You know when you are watching a slasher blood-bath horror flick with your mates and you all try and pick who the survivor will be - cos there's usually only one - well... this book tells the story of what happens next for those survivors. Best know by the moniker "The Final Girls" this book tells the story of three such women; all survivors of quite different attacks. A sorority house killing. a motel massacre and the good old cabin in the woods scenario. Mostly we follow the cabin girl, Quincy, and see how she has rebuilt her life since being the sole survivor of the bunch of friends who thought the cabin was a good place to celebrate one of their birthdays. Several years later, she is still being looked after and dependent on Coop, the cop who found her running for her life that fateful night. She still hasn't got over what happened, keeping a lot buried, and still can't speak the name of the man responsible. She is now a baker and has a quite popular blog and is living with boyfriend Jeff. Then, one day, another of the Final Girls, Lisa, is found dead, assumed to have taken her own life. This event brings the third Final girl, Sam, out of hiding and into the arms of Quincy for support. But what kind of support can she really offer as her own life is somewhat chaotic.
Well... I completely devoured this book in only a couple of sittings over two days. In fact, I would have stayed up all night to finish it had I not had an important appointment the next day that I had to be on the ball for. The way the book is written had me really getting into the heads of Quincy as her world disintegrated around her, and also Sam as she just blew into town like a whirlwind, bent on self-destruction but at the same time wanting to help Sam remember what actually happened on that fateful night by pushing and pushing. These two characters actually reminded me a little of Susanna and Lisa from Girl Interrupted. Lisa obviously being Sam; seductive and dangerous and Quincy being Susanna who struggled to live in the real world a little by living in denial.
Anyway, as we follow the aftermath of Final Girl Lisa's death in the present day, we are also told in flashback what happened when Quincy and a few others went to Pine Cottage for her friend's birthday. More and more information is drip fed in these sections which follow quite nicely with Quincy beginning to remember in the present. I found these parts complemented the present day story very well, although I have to say I had no idea of the truth right up until the jaw dropping reveal towards the end. I read so many of this genre book that it is so refreshing to be pretty much clueless for so long during a book. Yes, I had a few theories which I kept on honing and changing throughout, but yeah, the author managed to pull the wool over my eyes for the majority without managing to annoy/frustrate me.
I found the sections from the past to be rather chilling and very atmospheric and also a little creepy. Every time we switched back to the present day, I ached to go back and find out what happened next at the cabin. The other thing I loved was the difference between the younger and the older Quincy; how what happened had really changed her in pretty much every way - both physically and psychologically. This change also went quite a way to explaining/justifying the transformation she underwent in the present after she met Sam.
Pacing was excellent and, throughout the book, totally matched the narrative. Slower paced for the creepy parts added so much to the atmosphere that the author was trying to create and made those parts even more chilling and then faster paced for some of the present day antics, on average ramping up nicely for the final scenes.
All in all, I found this to be a very expertly crafted, gritty psychological thriller that ticked every box for me, leaving me completely satisfied at the end. I have a feeling that this will be one of the big books of 2017. It will more than likely end up in my top 10 too.

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on a vacation with five friends and came home alone. The sole survivor of a horror movie - scale massacre . Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife. Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn. They all became members of a group the press called the Final Girls. The girls have never met. But then Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead, in her bathtub with her wrists slit. Sam, the second final girl, turns up on Quincy's doorstep.

I don't want to say much more about this book as it would be full of spoilers. This is definitely going to be a best seller. It's one hughe roller coaster of a ride from beginning to end. There is two stories being told alongside each other. Quincy (the main character) told in the present day and the event that happened at Pine Cottage. With believable characters with mixed emotions which includes fear, anxiety and anger. This book is gripping. Fast paced and very hard to put down. Loved it.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Random House UK, Ebury Publishing and the author Riley Sager for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Twisty, you say? this certainly is, I am usually pretty good at working out the plot, not with this book though.Full of suspense and surprises and well written.kept me puzzling trying to work it out all the way through.Good book, well worth a read.

I'd had this book on my iPad for review months before its publication date and so had almost become accustomed to seeing it sitting there - awaiting my attention - when its turn finally came around and I opened it. (Well, downloaded it in reality, but still...)

As usual I went onto the Goodreads app to add the book to my 'currently reading' list. And though I try to avoid seeing any other reviews before I post my own (lest I be swayed by others) I did note some rather positive comments about this book. Which I discovered - when I read it in an intense sitting - were most certainly warranted.

