

Jumping into this book, I was really excited because it seemed like a fun mystery. I compulsively read and read, and went through it fast, trying to figure out what was happening. But overall I felt like I had whiplash. Sloan would jump on one theory to the next and then come back around in the circle without gaining any concrete evidence. You found yourself mistrusting everyone, and there were characters introduced that you never really get a full depth or handle on. The ending was disappointing, and while the story is a very interesting take on mental health, I’m not sure it was quite as solid as I wished it had been.

What was meant to be an easy job working as a camp counselor turns into a bloody massacre, a reimagining of slasher films like Friday the 13th. The only two to survive are Cherry and Sloan, who have become inseparable, sharing trauma that no one else can understand. Sloan can’t remember much of the night her fellow camp counselors met their untimely demise, but Cherry has helped fill in the gaps. Or at least that’s what Cherry wants Sloan to believe. Was Cherry part of the group that killed everyone? Are the memories Cherry claims to have real? Was it really a coincidence that these two specific girls made it out alive when everyone else died? Or was that always the plan?

I loved the idea behind this book. Psychological thrillers are some of my favorites, I’ve always found cults interesting, and I love queer stories. The execution left much to be desired. The story starts slowly, and the pace is a mess throughout the book. Multiple characters are mentioned in the book, but we rarely see them (or worse, they show up just to move the plot along). Included in characters who exist but do nothing for the story are Sloans previous best friend, Conner, and her mother, Allison, who seems to exist to solely hate Cherry. The last 30 pages were the best part of the book, but I wish there was better build-up, and we got to know more about our two main characters so they felt more natural.


Pros:
- Really fun premise
- An interesting queer relationship that isn’t completely healthy but also not blatantly toxic or abusive.
- An interesting doomsday cult (though I wish the story focused more on the cult)

Cons:
- Instead of seeing a therapist, Sloan sees a woman who isn’t medically trained and uses hypnotism (This just felt really weird)
- Sloan’s mother, Allison, makes no sense. She seems to want what’s best for her kid but doesn’t like the only person who understands what Sloan has gone through and even goes out of her way to make sure Sloan and Cherry can’t see each other.
- All the characters needed more work to feel real. The majority of characters only had one or two personality traits.
- The middle of the book is boring and drags
- The build-up to the ending felt rushed

Thank you to Jennifer Dugan, G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I will start with this, this book wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Honestly, this book dragged for me.

Also, I did not like Cherry and Sloan’s relationship. Cherry was too controlling, Sloan just lets it happen. I couldn't connect with either one of them. There was more than one time when Sloan made me so mad. She wouldn't see the truth. And the way it ended still has me baffled.

3.25/5

Read as an ARC via NetGalley. Book publishes August 15, 2023.

The summer before Sloan Thomas goes to college, she decides to work at a summer camp. Little did she know that everybody there would be massacred except for herself and her new girlfriend, Cherry. And Sloan can’t remember anything about that night. As she struggles to regain her memories, things stop adding up—why the camp? Why did she survive? And what is her girlfriend hiding from her?

This book was (inadvertently) the second book about Final Girls that I read in less than a week. Fortunately, it was different enough from the first that it didn’t suffer the comparison game. Unfortunately, this book just wasn’t it for me. The writing itself was good, but the MC was not a good fit for me. Dealing with significant PTSD and paranoia, Sloan spends almost 75% of the book with an obscenely high level of codependency that I just cannot stomach. Is it reasonable, all things considered? Sure. And it’s written very well. But if I have an ‘ick’ in the book world, it’s attachment to the point that you cease to function otherwise. ‘Burn the world down because my love is gone?’ Sure, no problem. But a clingy, catatonic state that Bella Swan would envy? No thanks.

As far as the actual plot goes, the author has done an excellent job of spiraling the reader along with the MC. Sloan’s memory is already a blank from that night, and the more information she finds the less things add up. It leaves the reader with a sense that nothing is right and everything is going to pieces. The ending was a complete twist and it salvaged a lot of the book for me. The whole thing would probably make a really decent movie, in my opinion. If you like psychological thrillers where everything feels off, this might be a good fit for you.

thanks to netgalley for this arc—i did not enjoy this much and didn’t even want to finish it. i avoided reading it because i found it to be such a drag but i pushed through and skimmed to the end. i dnf-ed another of this author’s books so i just don’t think she’s my vibe.

“The music started. The familiar thrum of the guitar opening. And the screaming. So much screaming. They were being murdered to dad rock.”

Why yes I am listening to Nirvana as I write this review. It seems fitting.

Sloan and Cherry are the sole survivors of the Camp Money Springs massacre. As one can imagine they’re not doing well.

Jennifer Dugan is so good at writing contemporary sapphic novels. When I heard she had a psychological thriller coming out you know I freaked out.

If slashers and final girls are your thing then you need this. As someone who loves slashers, I was suspicious of every single person. The author made it so hard for me to figure out who to believe.
I can tell you lots of people will hate the ending but I actually enjoyed it. It pays homage to all the wonderful slashers. You can’t always get a happy ending.

The Last Girls Standing is a fantastic psychological thriller. It messes with your mind in the best way.

I also recommend the audiobook, I listened to some of it and the narrator was fantastic.

Thank you Net Galley and Publishers for giving me a chance to read this book.
If you are a fan of thrasher movies and thought this would be up your alley you made need to think twice. It is definitely YA, so if you are looking for something to really scare you maybe this is not for you. The story also for a little convoluted in some places, overall this was not a book that tailored to my likings.

I got this as an ARC and I am very thankful but I just could not get into it because I am just very confused about the story.

3.5 stars
I was interested to read this book because Jennifer Dugan did an event with VE Schwab that I went to. I did enjoy it, but I think I was expecting something different. I think I thought we were going to get more of what actually happened at the camp and instead, the book starts after it happened and we get a few flashbacks. It's mostly how Sloan and Cherry were dealing with being the only 2 that survived.
This book focuses mostly on Sloan. She can't remember a lot of what happened when all the counselors at the summer camp she was working at were murdered. She is relying on her girlfriend Cherry's recollection. But as she starts to uncover secrets and gets snippets of her own memories back, she wonders if Cherry is telling the whole truth.
I didn't really love any of the characters. Sloan and Cherry have obviously been through something extremely traumatizing. They felt extremely reliant upon each other which I'm not sure was super healthy. I did like Sloan's best friend Connor who seemed like a really solid friend, but he only had a small part.
The plot for the most part kept my interest (though I was hoping for more of the actual event). Sloan kept finding these outlandish secrets and it was hard for her to figure out what was true and who was lying and telling the truth which made things high stakes. The ending was very strange and didn't have a cut and dry resolution which I'm not a super huge fan of. It was a little confusing.
If you like YA horror/mystery I would say give this one a try! I will definitely be checking out the author's other books.

So I really love thrillers normally and I really walked into The Last Girls Standing thinking I was genuinely going to enjoy the book. I wanted so, so, so badly to enjoy the read.
Sloan is a character you want to love, you want to wrap her in your arms and cradle her because of her lack of memory after the traumatic events that happened to her. Cherry is a doll, she's protective and kind maybe to a fault. I think I was really endeared to her because she's almost a picture perfect representation of the kind of person you want after experiencing trauma.
I found myself confused, throughout the book, by the kind of relationship the two shared, by the lack of boundaries, by the way Sloan holds on to Cherry so tight. At times I was rooting for them, other times I wanted them to practice having space.
I cannot emphasize enough how endeared I got to these two children, how much I wanted them to win, whatever a win would look like.
Spoilers ahead:
I hated the ending of this book. It feels incredibly dark for a YA novel as well as unnecessary. I wanted nothing more than for Cherry to have a break by the time the ending came around. I wanted nothing more than for Sloan to let people help her.
And I can't help but wonder about a kill your gays trope mixed with the validity of making trauma bound toxic queer characters. We don't need more of that. For so many reasons these young ladies deserved a happy ending and instead Cherry is dead, Sloan never got help with her PTSD and killed somebody. I just can't find it in myself to enjoy this book as much as I thought I was going to.

This was a really great book! Intended for fans of slasher films, based on the concept of the Final Girl, highly enjoyable in that regard. As a fan of the films, I was highly suspicious of all the characters and was certain there would be no happy ending. This contributed to suspense and dread and was a really fun read. The queer representation was a breath of fresh air in this book will be featured on an upcoming episode of Your Rainbow Reads podcast.

There's spots where this book really lost me. It was an interesting way of being written in third-person omniscient and third-person limited, in a way it'd almost make it confusing, but when it worked it worked. Despite some of that, the story and the mystery behind it really kept me hooked and thinking about it all the time.
AND WAS IT WORTH IT! That ending was amazing for it in my opinion.

Queer+ Summer Camp Slasher+ Psychological Thriller !!!

Sloan and Cherry just lived through the scariest night of their lives. Camp Money Springs just underwent a slasher/killer that killed everyone at camp but them. Sloan doesn’t remember anything is relying on Cherry for not only her memories of the night but her support in every way and Sloan tries to remember and process the events.

I felt like this had good bones. Like the plot is interesting just not well paced and the characters were hard to root for.
But I did read it in a day because I NEEDED to know!!!

Thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN group for an eARC.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this title.

2.5 rounded down

I thought this book was ok. To be fair, I haven't been super in the mood for YA, however, I did think the premise sounded interesting. I enjoyed the summer camp setting. This book is a good one for summer. While I liked the idea of the book, I felt like it didn't quite deliver in execution. There was a big chunk of the middle of this book that I found kind of boring. I found the ending a little predictable. I would recommend this one for people who really enjoy YA or older teens looking for a spooky camp story. Unfortunately this one wasn't for me right now.

This was what I was looking for, a good camp horror story. The writing is descriptive but not overly so. The story is told from Sloan's perspective, unfortunately, she is having difficulty remembering what actually happened which adds to the story. Cherry, Sloan's girlfriend, has relayed her side of the story to Sloan as many times as she's needed, but Sloan's starting to wonder if maybe her mind is repressing things for more than one reason. It was very twisty and turny and I loved every minute of it.