Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Final Girls by Riley Sager

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

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

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

violetbentbackwards1036's review

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

meeklovestoread's review

mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

Honestly, this book was a serious letdown. It was not what I was expecting (in a bad way). Most of the twists were very predictable. Also, I'm not one to comment on pacing, but I felt how he went about the alternating chapters was weird, especially how sporadic they were. I really didn't like the characters especially "Ms. Boyd". Also, the big twist at the end seemed like a cop-out in a way. Like it was there for the sake of shock value and not because it made sense. And I hate that Quincy never gained any repercussions for what she did to that poor homeless man. Also, I thought more horror film tropes would be present here and there were literally close to none. Overall, I just found myself extremely bored with the book and was just trawling through it until it was over. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Drug use, Murder, Body horror, Drug abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Gore and Grief

Minor: Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and Suicide

cait's review

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Toxic friendship, Gun violence, Sexual content, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Body horror, Car accident, Cancer, Drug use, Gore, Misogyny, Murder, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Infidelity, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Death of parent, and Grief

percys_panda_pillow_pet's review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

fraise's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Drug use, Violence, Infidelity, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Gore, Gaslighting, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Suicide, and Vomit

Minor: Misogyny, Racism, and Death of parent

breadwitchery's review

mysterious medium-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? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Murder, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content, Eating disorder, Blood, Sexual assault, and Addiction

Minor: Misogyny, Vomit, Death of parent, Cancer, Fatphobia, Alcohol, Racism, and Cursing

rachaelbunny's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Toxic friendship, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Suicide, Alcohol, and Gore

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Mass/school shootings, Sexual content, Addiction, Vomit, and Stalking

Minor: Sexual assault, Cancer, Police brutality, and Death of parent

sarah_onyxartemis's review

Good book just not at all my cup of tea. I'm only just crawling out of a major reading slump so I'm not going to force myself to get through it. Not right now at least. Maybe I'll pick it back up down the road.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Cursing, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Stalking, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Cancer, Death of parent, and Mental illness