I wondered about the direction this book would take as it kicked off. The three baddies, who turned Lisa, Sam and Quincy into 'final girls' are all dead... so it seems there's no mystery to be solved there. They've all had closure. So when Lisa's suicide is discovered to be something else we're forced to wonder if the girls themselves are being targeted. But by who, and why?

I hadn't heard the term the 'final girl' before. It's apparently film terminology used to describe the last woman standing at the end of a horror movie. It's a membership Quincy certainly rejected... though of course she realises the alternative would have been worse. 

Sager does a good job at developing a sense of dread, rather than one of menace. We've come to care for Quincy. She's resilient and seemingly moved on from her ordeal (despite the Xanax). Not remembering the events of the night of her friends' murders seems to have offered her some protection. But there's a thick air of foreboding as the novel progresses. We kinda know something bad is going to happen, but not exactly sure what or why.

And we're offered a pretty limited pool, in terms of who may be of a threat to Quincy. There's Coop - the cop who found Quincy and who has been her rock ever since as well as Jeff, Quincy's boyfriend of several years. And of course there's Sam who seems to be a terrible influence on Quincy - determined to get the third final girl to remember what happened 'that night' in Pine Cottage.

Oh... and then of course there's Quincy who we learn - through flashbacks - was suspected (by police other than Coop) of knowing more than she let on about her night of terror.

In the present day the story unfolds in first person from Quincy's point of view, so she can't really keep any secrets from us. We know that she doesn't really remember the night at the cottage. We know she refuses to think about Him. We know He is dead. But we also know that Sam's appearance along with Lisa's death is sparking some memories Quincy had assumed were lost forever.

Sager inserts flashback scenes throughout the book - chronologically initially - so we learn how Quincy and her friends came to be on their trip to Pine Cottage and the events of the day prior to the murders.

In the present it's obvious to everyone other than Quincy there's something 'off' about Sam; her erratic behaviour and secretiveness is cause for concern, and of course we're unsure what it is she wants from her new friend.

Happily Sager gives us a number of twists. I'd pondered on the various scenarios earlier in the novel but discounted them so she did a great job at keeping us guessing. She throws suspects and questions our way and then moves on. And - of course - she has us doubting Quincy... our host for this read.

I enjoyed this book and read it in a sitting. It's well paced and we get glimpses of past events just as we need them. Quincy is likeable but complex and though Jeff and Coop seem intent to protect her, we're not entirely sure who we can trust.

It doesn't happen often, but I enjoyed the ending of this book. Sager offers readers answers and closure without feeling obliged to tie everything up too perfectly. So I look forward to whatever comes next from Riley Sager. (And I should mention that the name is a pseudonym, so Riley Sager could be male. I've only assumed female as it's written from a female's point of view!)

Read this book in a day. Couldn't put it down, absolute page turner. Highly recommend

First thank you to Riley Sanger and net galley for allowing me to review an amazing psychological thriller with an extremely original plot that had me gripped from the first page to the last, I couldn't read fast enough.
The plot is full of intriguing twists which will keep you guessing, definitely be on the look out for more by Riley.

A Final Girl is the last woman standing at the end of a slasher movie.

Quincy is a real-life Final Girl, along with two others who have each survived massacres. She has been living a normal life for over 20 years but when something happens in the present, her past catches up with her.

There's not much more that can be revealed without spoilers but this book has been billed the thriller of the year and it is certainly a pacy, page turning read. Hats off to Sager for not being predictable - the book is so full of twists and turns and constantly has you guessing but it was clever enough to fool me right 'til the end.

However, while it was set to be potentially brilliant, another 'next Gone Girl', it did fall short for me. Quincy can't name the man who attacked and murdered her friends so she refers to him constantly as 'Him' - with the use of the capital feeling overworked and bringing to mind a sense of 'he who must not be named' which jars. While the plot does twist and keep you guessing, the main reason I didn't guess was because the clues weren't there. The actions and motives didn't really fit with the characters.

The most frustrating part though was that I hoped the book might follow in its' predecessors' footsteps and revise the archetypal roles that women are pigeon-holed into. However, the book continues to perpetuate tired stereotypes with the dichotomy of women as 'victims' or 'perpetrators' and 'virgins' or 'sluts'. The only complication is the idea that the women are 'survivors' but it adds little to the established roles.

Equally the perpetuation of the myth that sex is both pain and pleasure was frustrating for a book that seemed to be focused on women's experiences. The framing of grown women as 'girls' only compounds these issues further.

Final Girls was nothing on Gone Girl but it was a fun thriller with a shocking twist and it was certainly entertaining if not gripping.

