Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

54 reviews

chessakat's review against another edition

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dark funny 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


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sofia_guks's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

3.0


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hypofocus's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Even though I felt myself struggling to keep reading at points, this was an enjoyable ride through a plethora of campy horror tropes. Any fan of the slasher genre would feel satiated by consuming this title!

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megansmith's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-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

2.0

I had higher hopes for this book, it was on my list for a long time for some reason and I finally just got it... and it really fell flat for me. 

The main problem I had with it is you could very clearly feel this was a book about women's issues and trauma written by a man. Every female character felt seen only through the lens of a man and men's thinking around women and it was so difficult to read the book for that reason. IE, one example - I don't think the book really figured out if these women liked or disliked being commodified as much as they were. Lynnette hates being in the spotlight but she also solely refers to the people in her group as Final Girls (and that's sentence case, because they're a Thing). 95% of this book was just women hating each other, women hating themselves, and some visual descriptions of torture, with a small bit of a redemption arc for the last 15 pages of a 300+ page book. I think I'd be interested seeing this written through a female gaze but also, this book really ruined that idea for me. 

The plot felt so messy, it felt like the most amount of changes for the suspected killer(s) in any piece of thriller / mystery media I have ever read or seen. There were so many pieces of plot that felt unexplained or small missing details that threw me out of the moment, which sucked. Stephanie just felt so random and sudden and made little sense in this book. And to boot, it truly made no sense to me for how "smart" Lynette was with all the doomsday prepping she did, she still made a bunch of freaking dumb mistakes. Like, she managed to get her own burner phone but had zero concerns using Stephanie's phone as they tried discretely traveling across the country? So. many. inconsistencies. I get flawed characters are flawed for a reason, but this just felt messy and not thought out. 

I will give this book the credit in that I did finish it REALLY quickly, Im not sure if it's because I had a nightmare about myself getting murdered when I had to pause right before bed at the details of Lynette's backstory, or if I was really wanting to know who was behind it all, but I'll let you decide (whoever ends up reading this). There was some solid writing styles, just a badly executed idea that probably should have been written through the female gaze. 

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obsessedteach's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-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

3.75


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theangelssing's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I would’ve loved to put a better note, really. I’m sad I didn’t like this book as much as I thought I would but here we go. 

At first I really liked the writing style and the plot, it was really interesting to follow Lynnette’s thoughts and to discover the different characters from her point of view only, but then it started to be weird and I had difficulties to follow every stories of every characters. I was lost between all the names and all the stories. But that didn’t stop me from reading the book anyway. The story was still really interesting and I wanted to know the end.
At the same time I found it really interesting to have only Lynnette’s thoughts because of the atmosphere it created. I really felt her pain, her thoughts, I really tried to understand her and I really was invested in what was happening. I can’t say I always understood nor supported her and her choices but I did understand the difficulty behind every situation and choice. 

I can’t relate to her nor to the other final girls as I never experienced what they experienced so I can’t even say if their reactions and decisions were legit but I think the intentions of the author were still interesting and it opened a window on the women who are final girls in real life. We need representation.

Well, what I didn’t like. The book was really long for me. It took me too much time even tho the book hasn’t that much pages. I think the whole thing with Stephanie was too long. 
I do understand that maybe we needed moments with Stephanie so we could feel closer to her and so being sad she’s the villain. But it was very long.
Some passages were very long for me to read, maybe they were all important but they still didn’t caught my attention. I kept reading because I wanted to know what happens at the end (yes, I was clueless) but I was reading some scenes only to finish the book and not because I actually liked them.
And man I was so sad for Skye. I had hope for him, really. I really liked him and I felt heartbroken after the end please
I think the whole story of Chrissy was so rushed. I would’ve liked to know more about her and her story to understand her better and not seeing her being kind of a villain nobody understood.
I hated each part with Garrett P. I found them interesting and disgusting at the same time. Garrett was an awful and disgusting character and I didn’t like how he used and played with Lynnette when she still was a teenager while he was a grown up man. I found their relationship really inappropriate and kinda toxic.

Overall it still was a good book. I just think some stories where too long and some weren’t enough.
I gave 4 stars because I think the book is still pretty good and the characters were really interesting!! I really liked reading about those characters.

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nialiversuch's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? Yes

3.0


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callenmecait's review

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

3.5


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sar_letsread's review

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

3.5

Honestly, this book was…a lot to handle. I couldn’t believe the ending and how much the plot moved from one place to another. I was definitely not expecting anything like this and quite frankly this book gave me a headache with the amount of twist the plot has. I believe if you like books that have great writing and crazy, crazy plots, this book is for you. But in my opinion, it was a lot to process and I will probably never read this again (THANK GOD!!) Overall, I actually look forward to reading other book made by Grady Hendrix, because this was definitely an experience I would like to have again with his other literary works. 

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mt713's review

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

3.5

Rarely do I think a book would work better as a movie, but this one would. I could absolutely picture some of the scenes in this book as scenes from a slash movie, but I think that is a weakness of the book. It was very fast-paced, while for a book I expect a little more buildup. The ending was definitely more enjoyable than the beginning, and I did have a good time reading the book, but maybe someone with more of an appreciation for the genre would enjoy it more.

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