Lacy's Review
By Grady Hendrix
💐💐💐💐
(or 4 out of 5 stars)
From Amazon Page Description
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. 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, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece. But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
Hello, Sidney...
Have you seen those bookish chains on Instagram stories where people say, "Send one book and get fifty back in return!"? Listen, I wanted them to be real just as much as you did. I've tried participating in multiple and have never had a book sent to me. So earlier this month, when I saw that chain mail pop up again I messaged the person who posted it and said, "Hey, this never works for me but I love a good book exchange! I'll send you a book if you send me one!" And he agreed! He told me he enjoyed high fantasy so I had to send him The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. Lo and behold my luck... The book he sent me was one I've been dying to read! All of the puns intended. The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix was everything I wanted it to be... And more!
Ree! Ree! Ree! Ree! (Imagine the classic horror sound that comes with a stabbing knife)
I. Love. Horror movies.
I grew up with Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and so many more. I loved the thrill, the mystery, and the amazing power of women winning against the monster in the end. Now, this book isn't your typical slasher tale. We meet all of our Final Girls years after their attacks sitting around a stale, community center meeting room in what is meant to be a support group. We quickly see that the relationships between these women are fraught, the support group is no longer providing the support it once did. When one of the original Final Girls ends up murdered at Camp Red Lake, the place of her initial attack, our protagonist Lynnette embarks on a wild, paranoid plot to evade death and her own monster once again.
I'll Admit...
The book didn't have me entirely hooked in the first 100 pages. The story starts with us, the audience, following Lynnette on a very long, and exposition filled trek from the support group back to her home. We trail behind her manic rantings throughout the entire city as she monitors the shoes of the possible attackers around her. She is a hard character to relate to. She is paranoid, selfish, and completely detatched from the people and the world around her. But hang on long enough and you get an entire retelling about her horrific experience. Losing her boy friend, her parents, and her sister in the most gruesome and tragic way. From that point in the story on I was attached to Lynnette in a way I have never felt in a book before. I wanted her to be right about her crazy conspiracy theories. I wanted her to save the day. I wanted her to survive.
The Final Chapter
Well... Chapters. This book gives you everything you want in a slasher, horror story in the last 100 pages. It is relentless, exhausting, terrifying, bloody, and amazing. I don't want to say too much... No spoiler territory here! But this book gives you the Final Girl experience and it is thrilling.
Final Thoughts?
Read this book! Especially since it is now in development to be made into a TV show written by the author, Grady Hendrix, and executive produced by Charlize Theron!
Comments