Reviews with content warning for Stalking - Final Girls

Good book just not at all my cup of tea. I'm only just crawling out of a major reading slump so I'm not going to force myself to get through it. Not right now at least. Maybe I'll pick it back up down the road.

Content Warnings

bookishgoob's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

“I’m the moth that got careless with the flame. Now i’m engulfed” slow paced and utterly uninteresting in the first half, you follow a girl with no memory of what happened to her after being the only survivor of a massacre that left all of her friends dead. she was the only survivor. she was a “final girl” a term used when talking about horror movies most of the time to describe the girl at the end of a movie that is the only survivor of what happened. the first 50% of this book left me with the feeling of wanting to just not finish at all but I don’t like to DNF books unless it’s so terrible or uninteresting so i pushed through and finished it. the twists and turns were surprising, but only to an extent. i called a few of them from a mile away, a few of them though were not so easy to spot. switching from the final girls perspective to a 3rd person account of what happened to her 10 years early was an interesting choice, just not very well executed in my opinion. not getting much on either end of the story made it dull and it felt slightly repetitive. all in all, i’m glad i finished it but i would not read it again and i don’t think i would really recommend it. unless you like slow paced stories that really feel like they have no direction in the beginning. i give this read a 2/5. it was an okay spooky season read. but if you have a choice between this title, or another thriller, i would vote that you get the other one.

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alinwonderland's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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davidrb's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Christ.

No spoilers, but this is a tedious mess. For a thriller (and make no mistake: this is a thriller and not a horror), the pace is unbearably slow. The characters are beyond flat and contrived. The writing style gives absolutely nothing. Most damningly, the author takes a very dismissive approach towards more "traditional" trauma victims (i.e. survivors of rape and assault) in favor of his prototypical final girl, which is both uncomfortable to read and doesn't at all serve the story, considering it's a narrative about how trauma shapes people. Ostensibly.

Horror satire can still be suspenseful and scary (think Scream), but this forgoes any meaningful commentary in favor of cheap twists, and, in fact, has very little to say about the genre at all. I only gave it 1 star because I gave The Maidens 1 star, and I wouldn't say I hated it more. (I'm really striking out with thrillers lately.)

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nadia_opalek's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Content Warnings

ggcd1981's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Nota: 3.25 estrelas

Já fazia um tempo que queria tentar ler algo do autor Riley Sager pela primeira vez, então quando tive oportunidade li Final girls. Sager é um autor que é bastante popular entre os leitores de Mystery/thriller e isso me deixou curiosa. A minha primeira experiência com uma obra do autor não foi bem o que eu esperava. Acredito que por ouvir tantas pessoas recomendarem seus livros acabei, involuntariamente, criando uma grande expectativa. Essa expectativa fez com que eu achasse Final girls bastante mediano. Contudo, essa impressão foi causada por minhas próprias expectativas altas, o livro não realmente tem culpa. Final girls não é um mal livro, foi relativamente bem escrito, apesar de aqui e acolá haverem algumas frases bastante questionáveis (brega mesmo).

Como pontos negativos posso apontar: as mencionadas frases cringey; A primeira metade do livro tem um passo um pouco lento, em dado momento questionei se o livro era realmente considerado Mystery/Thriller/Horror devido a lentidão; personagens não agradáveis que você não consegue realmente se afeiçoar completamente; por ser um autor homem escrevendo cenas sexuais do ponto de vista de uma protagonista feminina achei estas cenas um pouco desagradáveis; o final foi um pouco “fácil” com Tina decidindo assumir a culpa pelo crime de Quincy.

Os pontos positivos são: Livro relativamente bem escrito, mostrando duas linhas temporais, o “Presente” como Final girl de Quincy e o “Passado” do que aconteceu em Pine Cottage; O autor teve o cuidado de escrever personagens femininas complexas (mesmo que desagradáveis) e examinar, especialmente no caso de Quincy, como o trauma do massacre sobrevivido influência na vida no seu dia a dia (o esforço da personagem em parecer e dizer a si mesma que tudo está bem, quando seus comportamentos mostram outra coisa); o Twist do enredo me surpreendeu, eu não previ quem era o real culpado por Pine Cottage e o assassinato da Final girl Lisa.

Em conclusão o livro foi bom, mas minha expectativa de Riley Sager em conjunto com os pontos negativos citados tornaram a experiência de ler Final Girl mediana, ainda que o twist eu não tenha previsto. Acho que 3.25 estrelas é justo, a obra foi interessante e me surpreendeu. Em geral experiência de leitura positiva porém nada que eu considere memorável.

Content Warnings

carisamarie's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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