The Final Girl Support Group

By: Grady Hendrix

Narrated by: Adrienne King

Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's Summary

A fast-paced, thrilling horror novel that follows a group of heroines to die for, from the brilliant New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires.

In horror movies, the final girl is the one who’s left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her?

Lynnette Tarkington survived a massacre 22 years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she's not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette's worst fears are realized - someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up. 

©2020 Grady Hendrix (P)2020 W. F. Howes Ltd

Critic Reviews

"Sizzles with action, originality and a gleaming concept as sharp as a scalpel.” (Charlaine Harris)

“A (bloody) valentine to the slasher franchises of the VHS era, but also a smart novel about survivor guilt and the concept of the enduring heroine.” (Kim Newman, author of Anno Dracula)

“Pray for morning, wish for speed and be as quiet as you can, it doesn't matter Grady's Hendrix's Final Girl Support Group already knows where you live and breathe.” (Stephen Graham Jones)

Interesting premise, doesn’t deliver

Not sure if it’s the distracting narrator (entire book is gushy and read at high intensity) or that it’s one of the few books that doesn’t work as well via audio, but this was a hard slog for me. A review said to listen at 1.5 speed and that helped.

Listen at x1.5 speed!

After reading the reviews of the performance I increased the playback to x1.5 speed from the very beginning and felt that was the perfect speed for the narration.

I’m a total fan of Grady Hendrix and this book certainly did not disappoint!

omg this narrator.. I can't listen it's so off

it's like a very drunk very wobbly lady trying not to have a tantrum whilst reading a story. for me it's torture to listen to I can't stand it! I really want to enjoy this story so will have to return and get as physical book. who thought this style of narration works?! it's stilted, intonation is all off, pauses... all over ...the place, randomly angry reading that doesn't work and slurring occasionally I cannot stand it. I can't read aloud either so I don't, who picks the narrator's? I feel bad now I wrote all that as I'm sure the narrator is a lovely person but my gosh, not the reading style for me!

amazing!

I loved this book, from start to finish it is exciting, funny and strangely touching (I cried over a house plant). The narrator is one of, if not the best female narrator I've ever heard. And the fact that she was a final girl made it even better!

Not the best Grady Hendrix book

I couldn’t get into this compared to his other books, the narrator isn’t well versed in doing audiobooks, and almost ran out of breath on a few sentences.

Narration

I throughly enjoyed Gradys previous titles but I also couldn’t get over the narration. I found it incredibly jarring and it ruined the story for me.

Book may have been really good ...

But Adrienne King's reading was just awful. Her timing was consistently off, making the story hard to follow. Her pronunciation and stress of words and sentences was not even amateur level, again making comprehension of the characters, chapters, and overall storyline difficult.

I ended up returning the book before finishing simply because the reading was so bad. Another reader might have actually done the story justice but King isn't that reader.

Terrible narrator, wasted story!

I was so looking forward to this one - but the story was boring, and seemed to have no idea about its own internal world logic, and wasted the most important characters (give me more Heather plus dream king!)

Also the narration was just terrible, plodding, seemed like they had never read a book out loud before? very jarring and hard to listen to.

perhaps Hendrix just isn't for me...

My favourite book of 2021

I am a big Grady Hendrix fan and preordered this book before release. This is my new favourite Grady Hendrix and I think that anyone who is a fan of horror and horror films will love this and that the voice acting adds an extra dimension that really elevates everything.

Hendrix never disappoints!!!

love this book from the opening to the closing line. I laughed and cried and felt every range of emotion all the way through. clever twists, pressing social commentary and Hendrix writes fascinating and 3D female leads like no other. I listened to it all in one day and couldn't sleep until it was finished. just brilliant fun! Adrienne Kings narration is flawless. a truly great performance.

fun romp through slasher pop culture

I was a huge fan of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires so I eagerly awaited the release of the Final Girl Support Group. It's very different in content and scares but has the same common theme of badass women who refuse to be trampled down by society or by monsters. Overall, I found myself really enjoying the story but it was a bit convoluted at times. The story mainly is told from the perspective of one "final girl" Lynnette which works really well for the tone as you do veer back and forth between wondering how reliable of a narrator she is.

I will say that having some knowledge of slasher flicks would benefit any listeners/readers as many of the characters are based on the "final girls" of those slasher flicks and their backstories are constantly referenced.

As for the narration, it was really compelling and emotive and really pulled me into the story. Only caveat is that the story occasionally doesn't translate too well to being an audiobook (there are news clippings, forums posts and excerpts of screenplay dialogue that intersperse the book which makes for awkward narration)

Final girls

I loved this book! What happens to those survivors of slasher murders, those final girls. This book delves into the lives of these girls as they’ve grown up post massacre.
It recalls memories of those slasher films of the 80’s and early 90’s, the dodgy sequels. However the layer of threat permeates through the book but is it real or paranoia.