I found this an engrossing thriller, and hard to put down. it is intelligent and clever in the plot if a little gory in parts for me (horror is not my thing) . However, this did not stop my enjoyment of the book. The interaction between the characters, brought together by a terrible event was interesting; a display of how peer pressure and the feelings of others can influence a persons thoughts and actions.
A chilling read with exciting characters, a frightening plot and plenty of twists and turns.

Normally, I don't read thrillers because they seem so formulaic to me? They always feel like the same story line... or maybe I'm just reading the wrong thriller novels? When I started reading the book, it seemed very similar to In a Dark Dark Wood by Ruth Ware... And to be honest, it stayed similar throughout the whole book.

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls.

Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past. That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past.

Ok, so we have three girls who have survived a serial killer and who have seen all of their friends get killed right in front of them. We have three beautiful girls who just want to get on with their lives but can't due to the media constantly reminding them that they will never live a normal life and because they can never forget what they endured. I had an odd sort of respect for Quincy during the beginning of the book. She knew what she had gone through 10 years ago, but she wanted to put it behind her, and so she put on a massive front, pretending that she was okay and that she had moved past it all. She lied that she didn't have nightmares about that night all of the time. She seemed to be doing okay though until Sam turned up on her doorstep. Sam ruined everything. I found her abusive, manipulative, rude and pushy. I can't believe the kind of things that she would say to Quincy, it just made me feel really uncomfortable.





"We were, for whatever reason, the lucky ones who survived when no one else had. Pretty girls covered in blood. As such, we were each in turn treated like something rare and exotic. A beautiful bird that spreads its bright wings only once a decade."

- Riley Sager, Final Girls





However, I did think that the character of Sam was brilliantly written and I was intrigued by her from the very beginning - unlike Quincy, who bored me. She just seemed really two-dimensional like a cardboard cutout. She was the stereotypical heroine of a thriller novel: beautiful, successful, happy marriage (blah blah blah). I see that trope SOOOOOO many times during thrillers and it just gets boring. Show me someone with a normal, non-happy-go-lucky life and I will be interested. I think that's why Sam interested me so much. She didn't have a lot going for her, she didn't have a perfect life, and that trait of her life made her more interesting for me.

Now let's talk about the ending... It was a shocker, I'll give you that! I was absolutely gobsmacked when I read the few reveals at the end and when all of the loose ends were tied up. BUT! The big reveal was just stupid. I found it a bit too far-fetched and I was completely let down. It was a shock, sure, but it was stupid.

Overall, this was an okay book. The ending was the thing that ultimately let it down for me, but the rest of the novel was fast-paced, exciting and a good psychological thriller. I'm actually quite interested to read Riley Sager's future books.

Warning: this book contains triggers for self-harm, suicide, rape

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Released 13th July

Just in general I did have high expectations for the novel which is why I feel disappointed with it. The concept of the novel is very interesting but the story seems so drawn out and boring and just a continuous flow of bad decisions made by the MC.  

There were some twists which I was shocked by but the main one just felt flat for me. It was really just pure shock factor and the build up was lacking and so was the explanation. 

I really didn't like the ending and felt that it was trying to hard - forcing a continuation cycle of sorts which made no sense especially knowing the MC's personality. 

I didn't like the MC especially as she made bad choices after bad choices and just never listened to anybody at the start. I felt like the first half of the novel and the second half the MC did develop but it was too late and I never felt connected to her. 

I did like that the chapters started with a little insight into the day the massacre occurred because it allowed us to know what happened without it lacking build up and no information overload.

2/5

Quite simply - this is one thriller you simply HAVE to read.
Filled with twists and turns - it keeps you guessing (mostly wrongly!) until the gripping conclusion.

I adored this book - I gobbled it up in a couple of sittings - reading into the night and getting up early to finish it, desperate to know what becomes of the two leading characters Quincy and Sam.

This is a quickly paced psychological thriller, combined with some slasher type horror that very quickly escalates into a on-the-edge-of-your-seat read.

I most certainly do not want to spoiler any of it - but I'd confidently say this is the strongest book in this highly competitive genre that I have read this year.
For a debut author, Riley Sager has pulled off something really remarkable - and I foresee great things ahead for this author and this book. It begs to be adapted into a film - but as with all adaptations, make sure to read the book first.
Breathtaking.

