Release Date: July 13th 2021
Publisher: Titan Books
Pages: 384
Find it on: Goodreads. BookDepository. Waterstones.
Source: The publisher kindly sent me a copy of this book to review
Rating: 4/5 stars
Synopsis
A fast-paced, thrilling horror novel that follows a group of heroines to die for, from the brilliant New York Times bestselling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.
In horror movies, the final girl is the one who’s left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her?
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she’s not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette’s worst fears are realized–someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.
But the thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
Review
Grady Hendrix is fast becoming one of my favourite horror writers and I was incredibly intrigued about The Final Girls Support Group. The story follows Lynnette Tarkington – the survivor of a massacre twenty-two years ago. Being a final girl has defined her, but he’s not the only one. Over the last ten years, Lynette has been meeting with five other final girls and a therapist to discuss the horrific things that happened to them. When one of the girls doesn’t show up at the meeting, Lynette knows the worst has occurred and is knows only she can figure out what’s going on and save the other girls.
Much like the other Grady Hendrix books I’ve read, this is a fast-paced story that kicks off right from the very first chapter. I thought the premise of this book was really intrigued and the story well-executed. I didn’t want to put the book down and ended up racing through the last half of the book in one sitting. There were twists and turns I didn’t expect. I really liked the articles and reports at the end of each chapter that gave the reader more information about the murders or the horror movie franchises that were created off the back of them.
Lynette is a fascinating protagonist, she’s a very unreliable narrator and at times quite unlikeable but she felt like such a real person who had struggled through this awful event only to have it take over every moment of her life. The Final Girl Support Group is a gripping, page-turner of a book and another must-read from Grady Hendrix.
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