Member Reviews
Hard book to get into once past chapter 4 was very good great story
This book is brilliant it kept me guessing all way through, very very well written,i couldn't put it down,i thought i new what was going to happen,or what was going to happen,but it changes all the way through,this book is a must read,it should be made into a film,well done great read.
I loved this book it gripped me from beginning to the end, there's loads of twists and turns
Final Girls is a fabulous psychological thriller. The story centres around Quincy Carpenter who is the sole survivor of a massacre in a wood cabin when her friends get murdered. Along with Lisa and Samantha, both sole survivors of horrendous massacres the 3 girls have been called The Final Girls by the press. This story is a real page turner I had to read every night to feel and imagine every step that the story tells. Gripping and tense and highly recommended.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32796253-final-girls
Quel suprise yet another book with "girl" in the title. Surely this will be amazingly brilliant like all the others, well, Stephen King has said that this book is "The first great thriller of 2017" and who am I to argue. This book is going to be huge.
I don´t think the current blurb does it justice, its a great story that is written so well. This is Riley Sagers first book and if this is anything to go by we are in for a treat over the coming years.
There are two stories here. As Quincy remembers the details of the missing hours, We hear the story of what really happened at Pine Cottage and the story of the three Final Girls, Quincy, Sam and Lisa. Both stories will keep you on your toes and are full of tension with both converging in a fantastic ending. The possible outcomes of this story are all hinted upon and you are never sure which avenue Riley Sager is taking you until you get there and for me it wasnt expected.
Great read and highly recommended.
This was a fascinating story of the results of a traumatic episode on the lives of the survivors. Some really good characters that make the story flow. A real teaser in places and a surprising conclusion. Excellent read.
Great book. Enthralling read, and kept me guessing right to the end. Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Speechless! That rounds things up. I still cannot believe this was a debut novel because of its complexity in character development and plot and penmanship.
Let's not forget the way this book surprised me completely, because I did NOT see that coming, and I am great guessing things in thriller! But no, this one was a complete surprise and one I still can't get out of my head.
It might have been lacking a bit in the mystery part during most of the novel, but that's only because it gave more importance to the characters in a way that wanted the reader to really get to know them.
I found the writing to be really good, easy, fast paced and thrilling. It definitely felt like a fresh and vivid read and its short chapters also helped the story to move along in an addictive and nerve-breaking way.
The switch between present and past that took part slowly in every couple of chapters was fluid and tricky. It kept you guessing because Quincy's Final Girl plot unravelled bit by bit, so you couldn't get the complete picture, which was a great idea because that way you kept guessing wrong all of the time.
It started out slowly which is something I usually don't like in any other genres, but in these type of psychological thrillers I think it's the way to go. That slow burning method is what helps you get into the character's mind
Keep in mind that this story was a hard one to summarize and try to speak about giving the particular genre of it, where it is so easy to spoil things when one doesn't want to. So I kept things as light as possible.
This one took the Final Girl concept to a whole other level! although it might start a bit slow, it gives some Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer vibes, giving the concept of it all, but in this case the author just took it all up a notch and made everything more confusing, thrilling and overall mouth-watering! We start this story knowing that there are currently three Final Girls in the US. Fina Girl aka the lone survivor of a massacre.
We follow Quincy, a final girl (she doesn't believe in this term and says she is not such thing) with some serious memory problems who apparently adjusted (or so she thinks) quite well to the normal life she now leads. She lives in NYC with a stable companion, Jeff, in an apparent great apartment (thanks to some unexpected money), has a blog and has no friends except for the officer who saved her that tragic day years ago, Cooper. That's all we know about how this woman passes her days. Neither she nor her companion talk about her past, they simply ran a thick veil through all of that misery. Everything is calm and clear until one day one of the surviving final girls turns up dead, from an apparent suicide. This happening is the start of a frantic recollection. Another day all of a sudden Sam, the other final girl, Sam, appears in Quincy's door wanting to reconnect, be there for her, basically whatever she wants/needs. This appearance takes Quincy's life by surprise and slowly starts to turn everything into an absolute chaos or more precisely starts to point out how Quincy's life is not normal or not OK at all, doesn't matter what she tries to project to the outside world, the inside is just rotten. Quincy and Sam make quite the pair and although Quincy is happy at first to have some understanding company, her significant other, Jeff, and her trusted saviour/counselor, Cooper, don't feel the same way. Things evolve, plots get more complicated and confusing giving that we keep getting glimpses into what happened to bring Quincy to this situation.