Oh hype, oh hype, why do you have to do this to me once again?! I've been looking forward to Final Girls for months now and I think it's easily one of the most hyped thrillers this year. I should have been warned by the mixed reviews... I've been in a bad relationship with hyped books for years and it looks like we just had yet another fight. Because while I really wanted to love Final Girls, I ended up having mixed feelings instead. I don't think it actually lived up to the praise I've seen...  Don't get me wrong, the story wasn't bad, but it wasn't as mindblowingly good as I thought it would be. First of all, there were quite a few things that I did like. Final Girls is partly a very intense, dark and twisted story and certain parts actually cross the line to horror. The situations the final girls were able to survive were simply brutal and definitely set the tone for this story. Likewise the flashbacks to the Pine Cottage were probably my favorite part of this novel and read almost like a horror movie. Very graphic and well described! And I also can't deny there are a lot of plot twists and unexpected turns included in Final Girls. There were a lot of things I definitely didn't see coming. But. And here starts the more negative part of my review... I'm not sure up to what point the plot, actions and characters are actually completely credible. I had a hard time accepting certain things as true and I don't think some parts of the plot are very realistic. I can't go into details due to spoilers, but this did put a mayor damper on things for me. The other thing I struggled with enormously were the main characters. Unfortunately I wasn't able to connect to them and they really started to annoy me as the story unfolded. I felt repeatedly frustrated when they behaved or acted a certain way when it was SO clear something was off. Final Girls does read quite easily though and the horror parts are definitely dark and twisted. I just wish the rest of the story would have been just as strong... All in all I ended up having mixed thoughts about this one, but it looks like Final Girls can go either way.

I think this just might be the best book i have read so far this year. Couldnt put it down. Theres an intrigue with the main character Quincy throughout the story that draws you in and what a fabulous twist, definitely one i didnt see coming. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the Arc in exchange for an honest review.

Fresh feeling idea, intriguing mystery/thriller, well-designed for future adaptations

4.5 stars

The lone survivor of a brutal massacre, Quincy knows of two other 'Final Girls', as the media dub them, and has managed to create a normal life after the traumatic night a decade ago. The police officer who saved her still keeps an eye on her, and her boyfriend is loving and supportive. She's doing well. But when the first Final Girl dies and the other shows up, Quincy finds her past and feelings about it swim to the surface.

It felt a little like the Jodie Foster film 'The Brave One', as women take control and revenge, but is also an original concept and psychological thriller that keeps the interest. I had a few guesses about how the story would progress, and didn't manage to figure out the ending.

Quincy is a layered character, her insecurities and suppressed anger quite realistic and nuanced. She's the most rounded of the protagonists on display, and the one I related to the most. I enjoyed the slow reveal of the murders - all along Quincy insists she cannot remember the events of that night, which kept me wanting to read on, to discover what really happened.

It flies by, there are some good twists and turns that make this an exciting read. It won't disappoint fans of the genre, and is very likely to be picked up for television/film.

With thanks to Netgalley for the advance e-copy.

The Final Girls are girls who survive 'horror movie' scenario massacres....... for example, a killer enters a shack where a group of high school kids are holidaying, they are all killed except one and the one who survives is known in horror movie terms as 'the final girl'. Quincy Carpenter is one such survivor, however, she can't remember what happened to her and her friends, she only remembers running to safety. When another final girl, Sam Boyd turns up on her doorstep, Quincy befriends her even though Sam leads Quincy into unsafe scenarios, trying to force her to remember her past.

The narrative is made up of the present with flashbacks to Quincy's past and it has the feel of a horror movie screenplay. Entertaining with plot twist, plenty of suspects populated this novel.

The final girls

At first I read and thought this is a serious comment on situations in real like that are parodied in films like scream but the impact of having one narrative voice is significant.

We are there with Quincy but who she is has been masked, hidden away much like the awful events she went through. Layer by layer we get to know her as she gets to know herself. Just as you would in real life and it draws the reader in artfully.

The plot is a series of hints and misleading suggestions that I was left guessing till the very end.

An excellent modern soft thriller with little of the CSI blood and gore of modern writing.

Loved the novels feel good ending - felt a real urge to cheer 'Survivor!' but it would have been very odd on a busy comuter train!

I received a free copy from net galley.com for my fair and honest review.

I really enjoyed the book, it has everything I love in a novel from start to finish. I can’t wait to read what the author has planned next!

