Book Review: Final Girls

Title: Final Girls
Author: Riley Sager
Genre: Adult | Thriller | Mystery
Publisher: Dutton
Publication Date: July 11, 2017
Source: Purchased
Format: Physical

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media's attempts, they never meet. Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.  That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa's death come to light, Quincy's life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished (goodreads).

Final Girls was unexpected. 
Plot: While the synopsis is super long, I was intrigued by a club of Final Girls: girls who survived horrific situations. Final Girls followed Quincy as she tried to find normalcy after seeing all of her friends fatally stabbed in the woods. That's enough to make anyone pick up a book, but Final Girls spiraled out of control toward the end. I will say that Final Girls made it difficult for me to put down because of the relatively short chapters and cuts to Quincy's horrific night of murder and mayhem. I wanted to watch the events unfold, but I just couldn't handle the chaos of the ending. Don't get me wrong, the ending will surprise and shock you, but it all felt like it came out of the left field. I couldn't stop rolling my eyes by the time I reached the end. 

Characters: At the end of the day, Final Girls was about Quincy. Quincy claimed that she had moved on from the night she watched all of her friends die, but in reality, she just shoved all of those memories to a dark corner of her mind and never visited them again. Upon Sam's arrival, Quincy got to discover a part of her she had tucked away for over a decade, a part that was destructive and selfish. It was fascinating to see Quincy's demeanor change and how far she was willing to go. The side characters were fairly fleshed out, but only in how they related to Quincy. 

Worldbuilding: As I mentioned, Final Girls explored Quincy's reaction to Lisa's suicide and the events leading up to the Pine Cottage massacre. Truthfully, I preferred the chapters from Pine Cottage because it let the reader see a different side to Quincy and explore her relationship with her college friends. 

Short N Sweet: Final Girls was intriguing, but the ending ruined it for me. 


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