Book Review | Final Girls – Riley Sager

“You can’t change what’s happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it.” – Riley Sager, Final Girls

Title: Final Girls
Author: Riley Sager
Publication date: 11th July 2017
My rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads rating: 3.79
Pages: 342
Genre: Horror/Thriller

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Mainly spoiler Free, I talk about aspects of the book, but nothing that gives the plot away as a whole.

I purchased a copy of this book and all views are my own.

The quote I have chosen above is my favourite from the book.

*Trigger Warnings – Death, murder, suicide, rape, substance addiction and abuse, mental health, eating disorders*

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Synopses:

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.

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Overall Opinion of the Book:

This is a book I’ve wanted to read for a long time, since I first began book blogging in July last year. When I first joined Netgalley (a website where you can request copies of books to review before they’re released), I requested this book. My request was declined a I was a new nook blogger who hadn’t yet written feedback on any books. Even so, I knew this was going to be a book I’d buy and enjoy. The synopses of Final Girls caught my attention straight away as I love horror books. Anything that’s dark and gory is right up my street. Sometimes with books, the synopses if far different to the actual content of the book and you’re left feeling slightly deflated with the outcome. Although this was the case with Final Girls, the content wasn’t disappointing at all, it was actually better than the synopses.

As I’ve got an Audible account, I decided to buy a copy of Final Girls with my second credit when I saw it was available to buy. It did take me a long time to listen to it however. I started back on the 11th January and finished it on 19th April (yes, I know this review has taken me a while to publish – sorry). I tend to finish reading a book far quicker compared to when I listen to one as I only tend to listen to them on my way to work, on long journeys and in the bath. If I’d read Final Girls instead, I probably would have finished it in a day or two.

I’ll be honest, it wasn’t my favourite audiobook to listen to as I wasn’t overly fond of the narrator’s voice, which is a big deal when you’re listening to them for around 10 hours. I’m not going to knock the star rating to a 4 for this however, because I know if I read this book it would have been a 5 star read. The audiobook was great at building suspense and the narrator was good at changing her tone and pitch of voice for different characters, but her voice did grate on me quite significantly.

The content of the book was everything I anticipated it to be and more. It’s a first person narrative of Quincy, the sole survivor of Pine Cottage. It follows her present journey and also the events that happened in the past at Pine Cottage. It’s not quite alternating chapters of the past and present, but the events of Pine Cottage unfold as the novel progresses. I really enjoyed this aspect of the book as it kept me on tenderhooks, wondering what happened that night.

Final Girls really did keep me guessing throughout and I genuinely had no idea of how the book would end. I had my suspicions of what may happen and who did certain things, but the ending definitely took me by surprise! There were endless plot twists and every time I felt like I knew what was going to happen, there was a turn in the story. For me, this made for a great read.

I thoroughly enjoyed Sager’s writing style. It was descriptive and he was brilliant at setting the scene and holding suspense throughout. As I listened to the audiobook, I cannot comment on the spelling, punctuation and grammar of the novel.

There were a handful of moments throughout the book that felt a little “cliché horror” to me, but overall I would definitely recommend Final Girls if you enjoy reading horrors and thrillers. I wouldn’t say it was a particularly scary book to read, but it’s definitely intense and suspenseful. It was definitely one of my favourite reads of 2018 so far.

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Final Thoughts:

Final Girls is a gritty, intriguing and fantastic read. It in some ways resembles the typical 80’s slasher films. If you enjoy watching films such as Scream, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, then this is definitely the book for you. In fact, the title of the book is named after the sole surviving women in these types of films.

It’s a brilliant stand alone novel. Sager is fantastic at rounding off the plot and ensuring that all the potential plot holes and questions are answered. This is great because often in horror and thriller books I feel like there are usually a few questions still left unanswered at the end. Sager is such a talented writer and I can’t wait to read his new book that’s just been released, The Last Time I Lied.

Although I wasn’t a huge fan of the audiobook version of this book, this was solely down to the narrator, not the book’s content. Because of this, I still wanted to give Final Girls a 5/5 star rating and it was fantastic.

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Have you read Final Girls yet? If so, let me know in the comments how many stars you’d give it out of 5. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. 😊

If you would like to purchase a copy of the books mentioned you can do so here:

Final Girls*

The Last Time I Lied*

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Credit to:

Book cover and synopses – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32796253-final-girls?from_search=true

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