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A review by themermaddie
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
4.0
4.5 stars
i'm not going to lie, i was shockingly close to writing this off as a flop around the 20% mark, but it pulled through after that. as usual grady hendrix delivers strong complex characters with a deft hand and a supremely well-crafted sense of unease the whole book through.
i love the idea of following up with characters after their "main story" has been told, so a story about a group of middle aged final girls is right up my alley. the story starts a little slowly, building character profiles and developing them really really well, but i admit i'm docking half a star because it started to drag a little too early. lynnette's paranoia and ptsd were so well done, but it sloughed on for a while before the plot started picking up. idk if it's a cliche or whatever but lynnette was starting to piss me off, i didn't like her very much until i finally learned her backstory, which truly flipped the switch for me. jesus christ. the stuff that happens to this book isn't exactly explicit or abnormally visceral, but it is quite gory just by sheer quantity of violence.
there are short articles/interviews/asides interspersed between chapters of the main plot that give more background for each of the characters or provide more context, i thought this worked really well and said a lot with very little. these asides are also where the majority of the more explicit anti-violence messages get expressed; these are things like commentary on societal gendered violence, poetic musings on the innate natures of men and women, or the after effects experienced by survivors. they are occasionally heavy handed but not unforgivably so, and honestly i think it kind of helped with tying the overall themes together by the end of the book, particularly with the plot twist. the book ends up being meta commentary on itself; it's true that this type of violence against women is a crime we can't look away from.
once the plot picked up, this book was so crazy. absolutely batshit insane, i loved not knowing what was going to happen next and feeling gaslit most of the time. the slow reveal of everyone's backstories and circumstances was great, and i came to really enjoy lynnette's pov. i think hendrix has a great grasp on the final girl trope, and i think he's done something really fun and fresh with these characters who exist in a very saturated genre.
i'm not going to lie, i was shockingly close to writing this off as a flop around the 20% mark, but it pulled through after that. as usual grady hendrix delivers strong complex characters with a deft hand and a supremely well-crafted sense of unease the whole book through.
i love the idea of following up with characters after their "main story" has been told, so a story about a group of middle aged final girls is right up my alley. the story starts a little slowly, building character profiles and developing them really really well, but i admit i'm docking half a star because it started to drag a little too early. lynnette's paranoia and ptsd were so well done, but it sloughed on for a while before the plot started picking up. idk if it's a cliche or whatever but lynnette was starting to piss me off, i didn't like her very much until i finally learned her backstory, which truly flipped the switch for me. jesus christ. the stuff that happens to this book isn't exactly explicit or abnormally visceral, but it is quite gory just by sheer quantity of violence.
there are short articles/interviews/asides interspersed between chapters of the main plot that give more background for each of the characters or provide more context, i thought this worked really well and said a lot with very little. these asides are also where the majority of the more explicit anti-violence messages get expressed; these are things like commentary on societal gendered violence, poetic musings on the innate natures of men and women, or the after effects experienced by survivors. they are occasionally heavy handed but not unforgivably so, and honestly i think it kind of helped with tying the overall themes together by the end of the book, particularly with the plot twist. the book ends up being meta commentary on itself; it's true that this type of violence against women is a crime we can't look away from.
once the plot picked up, this book was so crazy. absolutely batshit insane, i loved not knowing what was going to happen next and feeling gaslit most of the time. the slow reveal of everyone's backstories and circumstances was great, and i came to really enjoy lynnette's pov. i think hendrix has a great grasp on the final girl trope, and i think he's done something really fun and fresh with these characters who exist in a very saturated genre.