The Final Girl Support Group

Lynnette Tarkington survived the massacre that killed her boyfriend and her family twenty two years ago. She is a final girl and struggles with it every day, but takes every precaution available to make sure that it NEVER happens again. However, when the final girls in her support group start dying, she finds out that she wasn’t as prepared as she thought she was.

My Thoughts

I received this read as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the author for this opportunity. What a thrilling ride that this book took me on and boy I could sleep for a year after I finished. THIS thriller was exhausting in the best way and I just loved every minute.

I went into this book completely blind, even as blind as to not pay attention to who the author of this book was…. Once I realized who the author was, it allllll made sense. If you read The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, you would understand what a crazy book this was because this author has done it again and done it so much better. These characters were flawed, raw, absolutely unstable, unpredictable,and so damn interesting. What a journey this author took me on and my head is still sooooo dizzy from it all.

The story was not at all what I expected, but I was so hungry for all the details and the conclusion of this wicked tale. The author must have a obsession with the concept of girl group dynamics because like in her first novel, this group of ladies, although they have known each other for such a long time, they really don’t work at all together and don’t really have anything in common and this time it was surviving a horrific and unique attack. They are the final girls, the ones we see and wonder why they survived when so many others didn’t. The final girl concept is explored throughout the story through the plot itself and those side inserts after each chapter. I almost felt that the author was trying to pay homage to Scream 2 in which there was an explanation of a concept while a plot was going on. I loved that little nuisance. I have been obsessed with the concept of the girl since I read Final Girls by Riley Sagar and this book’s in-depth look was pure poetry.

The story was a race against time in the best way possible with so many thrilling twists and circles and roundabouts and U-turns, I felt at one point I either needed to stop and ask for directions or just sit down. Now these characters are so flawed that we need to come up with a new word that is much more extreme to describe them. The idea of a final girls support group was very intriguing to me, but it was just a hot mess. This so-called therapist should have broken up this trope a long long LONG time ago and just gave them therapy sessions individually. Group therapy was not helping in this case…… it only served to keep a consistent activity for these traumatized women to do, but maybe not call it therapy….

The story also explored the idea of fanatics and their role they served in the story of the final girl. It was sick to see how these women were treated and it just made me sad. I may be a little too obsessed with murder and serial killers, but they take my obsession to a completely different level. The idea that serial killers are remembered and not victims is also dominant in the book. The only reasons these final girls are even mentioned is because they managed to survive their attack. I guess surivival of the fittest is at work here…..?

THE TWIST AT THE END CAME OUT OF NOWHERE….. it was beautifully dark and devious and oh so good….

Overall this book was genius and THAT is ALL!