Things seem to go in a clear direction, but as it turns out, the plot keeps thickening and you find yourself immersed in this zigzag road with no clear finish line.
Is fair to say that this book starts slow and that gives as the opportunity to get to know our main protagonist better and get into the psychological part of this thriller. It set the foundation for what's to come pretty well. And along the way, I fell in a nerve-wrecking state more than once and twice, giving some of our character's actions!! I left myself go completely into this read.
Suffice to say that I didn't see the final twist coming. In fact, I had taken a note about something similar happening but I underlined it as an impossible, because the absurdity of it all, but well, guess my surprise when everything turned out the way it did! This book left me open-mouthed and completely in love with it, but also left me exhausted because of all of the energy I had put into it.
This story brings a good cocktail of different characters to live. From the now to the flashbacks we get so many different storylines and personalities that enrich this story.
Quincy is our main protagonist and is such a rich and enraging character... She is the one that made me so anxious, angry and frustrated... but also equally engaged into the story and her Final Girl situation and development. Her boyfriend Fred was another great addition because it served to give her character some kind of moral compass to it all.
Sam, is a tricky character to describe. I didn't like her from the beginning, but still I recognized something good in her, something that wanted to help Quincy, in her own strange way that is. Not an especially nice or bright character, but one necessary to unveil everything in Quincy's darken memories.
Then we've got Cooper, the officer who rescued Quincy in the first place. We get presented to this character as a sweet guy, secretly and at some degree in love with Quincy. He is another character who is always there for her and frankly he is the major pillar in Quincy's foundation.
Between the flashback characters we meet a colorful arrange of teenagers. An apparent, at first glance, nice and funny bunch with some jealousy entwined. But it was specially one sweet guy that caught my eye at the end of it all, which only made this story's ending even sadder.
Wow! That was my first reaction when I turned the last page of this book.
The Final Girls is a dark and gripping read. The author had me hooked to the story right from the beginning of this book, so much so that I literally could not put it down until I finished it.
This was a fast paced thriller and although I thought I might know the answers the author managed to throw in enough red herrings to keep me guessing until the end.
Riley Sager has created a brilliant story with twists and turns that leaves you not knowing who or what to believe. A must read for 2017.
A really fascinating and gripping novel. It got me intrigued in the psychology of sole survivor syndrome for this seemed to fill the majority of the novel. I could empathise with the assault in the park (bearing in mind her mental state and being egged on) but never condone it. However, underneath all this is a roller coaster of a sub plot which links in a way that cannot easily be forecast, right up to the grand finale, the big showdown. I would challenge anyone to second guess all the twists and turns as they develop. The novel is lengthy but never dull and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the genre
This is an impressive debut that’s difficult to summarise without giving spoilers. So I’ll just say it’s a pacy, well-written thriller full of twists and turns and red herrings that leads you up the garden path and back again until the final unexpected reveal. There are two teeny clues along the way that point to what really happened at Pine Cottage but if you’re able to put them together to arrive at the solution before you read it on the page, then you deserve congratulations (or you’re lying!). My only slight reservation is that I didn’t really fall in love with Quincy as a character but the unfolding plot kept me hooked in spite of this.
Excellently plotted and written. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will be looking out for more by this talented author
Each girl survived an unthinkable horror. Now someone wants them dead...
They were called The Final Girls.
Three young women who survived unimaginable horror. Three victims of separate massacres grouped together by the press. Three strangers bound by similar traumas.
Lisa. Quincy. Samantha.
When something terrible happens to Lisa, put-together Quincy and volatile Sam finally meet. Each one influences the other. Each one has dark secrets. And after the bloodstained fingers of the past reach into the present, each one will never be the same.
I was given an ARC by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
This book begins in the past as one of the female protagonists, Quincy is fleeing for her life from the cottage her friends were killed in. The chapter is written very well and it conveys the character and her terror in a really concise way.
As she learns of the death of one of the other "final girls", Quincy is devastated and realising that her past will once again take over her life. The other final girl, Sam, arrives out of nowhere shortly before they find out that Lisa's death was not a suicide but was indeed a murder.
A journalist that Quincy hates tries to tell her that all is not as it seems with Sam and that she is lying to Quinn. Quinn doesn't know who to trust and finds herself spiralling out of control. The memories that Quincy could not recall are starting to filter through the blackness of her mind.
This story is brilliantly written and the twists and turns keep you guessing right up to the end. I was so shocked when the culprit is revealed. I would never have guessed.
Great book. I give it five out of five stars.
I am profoundly grateful to NetGalley and Dutton for my copy.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Kept me guessing right to the end. Will definitely recommend this and will look for others from this author
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy.
The premise really intrigued me - a slasher satire (of sorts), with lots of twists and turns (as you’d expect with the genre). If you know the genre, the title is self-explanatory, and even if you aren’t familiar with the term ‘final girl’, it kind of does exactly what it says on the tin. In this case, there are three girls (now women), all whom have survived different massacres and thus share this unique bond/experience/damaged world view, even if they all deal with it in very different ways.
But of course, things aren’t really over and there can only ever be one final girl.
Firstly, I was gripped and the book is very easy to follow. The author did enough to keep me interested right until the end, though, I had already sort of guessed the ending by that point, so when it came (and I was at least half right) I was slightly disappointed. I always hope to be blindsided at this point, somehow, and have my assumptions squashed, but unfortunately the ending did not slay me as I hoped it might. Still, it was an enjoyable read and I would recommend to fans of slasher/thriller mysteries.
Premise 4*
Readability 4*
Story arc 3*
An excellent thriller that I could barely put down. Once the story gets going , it never stops until the final pages. The concept of a Final Girl, a lone survivor of a massacre,is in itself an intriguing one, and this book boasts three of them. The focus is Quincy, a woman struggling to put the past behind her, particularly the terrible night when an escaped psychiatric patient killed a group of her friends, and its working, maybe a little too well, since she has no memories of the night in question left. When one of her fellow Final Girls dies, and another turns up on her doorstep, she begins to question herself and her memories, and things take a turn for the dark when she becomes involved in an illegal act.
Saying any more would only spoil what is an incredible story, full of twists and turns ,one that leaves the reader unsure who to trust, at even at times wondering what is going on. The book starts slowly but the tension gradually increases to an almost unbearable level as events unfold, both in the present and in the occasional chapters that gradually reveal what happened to Quincy that night. It's a smart book, and one that held my attention and had me gasping with surprise more than once. I highly recommend it.
Don;'t you just love a book with a twist? Well, if you do,, you'll need to be adding this to your list then. The story follows Quincy, sweet young woman, baker, fiancee and all round doing-OK-good-girl. But Quincy is a member of a club that no-one wants to belong to. She's a Final Girl, she is a sole survivor of a bloody masacre.
Two other final girls are Lisa and Sam, both in different parts of the country and both sole survivors of their own massacres. To the press and public they are intriguing and mysterious and they clamour over information and stories about them.
Quincy remains resolutely mute to all offers of money for sharing her story. She just wants to keep her head down, lay low and get on with her life with her public defender fiance. But then Lisa is found dead, wrists slit lying in her bath. And the question on everyone's lips is - why would she come through so much only to take her own life? Then Sam, evasive and off the grid for years turns up at Quincy's door and she's not at all what Quincy expected. Can Quincy trust her? With one journalist claiming Sam's lying to her and the subtle psychological games she plays, Quincy's left wondering what's really going on.
Told variously then and now, Quincy's backstory is slowly revealed and Sam's layers are pealed back, until the final twisty truth is revealled. I wasn't expecting that ending - always and bonus and a very good reason for recommending this book for lovers of twisty mysteries.
This was an okay book it didn't keep me gripped as much as I had hoped.
This is one of the best thrillers I've read! The book has wonderfully complex characters as well as a compulsive reading plot. The author takes the movie trope of a Final Girl, the lone survivor of a terrible event, and makes her the focus of this book. Quincy is already dealing with the aftermath of a massacre that killed her friends some years ago when a new threat is found at her door. The book starts slowly, giving the reader time to allow musing on the different ways of handling trauma and grief. The pressure builds to revelations that pull you down a rabbit hole of theories and red herrings. The protagonist was very interesting to watch as she works to unwind the memories she hasn't been able to access since that terrible day and tries to handle to the situation unfolding.
To talk further about this book I'd have to add spoiler warnings; I will say that I am already planning on buying this for a friend who I'm certain will love it! The characters are well drawn, the plot is gripping and the writing style hooks you in from the start. This is a fantastic debut novel from Sager and I hope to read more from this author.
For fans of: 'The Girl on the Train', Psychological Thrillers and classic slasher movies.
My first five star book this year! I could not finish it fast enough. I literally fought sleep to continue reading - paid for it at work the next day but it was worth it!
Books marketed as having a “twist” often leave me disappointed because I’ve guessed said twist. But this book kept me speculating until the very end.
A phenomenal debut! I’m already looking forward to this author’s next offering.