Ten years ago, Quincy Carpenter was the sole survivor of a tragedy at Pine Cottage – a small cabin in the woods where she and five friends were staying to celebrate a birthday. Quincy doesn’t remember much of what happened that night, and she doesn’t want to.
Such cases cause media frenzy, however, and she was immediately dubbed a “Final Girl” – a horror movie term used to refer to the lone female who escapes whatever horror was involved. And, of course, the media are desperate to bring Quincy together with two other final girls – Lisa, who survived a massacre at her sorority house, and Sam, who survived similar torture at a motel. They all survived, but none of them was left unscathed, either mentally or physically.
The final girls have never met, although Quincy and Lisa have spoken on the phone. But Quincy then hears that Lisa has committed suicide. And then Sam, who had fallen off the radar, comes out to meet her.
I found this to be a refreshingly original concept. There are plenty of tales of being caught up in a massacre, but very few that look at what happens to the survivors afterwards. I think that Sager captured this perfectly, from the difficulties in dealing with the media frenzy, being recognised for the wrong reasons and the difficulties in returning back to a normal life.
And whilst there are flashbacks to the events at Pine Cottage, the majority is set in the present day as Quincy tries to get on with her life, yet is obviously still suffering from the events at Pine Cottage, her days made more bearable by a lifetime prescription of Xanax. She has a partner who seems to be on the verge of proposing, and has stayed in touch with Coop – the police officer who was first on the scene at Pine Cottage ten years ago – but has few friends beyond these two. I particularly enjoyed the flashbacks to the events at Pine Cottage as I desperately wanted to know what happened. It started out as a typical getaway involving drinks and a little matchmaking, before building up in tension as events take a sinister turn. I liked the way in which the present-day scenes were told in the first person, but the Pine Cottage scenes were told from a third person perspective. To me this suggested that Quincy was (understandably) trying to distance herself from those events, and I thought that this was a clever narrative device.
As Sam enters Quincy’s life, it’s clear that things are a little off. Quincy seems like a quiet and slightly reclusive individual dedicated to running her baking blog, while Sam has a “don’t fuck with me” attitude. Whilst they’re inextricably linked by the media’s bestowed "final girls" label, they are very different characters, and even though Quincy doesn’t know anything about Sam (other than what has been covered by the media), Quincy lets Sam stay for a few days, and the two get up to some rather unexpected activities. This part of the book fell a little flat for me. I understand that for Quincy it’s something of a release – throwing off the shackles of the Xanax and her deliberately normal life, but some of her actions are extreme and borderline implausible. That's just my opinion, however – this aspect of the book just wasn't to my taste.
That said, the novel soon picked up again as it became clearer what was going on. I had several theories whilst reading this, but none of them were correct. I loved how everything was wrapped up at the end of the novel – it was clever and twisted and unexpected, and I would definitely recommend Final Girls to fans of psychological thrillers.
Final Girls will be published on 13 July – many thanks to Ebury Publishing for providing a copy for review via Netgalley.

An unusual plot, well written and gripping with a neat twist at the end. I found it hard to put down and read it over two days. The characters are nicely drawn, and I really enjoyed this book.

Well that was a bit of a wild ride. Very enjoyable thriller based around mass murders with a tip of the hat to 80s slasher movies I'm sure.

Our main character is Quinn Carpenter, a sole survivor of a mass murder event when she and her college friends were away for the weekend in a cabin in the woods. We pick the story up years later as she just about has her life together, living in an apartment in Manhattan with her boyfriend, running a successful baking blog, Quinn remembers little or nothing of what happened on that fateful night. All she knows is she survived, an escaped patient from a nearby mental asylum was the perpetrator and she owes her life to th cop that was first on the scene and who shot the perpetrator. Coop is her rock. She meets him once or twice a year and he is always on the end of a phone if needed.
She needs this security as she relies on xanax to to keep her calm. She's well known to the public after being hounded by the press after the event. Labelled a "Final Girl" after being the only survivor, a term used in slasher movies, the press now had a threesome of characters with this label, after lone survivors Lisa Milner and Sam Boyd before her were both given the same label. While Lisa has tried to contact Quinn and has been well known in th media, Sam has disappeared off the radar completely, no one knowing of her whereabouts for the last few years.

When Lisa apparently commits suicide out of the blue, which eventually leads to a murder investigation, Sam Boyd appears on Quinn's doorstep. Frightened by Lisa's death, she wants to meet Quinn and spend time with her. Quinn's agrees to let her stay with her for a while but as things begin to unravel all is not what it seems with Sam as she appears push and test Quinn into doing things she doesnt want to and continuously asks about that night, the one Quinn can't remember and has no intention of.

This a well written and enjoyable read. Quinn a very well written central character nicely balanced with vulnerability, fear and anxiety along with anger. As the story unfolds we do get flashbacks to that night as we try to piece together what happened. The pacing of the book was excellent for the most part with nice tight editing and little wastage.
There were occasions where I though the story and characters were going a little array but this was all resolved at the end with the "reveals" and made perfect sense by the time I had finished.

A really enjoyable read and something a bit different, I would thoroughly recommend this book and look forward to future works by Riley Sager with interest and anticipation.

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House UK and Riley Sager for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.