Day: October 8, 2021

Book Review: The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

The Final Girl Support Group
Author: Grady Hendrix

Published:  July 13, 2021
Audiobook

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: September 16-22, 2021
Jessica’s Rating: 2 stars

Book Description:

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.

Jessica’s Review:

Despite not really being a Grady Hendrix fan, in the spirit of Halloween I gave the audiobook a listen, but like his others, it did not agree with me.  The premise has something to it: What happens to ‘final girls’ after the headlines end?  All the final girls are reminiscent of final girls from the slasher movies of the 1980s and 1990s.

For me, what happens with these final girls is that they are all beyond messed up!  I did not form any attachment to any of the final girls, so when things happened to them, I did not really feel anything. We do get details of what Lynnette survived and it is very brutal in a jaw dropping way. 

This novel did get me thinking about Neve Campbell’s character Sydney in the Scream movies: She survived multiple attacks by multiple killers so how messed up would she be in ‘real life’??? Also Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween movies, yep, she’s a total Final Girl!  And we get new movies in both of those series relatively soon.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK