When I read a really good book, I generally go check out the author and see what else he or she has written. And after I finished The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager, that is exactly what I did. (If you have not read that book, please go do it now). So his first book is called Final Girls, and I quickly ordered it so I could devour it as well. Final Girls was excellent too, but I am going to warn you and say it is really REALLY dark. Thrillers are, by nature, dark of course. But this was even darker.
The term Final Girls refers to the last woman who survives in a horror film, and it is also the term that the media has used to categorize three women who were the sole survivors of horrible massacres. Quincy Carpenter was in college when she and a group of 5 friends went to a cabin the woods to celebrate her friend’s birthday. While they were there, a deadly massacre occurred, and only Quincy survived. A few years earlier, Samantha became a member of the Final Girls when everyone at the motel she was working at was murdered except her. And the original Final Girl was Lisa, who survived a mass murder at her sorority house.
Quincy seems to be doing well – she has a successful baking blog, a loving boyfriend that she lives with, a support system with Coop, the cop who rescued her, and the press has finally left her alone. She also has a dependency on Xanax and wine, and she has no memory of what happened that night in the cabin. But everything starts back up when Lisa, the original Final Girl, is discovered dead in her bathtub with her wrists slit, and then Sam mysteriously shows up at her apartment building. Sam seems determined to make Quincy reline the past and remember what happened that night, no matter what it takes, making Quincy wonder what Sam is really hiding and if she can be trusted.
This book was SO super psychological. It gave me so much anxiety. And it was really creepy too. I kept thinking it was leading one way, and to be honest, I was so worried I could see the writing on the wall and be disappointed. The Last Time I Lied had such an insane ending. And this one did not disappoint. It kept me guessing until the end, which I LOVE!! It was CRAZY. And Quincy is kind of an unreliable narrator – between the Xanax and the wine and the fact that she has no idea what happened, I really questioned her. And the fact that it is dealing with these deadly, bloody massacres makes it so much darker than a normal thriller.
So have you read Final Girls? If so, what did you think?? If you haven’t and love thrillers, you should definitely check out Final Girls!