A review by vampfang
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

i really enjoyed reading this one!!! grady hendrix’s writing style is very engaging and i was never bored. the book tries to bring up a lot of interesting issues in horror like

how we view horror in the era of modernity wrt technology, violent deaths vs natural deaths and society’s feelings on the matter, and the gendered nature of violence, but ultimately i think it’s impossible to tackle all these topics in a way that feels satisfactory. the issue of horror vs modern technology first comes up in the article clippings interspersed throughout which i thought were really interesting in general, but the physical mechanics of murder just interest me less personally than a lot of the more symbolic elements. it then felt weird for this to play a major part in stephanie’s motive at the end, which didn’t really make a ton of sense. she hated the women because they were old and thought she could do better than older killers? it just didn’t feel very fleshed out since hendrix tried to focus on too many other issues. i liked the exploration of horror vs natural deaths with michelle, there was a part specifically where lynnette talks about how she’d fought so hard to be able to die naturally like michelle yet it’s not treated with as much dignity that i thought was such a good point and really makes u think about how people think about society as well as the disabled/sick/elderly, i just wish it were discussed more. violence against women was really the crux of the book and i liked that because it’s a really interesting topic, but the two things that bothered me was a) the weirdness of applying a trope that exists in our world to real people in this world who then serve to create tropes? and b) the way lynnette’s response to her trauma is suspicion of men that felt like it was diving into radfem territory. this is kind of addressed with having a female killer but not entirely, and i think the book should’ve talked more abt the structural reason for these things rather than never challenging lynnette’s view of it as biological. still super interesting though i think the ending with stephanie didn’t make a ton of sense and was super rushed