Final Girls by Riley Sager
Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with fie 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.
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I don’t know why I decided I needed a thriller based on one of my worst fears while I was in University, but I did (tip: when you’re a freshman, DON’T google Ted Bundy even if you’ve never heard of him). This book didn’t disappoint. There’s been a lot of narrative recently on Final Girls when it comes to the horror genre and it felt like the perfect time to dive into one of these stories. It definitely felt very “mid 2010’s,/mary-jane” in some parts what with the baking blog and some of the offhand comments and setting, however, I was intrigued the whole way through. One thing about this book is that, although some things seem obvious, there was always a twist right when you guessed it right to bring you back down and go “what?!”. I really like how Sager is able to pull the rug out from under you even when the who-dunnit feels very transparent.
This book follows Quincy as she moves on with her life many years after the massacre she survived. She has the perfect life, the perfect house, the perfect boyfriend, and an overprotective cop who keeps her up to date on her past so that she can successfully avoid it coming back to haunt her. Until one of her fellow Final Girls runs into trouble and she has to come to terms with what really happened the night of her own “Final Girl Initiation”.
I really enjoyed the time jumps in this one. Getting to see flashbacks in a thriller is always one of my absolute favourite things and I think the timing of these flashbacks and the pacing of the novel worked really well in building the perfect amount of suspense. I also got strangely attached to the story. I don’t usually get attached to thriller characters but Quincy’s story and everything that happened that night that could have changed everything just stuck with me and haunted me long after this book was done (ie it’s been 2 weeks since I finished it and I’m still dwelling on it all). The beginning was slower but it worked really well for wondering “what’s going on, what am I missing, are there clues or red-herrings here?!” and keeping the reader guessing, once we got midway it picked up speed and didn’t stop till the end.
I also really appreciated the different settings. In a lot of thrillers it all takes place in one town, one area, one house and this had a multitude of places. Hospitals, Central Park, New York City Brownstones, creepy cabin in the woods, weird small towns, it had it all and it fit well together. The story progressed nicely throughout these multiple settings without feeling super disjointed. And each one gave a certain amount of danger just by existing. Would you want to be in Central Park all alone at night? Didn’t think so.
Let’s get to characterization. I, surprisingly, highly enjoyed the side characters. I felt like they had a lot of depth and they felt very realistic given the circumstances, even the side characters that were only ever mentioned who didn’t actually grace the page. I didn’t, however, like the main character very much. Quincy just felt bland to me. I get that her trauma has her shutting off a part of herself, but she felt like she just went through the motions and a lot of her actions didn’t make much sense to me. However, given that I didn’t like the main character but still really enjoyed the story, says something major for the plot and and the side characters.
I gave this one 4 stars as it was a great read, had a lot of great surprises throughout even when it felt like I’d had it allllll figured out, and dug into a topic that I find extremely heartbreaking and interesting at the same time. I definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a good thriller this month to offset some of those Valentines themed stories floating around lately!