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

2.0

2.5 stars — on its own, i more or less enjoyed this — i like the moral greyness of some characters, i thought the plot and twists were pretty good. however, the narrator is unreliable to a level that i didn’t really enjoy, and a lot of the characters are just really unlikable. most importantly though, this is my third Grady Hendrix book, and he has the SAME problem every time. he tries to write about complex social issues in his horror — e.g. capitalism and wage labour in Horrorstor, racism of white women towards Black women in Book Club’s Guide, and now ableism and racism and misogynistic media and reporting in this one. (for context, he is afaik a cishet abled white man. and iirc he picked Grady as his pen name so that he could seem like ~maybe a woman~) his representations of these issues imo is always just really underdeveloped and it feels more like he’s exploiting them for cookies than actually genuinely wanting to discuss the issues and explore their ties to horror. a lot of contemp horror writers do this well, but all of them are actually tied to the issues they write about — see Carmen Maria Muchado, or Lakewood, or quite a few of the other books on my horror shelf. all in all, it’s not bad, but if you want horror that examines social issues, go for literally anything but Hendrix.