Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

192 reviews

andrearutz98's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

1.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Body horror, Death, and Physical abuse

Minor: Cannibalism, Kidnapping, Addiction, Death of parent, Gun violence, Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Child death, Drug use, and Excrement

bluestar_apologist's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Gun violence, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Ableism, Child death, Cursing, Drug abuse, Misogyny, Drug use, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness

dblue236's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Trigger warnings: Graphic violence, mass murder, gun violence, violence against women, gore, sexual abuse of a minor by an adult. 

If you are easily upset or scared, this book is one hundred percent NOT FOR YOU. I cannot stress this fact enough. While it is clearly a work of fiction, it is full of murder and gore and stalking and violence against women and if any of those things are a problem for you, you would be best served to never pick this up. Having said that, while it was definitely not an easy read for much of it, I really enjoyed the story and it kept me guessing straight through until the end. As a pretty much lifelong fan of slasher flicks and horror movies, I really enjoyed this, but it is definitely for a fairly specific audience.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Torture, Mass/school shootings, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Terminal illness, Addiction, and Cancer

Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Vomit, Panic attacks/disorders, and Adult/minor relationship

90centspaghet's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

This book was slow to get into…hence it took me fully out of reading for a bit and 3 months to finish…but the second half was compelling and adventurous. It was quite mysterious and I liked how you had to attribute things back to real horror works and slashers. Unfortunately the slow start really pushes it down in the ratings significantly for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Terminal illness, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Grief, Mental illness, Medical content, Murder, Blood, Death of parent, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Classism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, and Violence

concon95's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Murder, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Violence, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, and Death of parent

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Car accident, Grief, Cancer, Vomit, and Police brutality

tiffanne11's review against another edition

tense fast-paced

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

2.75

The first 70% or so of this book was a great thriller. Our cast of characters are "final girls", reminiscent of the last one standing in a slasher film but they lived through these traumas. The main character, Lynnette, copes with excessive paranoia, locking herself away and not getting attached to anyone. 
Everything changes when one of the members of their group is killed. No one is sure who they can trust and Lynnette runs. 
The majority of the book is building up this tension about who is hunting the final girls and why. As a reader, you are wondering if it is all in her head or if there is a killer out there orchestrating this whole thing. 
Unfortunately, the "reveal" makes no sense. It's not evidenced in the text. You couldn't figure it out, and that is not what makes a good twist. A good twist is one that makes all of the pieces slot in together and make sense. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Medical trauma, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Gore, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Ableism, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Vomit, Violence, Torture, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

bwest6377's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I wanted to love this book but found myself struggling to finish it. I really loved the concept but there were so many details the story became hard to follow. I did enjoy the twist and the final chapter, but the middle/main scene lost my mind interest because it felt way too minor detail oriented rather than focused on the main plot, like a flashback scene in a movie. I would 100% watch a movie adaptation of this book, but just unfortunately not my favorite 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Gun violence, Grief, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Death of parent

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

hauntedantiqueshop's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

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

1.0

I really am sick of being a hater but damn, it’s just SO easy. 

ALL of the characters are annoying and unlovable, their backstories are just copy and pasted classic slasher movies that were chopped and screwed the TINIEST bit. There’s no originality to them whatsoever, even down to their names. I get it’s supposed to be an homage but it feels more like borderline plagiarism or parody. Not to mention that some of the specific movies he picked to steal from are unrealistic in real life scenarios. There's like five bad guy fake outs, it’s overkill once you finally get the big (predictable and also just straight up taken from Scream 4 and 5) picture. There was a weird feminist take he was halfassed trying to make but it felt insincere and patronizing. Killing the only black character first (off screen!), having her buy her movie rights and not fix the whitewashing of her own trauma, and then having her be a hypeman hallucination for a white woman to survive, TO THEN let one of the masterminds behind her death into their support group is just in such bad taste. There really isn’t a redeeming quality of this book for me.

tldr: I’m revoking Grady Hendrix’s writing privileges. He’s going in the chokey.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Blood, Murder, Body horror, Car accident, Grief, Medical content, Death, Gore, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexism, Misogyny, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Domestic abuse, Incest, Alcohol, Animal death, Cannibalism, Addiction, Abandonment, and Pedophilia

tabea1409's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Gaslighting, Death of parent, Cursing, Mass/school shootings, Death, Animal death, Kidnapping, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Mental illness, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Addiction, Alcoholism, Toxic relationship, Grief, Cancer, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, and Child death

raichoreads's review against another edition

funny fast-paced

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

1.5

I found this book to be very disappointing. This felt like a not so fun amalgamation of disjointed, shallow, and boring. I sadly ended up skimming the latter half of the book, which I’ll admit probably also tainted my experience, but it was just not engaging enough. And this is maybe too particular of me, but Hendrix’s writing style frustrated me. He would regularly describe a character’s action that is meaningful in context, and then turn around and explain that it’s meaningful. I found this read to be exhausting because it felt like it didn’t trust its audience and didn’t really know what it wanted to say other than making a bunch of slasher references.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Torture

Moderate: Death