Reviews with content warning for Blood - 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.

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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.

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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

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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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booksletusescape's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

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getlitwithamy_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

First off, thank you NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was very excited about this book since it features a summer camp mass murder. Not to mention that the cover is hauntingly beautiful. There was so much potential and it was such a great concept, but THE LAST GIRLS STANDING missed the mark plenty of times.

The beginning definitely had me curious, but on the first few pages, it felt too info-dumpy. There were things about Sloan's life that could have been mentioned later in the story.

My main concern with the book is that it was very repetitive.

The "What are you talking about?" that Cherry would constantly say got tiring after a while.

I also believed that the idea of Cherry possibly being involved would have been so much more significant if it were mentioned later in the story and wasn't even mentioned in the summary of the book. It would have made such a great potential plot twist/train of thought for Sloan to consider.

I also felt the reveal of the murderers' intentions to be rushed. Dugan did a decent job inserting information bit by bit as the plot progressed, but the overall reveal felt so sudden. That plus the rushed ending ruined it for me.

Sloan's decline at the end to the point where she fell into the prophecy of the cult because she saw a rabbit after killing Cherry didn't make *that* much sense besides the fact that she just became psychotic.

I wasn't a big fan of this, especially since it undermines the C-PTSD that Sloan was experiencing.

Instead of actively trying to get better after finding out the cult's final ritual, her becoming wrapped in the conspiracy wasn't the best move.

Regardless of how Sloan reacted, I wish there was a chapter following the events where Sloan tries to regain her life again. This usually happens in thrillers/horrors, but the ending was cut off in a way that was so anticlimactic.

The reason why I rounded it up to 3 ⭐️ instead of 2.5-2.75 is because Jennifer Dugan did a good job of making me want to find out what happened. Sloan's progress in trying to regain her memories raised the stakes despite the issues I mentioned before. She also did a fair job of portraying trauma bonding and toxic relationships, as they are big parts of the book.

Overall, THE LAST GIRLS STANDING unfortunately did not meet my expectations.

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gene_vieve_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

So I really love thrillers normally and I really walked into The Last Girls Standing thinking I was genuinely going to enjoy the book. I wanted so, so, so badly to enjoy the read.
Sloan is a character you want to love, you want to wrap her in your arms and cradle her because of her lack of memory after the traumatic events that happened to her. Cherry is a doll, she's protective and kind maybe to a fault. I think I was really endeared to her because she's almost a picture perfect representation of the kind of person you want after experiencing trauma.
I found myself confused, throughout the book, by the kind of relationship the two shared, by the lack of boundaries, by the way Sloan holds on to Cherry so tight. At times I was rooting for them, other times I wanted them to practice having space.
I cannot emphasize enough how endeared I got to these two children, how much I wanted them to win, whatever a win would look like.
Spoilers ahead:
I hated the ending of this book. It feels incredibly dark for a YA novel as well as unnecessary. I wanted nothing more than for Cherry to have a break by the time the ending came around. I wanted nothing more than for Sloan to let people help her.
And I can't help but wonder about a kill your gays trope mixed with the validity of making trauma bound toxic queer characters. We don't need more of that. For so many reasons these young ladies deserved a happy ending and instead Cherry is dead, Sloan never got help with her PTSD and killed somebody. I just can't find it in myself to enjoy this book as much as I thought I was going to.

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nrogers_1030's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

In this YA thriller, Cherry and Sloan are the "last girls standing" in a camp massacre. Once Sloan begins investigating what happened, she finds out more than she bargained for. The story is told in Sloan's POV.

I was really excited to read this - the cover art is amazing and the book description sounded right up my alley. After what they experienced at the camp, it's not unimaginable to see how these two ended up being together and being each other's everything. But the relationship is very toxic (to the point of full-blown obsession, including stalking). Things started picking up in Chapter 5. Once I hit Chapter 15, I couldn't put the book down because I *needed* to know what happened next. Without giving away the meat of the story, I wish the storyline didn't feel rushed. The progression from being paranoid about her girlfriend's involvement in the cult-related murders to believing in the doctrine of the cult was a bit rushed. There was no gradual decline of mental facilities. Bam, boom, it's done. One chapter she's investigating, the next shes in a full fledged mental break. I would have liked to have seen more development in that regard.

That being said, I really enjoyed The Last Girls Standing. It's dark, it's LGBTQIA inclusive and it definitely sets itself apart from the standard lone survivor trope. Being geared towards ages 14+, I feel like the content is appropriate for those not wanting to read heavy sexual content.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced reader copy.

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