Reviews

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

leastrawberryfields's review against another edition

3.0

3/5 stars

This was a fun read, for the most part. The main character had a very strong and unique voice, and I liked that a lot. It also did a good job taking slasher movie tropes and totally turning them upside-down. I do have some criticisms though. Some of the main themes of the story didn't really get conveyed until the very end, to the point where it felt a little inauthentic. Additionally, many of the plot twists didn't surprise me so much. So, I definitely have mixed feelings overall, but I did enjoy reading the book.

snapitsabbey's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.75

emmadporter's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

lindsayaunderwood's review against another edition

4.0

There were definitely some holes in this one, but I had a blast with the slasher genre and all of the characters! Couldn’t put it down. Read it in 2 days.

taylor_hohulin's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

rockatanskette's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-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

gamerreaper13's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I was very unsure at the beginning whether or not I would enjoy this one, but then the plot very quickly drew me in, holding me in a chokehold for hours! I slowly came to love and adore the main characters after beginning to understand their experiences.

The plot is fast paced and thr book quickly becomes impossible to put down. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Torture, Toxic friendship, Murder, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Police brutality, Cancer, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, and Gore

bookwormyami's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

okevamae's review against another edition

4.0

I'm not a huge fan of horror, but I like anything that plays around with tropes, and I kept hearing about this book, so I thought I’d see what it had to offer. In the world of The Final Girl Support Group, a group of real-world “final girls,” each the lone survivor of an 80s slasher-flick-style massacre that was turned into an actual film franchise, meet up together for support group meetings, because who else could understand what they went through? Until suddenly one of their group is murdered. The main character, the hypervigilant and paranoid Lynette, has spent the decades since her original incident preparing for her nightmare to return. And it seems obvious to Lynette that the Final Girls are being targeted.

Lynette’s POV is an interesting, but deeply unstable one. In addition to her hypervigilance, paranoid outlook, and deep distrust of men, she seems to filter everything that happens through the lens of “what happens in horror movies is what happens in real life,” which given the premise of the book and her backstory makes a certain amount of sense. She treats the idea of another “sequel” as a foregone conclusion, and has spent the intervening years doing everything she can to prepare to survive it. She describes the events happening to her and her group as some sort of “crossover.” Which, in a real-world context, seems crazy. But when everything you’d expect to see in a horror movie is the actual backstory, and current events also turn against her, I started to see the setting of the book not so much as a realistic world as a combination real-world and horror-movie pastiche, which makes what seems at first like a delusion a lot more understandable. Also, as the book goes on, you realize that Lynette is an unreliable narrator not just because of her paranoia and skewed worldview - she has secrets to hide, too. The result is that you’re constantly questioning what’s really going on, which sometimes annoys me in fiction but really worked for me in this particular book.

I did see some of the biggest twists coming, but this book still kept me guessing throughout. I don’t know that I’ll necessarily read more horror novels than I used to, but I enjoyed this one.

TW: violence, gore (this should go without saying considering it’s a horror novel but you never know.) Also, if you’re one of those people who can’t deal with an unlikeable narrator, maybe skip this one.

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

kazy's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

4.25

a thrilling, fast-paced homage to the slasher genre and their final girls, whose main characters are middle-aged women surviving their trauma with scars fully on display. 
really enjoyed! it’s always fun to see things that are so clearly love letters from the author to the genre itself (not without its own criticism of the genre as well). it certainly felt like watching a contemporary slasher movie, the kind made by someone who’s seen every one and had some notes. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Gun violence, Cancer, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Child death, Death of parent, Violence, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Torture, Hate crime, Mass/school shootings, and Misogyny

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Sexism, and Mental illness

Minor: Ableism, Pedophilia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Suicide, Cannibalism, Drug abuse, and Incest

mentions of victim blaming (both external and heavily internal),

mental health professionals violating patient’s trust

, extreme agoraphobia.

A lesbian dies through terminal illness. the black character dies first, though remains relevant to the plot and characters throughout the rest of the book. adult men taking advantage of traumatized young women, including minors, including a man who knew the girls’ father before he died and used his death as a jumping off point to groom her. one of the final girls (though not of the main group) is in a relationship with her slasher, and another is accused of conspiring with hers to kill her family as well as sleeping with him. one of the girls is mentioned to have been “forced to wear a suit made of human skin” during her traumatizing event. at least two young children are explicitly murdered violently, the murder isn’t described in extreme detail but with enough description to fully understand what happened. Someone’s diary/vent journal/mental health exercise is published without their consent.