Reviews with content warning for Death - The Last Girls Standing

The Last Girls Standing pays homage to Friday the 13th and the extreme climate change movement in this slasher thriller.

While it's an odd combination, this book mainly focuses on Sloan, who lost her memory of that awful day and her girlfriend and fellow massacre survivor, Cherry, as Sloan attempts to remember what happened through hypnosis.

As the story goes on, the plot twists so slightly that you will feel like you are starting to question what is happening with the character's motives and what actually happened during the massacre.

This is a very thrilling and compelling read, the ending is rushed, confusing, and abrupt but leaves an opening for a sequel.

Content Warnings

hobbithopeful's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Thank you Penguin for this ARC
A sapphic horror novel that depicts trauma in one of the worst lights I've ever seen in a book, with a depressing end message.
Sloan and Cherry are the lone survivors of a summer camp massacre. Deeply traumatized they find solace in each other, but Sloan has holes in her memories, and begins to question what really happened.
I honestly have no idea what I just read. And not in a "wow that was so fantastic and different, but in a I had no idea where any of this story was going".
I do think the premise is interesting, as well as the writing. Just like Sloan, I felt completely lost and unsure of who to trust. There are a lot of great tense moments, and so much gaslighting. I was ready to point fingers at literally everyone in this book.
I don't know Dugan's background, I don't know if she has experienced trauma and CPTSD such as Sloan has. I'm not sure if writing this in a way was cathartic for her. For me someone who suffers from CPTSD, I found this book to be an inaccurate and quite frankly offensive depiction of trauma. There is so much wrong in how this book depicts what it is like to go through trauma therapy, and how the characters react to trauma.

The end message of the story seems to be one of "you'll never recover from your trauma and instead spiral and continue hurting others". So that was great to read. Sloan just ends up cracking and killing Cherry, to what end? To show that we can't heal? To show that we will continue hurting others?

I do think the ambiguous ending hurt the book, and just further leaned into the "you won't heal from trauma" stereotype.
If you decide to read this, please check your triggers/content warnings.
Personally I didn't have a good time reading this, and wouldn't personally recommend it.

Content Warnings

herohail's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

Content Warnings

avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

The two survivors of a sleep-away camp mass killing are now in a romantic relationship. One with no memories of what happened. As she tries to unravel what happened that night, she gets deeper into a possible conspiracy going back to her birth family.
Wow! It was a twisty book! It was also a very dark and emotional book. I didn't really like the ending, and in the end, we didn't get a lot of answers. It was an okay book.

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