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A review by marslotus
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
I think after the fourth or fifth time they say "final girl," before you even get 1/4 of your way through the book, the phrase loses any unique factor it initially had.
I felt constantly frustrated while reading this because of how contradictory it was in its efforts to A.) Have an unreliable narrator as the protagonist and B.) Have a mystery with multiple plot twists. Very often these "twists" amount to nothing and when you begin reaching the end of the novel, there's a new twist every couple of chapters that overrides the previous one which made me feel like I was wasting my time taking each one seriously. Lynette is meant to be the over-prepared, paranoid protagonist with a backup plan for any scenario, but oftentimes I felt she was all talk and was constantly failing at the tasks she has so much confidence in. Maybe that's the point, but she wasn't even paranoid to a realistic point where I felt I had to be paranoid for her in certain scenes because she wasn't being careful. I wanted to feel for her, but she was also constantly lying to others and to the reader, the secrets she kept from any sort of omniscient narrator just felt like lies as opposed to satisfying twists because there's hardly any type of hint to them so they come out of nowhere. I don't understand how everyone is so understanding of her by the endwhen it's directly her fault they're in this scenario because of her genuinely mean-spirited book. I don't know if I could ever forgive someone for that.
And can we talk aboutthe supernatural elements of this book? Hello?? I wouldn't even be against it if it was actually explored instead of being shoved into the plot for 5 seconds because of course we need a Nightmare on Elm Street reference! Like, what do you mean Heather can teleport in her sleep?! What was in that room?! Dear God, this makes me wish this book had multiple POVs or something, or maybe didn't rely so heavily on direct references to real slasher movies and instead just made some up.
All in all, I thought the protagonist Lynette was often very ignorant in her deductions on who is behind the plan so when she finally figured it out, I almost didn't believe her because of how often she was consistently wrong. I don't think she had an arc, I feel her actions were more or less justified by the narrative and as a result, there was no change or arc her character had to go through. I had an empty feeling by the end of the story, especially when the antagonists could have been so much more interesting, but that would sacrifice the whole "It's this person! No, it's this person!" aspect of the novel which of course we couldn't do without *sarcasm*.
If this was a book about paranoia, if wish it was written that way. If it was written to be a whodunit, I wish it was written that way. Unfortunately, it felt like it was written with twists as its highest priority, that it sacrifices the best aspects of a horror mystery novel.
I felt constantly frustrated while reading this because of how contradictory it was in its efforts to A.) Have an unreliable narrator as the protagonist and B.) Have a mystery with multiple plot twists. Very often these "twists" amount to nothing and when you begin reaching the end of the novel, there's a new twist every couple of chapters that overrides the previous one which made me feel like I was wasting my time taking each one seriously. Lynette is meant to be the over-prepared, paranoid protagonist with a backup plan for any scenario, but oftentimes I felt she was all talk and was constantly failing at the tasks she has so much confidence in. Maybe that's the point, but she wasn't even paranoid to a realistic point where I felt I had to be paranoid for her in certain scenes because she wasn't being careful. I wanted to feel for her, but she was also constantly lying to others and to the reader, the secrets she kept from any sort of omniscient narrator just felt like lies as opposed to satisfying twists because there's hardly any type of hint to them so they come out of nowhere. I don't understand how everyone is so understanding of her by the end
And can we talk about
All in all, I thought the protagonist Lynette was often very ignorant in her deductions on who is behind the plan so when she finally figured it out, I almost didn't believe her because of how often she was consistently wrong. I don't think she had an arc, I feel her actions were more or less justified by the narrative and as a result, there was no change or arc her character had to go through. I had an empty feeling by the end of the story, especially when the antagonists could have been so much more interesting, but that would sacrifice the whole "It's this person! No, it's this person!" aspect of the novel which of course we couldn't do without *sarcasm*.
If this was a book about paranoia, if wish it was written that way. If it was written to be a whodunit, I wish it was written that way. Unfortunately, it felt like it was written with twists as its highest priority, that it sacrifices the best aspects of a horror mystery novel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child death, Terminal illness, Police brutality, Mass/school shootings, Stalking, Car accident, and Gaslighting
Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship