Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Final Girls by Riley Sager

79 reviews

mburnsides's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

 Final Girls had a slow beginning and a quick end. Many reviews complained about the pacing throughout the book, but I think it adds to the chaos and unravelling of Quincy’s peaceful and put together life after Sam’s arrival. The pace picks up as Quincy begins to return the memories of her massacre and the anger and violence she’s hidden inside herself for a decade. 

I felt like the twists and reveals were nicely paced and put together. There was enough suspicion threaded that I got the impression that people aren't who they were portrayed as and that Quincy’s memories might be wrong. But the final villain twist caught me completely off guard. 

I liked the snippets of Quincy’s memories of the massacre spaced throughout the book until Sam’s reveal and the ending. Each memory lined up with current events in Quincy’s life, while keeping me interested in figuring out what actually happened and why everyone distrusted Quicny’s memory loss. 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug abuse, Infidelity, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Gore, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

violetbentbackwards1036's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.75

i would’ve given the a five star rating if it hadn’t been for the painfully slow beginning and the unbelievably perfect ending. i think it was just how mundane the first half of the book was, but when the plot actually picked up, everything happened so fast. the ending was also just really perfect. everything, and i mean everything, gets resolved. i also found it really weird how after quincy gets her memory back, we don’t get anything else about her mourning her friends? you’d think after having to relive watching her friends be slaughtered in front of her, there’d at least be something about her accepting what happened to everyone. i just found it kinda disappointing how quickly quincy moves on from everyone’s deaths, how there’s nothing else about the friend group. i wish we got to see more of the friend group, more about rodney, amy and betz. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Gore, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

monique1316's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Blood, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Mental illness, Sexual assault, and Suicide

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Child abuse

percys_panda_pillow_pet's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

3.25

At this point in time, Riley Sager is a popular thriller author online, having published several successful thrillers in the past few years. Final Girls is his first thriller, published in 2017. I picked up this book partially because of the author's name and partially because a friend of mine who is into 80's slasher really got me into horror and the concept of a final girl, the one who survives all the horrors of a single terrible night.

Sager's Final Girls isn't unique in wanting to explore the idea of the final girl further, of what it's like after everything. Previously, there was The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones in 2012 and later, in 2021, Grady Hendrix's The Final Girl Support Group. All of these books follow a similar storyline: there are these "final girls" who each survive what is by all accounts a massacre and then they are seemingly being killed off until the main character is left. This leaves the main character a "true" survivor, I suppose.

My problem with Sager's Final Girls isn't that there are other books like it, there are many ways to tell the same story after all. More so, I could tell Sager was still inexperienced at writing when it was published. While I appreciated the thematic nature of the past being told in the third person point of view and the present told in first person point of view, since the main character and narrator, Quincy, is unreliable due to her amnesia of the horrible night all her friends were killed; in the end, I found the switch in POV jarring to go between. 

As well, I could tell Sager was inexperienced in writing women specifically. Quincy herself was very annoying, and constantly got in her own way. But there was not only a strange love triangle between her, her boyfriend Jeff, and Coop, the cop who saved her life, there were also strange homoerotic tones between Quincy and her female friends/acquaintances. I felt like the was supposed to be a commentary on sexuality perhaps, especially when it comes to final girls (Check out Dead Meat Podcast Episode 15: Final Girl on YouTube for more information about that), but so much of it flopped and came off as cringey. 

I liked that Quincy was unreliable and I was intrigued by the complexity of several of the characters. However, they were often too unlikable for me to really invest in them fully, and I constantly found myself hating each and every one of them at different points in the book. 

Overall, I personally think that maybe the concept of finals girls should be left to the movies, or perhaps women authors who may be able to understand the deeper fears that persist in today's society of violence against women. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Toxic friendship, and Classism

Minor: Ableism, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Police brutality, and Death of parent

As for the ending,

I was shocked by the twist with "Sam"/Tina, but I called Coop from the start a creep and I am glad it was the cop. Real good ACAB message lol

sapphicpenguin's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

Much more suspense/mystery than action/thriller. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I did! I did often get mad at the main character, but I guess I'll give her a pass for the, y'know, slasher-movie trauma. The plot twists were well set up/thought out, and kept me guessing till the very end. I liked the subversion of movie tropes, plus the writing was very satisfying. Great nonlinear storytelling. A good all-in-an-afternoon read.  I guess I don't have the patience for too much mystery, though, as sometimes I just wished we could get to the next thing.

ACAB btw

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Alcoholism, Gun violence, Sexual content, and Suicide

Minor: Cancer, Eating disorder, Incest, Sexual assault, and Death of parent

stolenwater's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

Moderate: Drug use

Minor: Sexual assault

icassidyn's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-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

2.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Drug use, Infidelity, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Murder

nicheinterests's review against another edition

dark fast-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? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Murder

Moderate: Death

Minor: Fatphobia and Sexual assault

ramunepocky's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.75

I really enjoyed this book, it certainly kept me on my toes with guessing what was going to happen next, I never knew I could be so wrong and so right simultaneously about what had happened, and what was going to happen. There were certain bits that lulled a bit, but I feel like that worked fairly well as a contrast to the fast paced bits and were equally important to the plot. I didnt particularly like any of the characters, or have any form of attachment to them, but it still interesting to see their development and see how their stories unravelled. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Eating disorder and Sexual assault

theinstabookworm's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Murder

Minor: Eating disorder