Final Girls

A Novel

By: Riley Sager

Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Hillary Huber

THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

“If you liked Gone Girl, you’ll like this.”—Stephen King

Ten years ago, six friends went on vacation. One made it out alive….

In that instant, college student Quincy Carpenter became a member of a very exclusive club—a group of survivors the press dubbed “The Final Girls”: Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who endured the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape the massacre at Pine Cottage. Despite the media's attempts, the three girls have never met.

Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life. Her mind won’t let her recall the events of that night; the past is in the past…until the first Final Girl is found dead in her bathtub and the second Final Girl appears on Quincy's doorstep.

Blowing through Quincy's life like a hurricane, Sam seems intent on making her relive the trauma of her ordeal. When disturbing details about Lisa's death emerge, Quincy desperately tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies while evading both the police and bloodthirsty reporters. Quincy knows that in order to survive she has to remember what really happened at Pine Cottage.

Because the only thing worse than being a Final Girl is being a dead one.

WINNER OF THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL

Not what I expected...in a good way

I get hung up sometimes on the review details. Lately I decided to go back to the reviews of the books I really enjoyed and noticed a pattern...there's always a handful of disgruntled folk. Thankful to have that fact in my pocket and ultimately selecting this book.
Interesting story, great characters, fantastic narration, and suspense from start to finish.
Bollocks to any naysayers...this is a great book and well worth the credit!

Stick with it

I almost gave up on this book half way through since the story started to drag and became somewhat monatomous . I'm glad I stuck with it as there were some good twists in the last third of the book and I ended up quite satisfied overall.

Buckle up and keep the lights on!

This book is so thrilling and suspense filled. I am not easily scared but this book was so unsettling and creepy! It kept me guessing until the very end. You see many books these days claiming to be the next Gone Girl or Girl on the Train, but this is the first book I've read since that was actually on par.

The narrators were first class! Hillary Hubers voice scared me! Every time she said Pine Cottage a chill ran up my spine. She could change up for male characters incredibly! This book finally got me out of my book slump. I couldn't stop listening!! Highly recommended, especially for fans of Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins and Stephen King. Enjoy!

Solid slasher deconstruction - middling mystery

FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager is right up my wheelhouse since I am the kind of guy who read MEN, WOMEN, AND CHAINSAWS by Carol J. Clover for the intellectual stimulating discussion of the slasher movie with not a trace of irony. The premise of the novel is a simple and intriguing one: what if a typical slasher movie plot "really" happened? Well, the Final Girl survivors would be traumatized as well as media sensations.

Quincy Carpenter, a nice reference to Quincy Harker and John Carpenter probably, is the survivor of a camp ground massacre in her college years. A twisted maniac went on a rampage and murdered all of her friends, leaving her as the sole one to escape. It's been ten years and she is a baking vlogger with an apartment she pays for with money from a number of lawsuits filed on her behalf. She's an emotional mess kept going by Xanax and grape soda but a fairly realistic model of a trauma survivor.

Quincy just wants to pretend that her life is fine and she's moved past her horrific ordeal but this is impossible due to the inability to fully confront it. Quincy doesn't remember what happened for an hour of events and the media enjoyed bringing it up repeatedly. Not only was her ordeal similar to a horror movie but she and the other two "Final Girls" who suffered similar experiences are conventionally beautiful women who are perfect for generating cheap ratings.

Quincy's faux-perfect life takes a downturn when Lisa, the strongest of the Final Girls, seemingly commits suicide. This results in the other Final Girl, Samantha Boyd, coming to visit Quincy in New York. Quickly, events start to spiral out of control as Samantha repeatedly tries to trigger Quincy's long-suppressed rage. Was Lisa's suicide really that and why does Sam want to force Quincy to remember what really happened that night?

The book is entertaining for about 90% of its page count but doesn't quite manage to successfully land. The best part of the book is following Quincy through her daily routine and how she's adjusted to being a survivor of a horror movie in "real life." I also enjoyed the flashbacks to the Pinewood Cottage massacre even if they're a deliberately cliche (camp ground, Indian burial ground, insane asylum). The final answer to the mystery is actually more cliche than all of the invoked tropes and I wish the author had gone with a more original twist.

Fans expecting a book that reads like a slasher pic are going to be disappointed as this is mostly a psychological horror piece. Quincy is badly damaged by her experience while simultaneously irritated with how everyone treats her like a fragile piece of china. I like her relationship with Samantha and was interested in seeing them develop a friendship that puts a wedge in her relationship with her boyfriend. I was a bit reminded of the Anna Kendrick/Blake Lively movie, A Simple Favor, that had similar characters to Quincy and Samantha but the roles reversed.

I think the biggest problem of the ending is the fact that it doesn't really tie into the rest of the book's themes. Much of the book is about how there's no such thing as a "Final Girl" and that it's a media created moniker to cover up a traumatizing event. One of the other characters suffered horrific child abuse and killer her attacker but was labeled a monster because, presumably, it wasn't Hollywood-esque enough a premise. Then the ending introduces a villain straight out of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning and we're meant to treat her Final Girl status seriously.

Still, I enjoyed reading the book and if you're a fan of 80s horror films then you'll enjoy most of the references even if they strain credulity that there's been three or four incidents that perfectly mirror a typical horror movie, complete with beautiful survivors. Then again, we're living in a time with spree killers so what do I know. I recommend the audiobook version narrated by Erin Bennett and Hillary Huber as they do an amazing job bringing the main characters to life.

Couldn't stop listening

This book kept me on the edge of my seat right to the end! I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it for anyone who enjoys suspense. It will keep you guessing!