A review by paperbacks_and_planners
Final Girls by Riley Sager

4.0

Summary
10 years ago Quincy was the lone survivor of a massacre known as the Pine Cottage Murders. She instantly became a member of the Final Girls - a group of girls who were also the lone survivor.
Now Quincy is living her life with her soon-to-be-fiance and running a baking website. She still can't remember any details of the night of the murders. But she's happy to keep that night in the past.
Until Lisa, another Final Girl, if found dead and Sam, the 3rd Final Girl, shows up on her doorstep. Now they are thrust back into the spot light and Quincy's seemly normal and perfect life starts to unravel.

Overview
This book was so suspense and so well written.
This is told in alternating time lines - in the present from Quincy's POV and flashes back to the night of the murder. I absolutely loved the flashes into the past as it was slowly revealed what really happened that night.

Content Warnings: Murder, Gore, Death of a Parent, Cancer, Sexual Assault, Cheating, PTSD, Drug Addiction/Abuse, Violence

What I Liked
1. This book was SO suspenseful! Riley Sager so perfectly built this air of unsureness and unease. I started off feeling so confident in the narrator but grew to question her reliability, along with everyone else's, as the story went on. It was the perfect slow burn build up.
2. These twists totally got me! My the half way point I was certain I had some of this figured out. Boy was I wrong! But not only were the reveals surprising but they were believable. Once everything was revealed I immediately thought - how did I miss that?! Which is exactly how I want to feel about my thriller reveals. Clues were 100% hidden, but I missed all of them.
3. The alternating format worked so well for this. I was desperate to get to more of the Pine Cottage chapters because I NEEDED to know what happened!

What I Didn't Like
1. The first quarter of this was a little slow. It took me 2 days to read the first 80 pages but then I binged the last 250+ pages in a single night. Once the story picked up, it PICKED UP. But the early chapters were repetitive and drawn out. I was honestly a little sick of hearing about the details of Quinn's baking.
2. A few of the wrap-ups were a little convenient and I didn't care for how the main characters were just "forgiven" for some pretty terrible actions. More specifically for anyone who's read this
SpoilerI didn't like that Tina took the fall for the beating/coma or that she and Quinn forgave each other and became friendly. They royally screwed up each other's lives and it was just all forgive and forget. It was a little too convenient and neat.


Overall I absolutely loved this. Riley Sage is definitely up there on my list of must read thriller authors now. I'm so glad I own his other 2 books because I can't wait to read more from him! If you're looking for a twisty, suspenseful thriller - definitely check this one out!