Good Reads Challenge: (Book Review) Final Girls Support Group
Hello friends, happy Friday and Happy Fall!
“Murder is man’s attempt to steal birth from women,” she says. “We make children, they kill them. We create life, they create death. It’s the way it’s always been.” – Final Girls Support Group
How is everyone doing? I hope you’re having a great day, staying hydrated, taking time to spend with friends and family, and enjoying the fall weather.
October went by way too fast and as I wrapped up the series, I was feeling a little burnt out, so I took a few days to decompress from social media and just relax. I didn’t even have the energy to take down all my Halloween decorations, and we still have a post-Halloween game night happening next weekend.
Right now I’m moving into Thanksgiving mode, and thinking about folks coming through and cleaning the places I haven’t done since August. I’m not planning on hosting a lot of people but I still want my house nice for overnight guests.
I have some great posts planned for the month of November in conjunction with the Thanksgiving holiday, Black Friday shopping, and my regular reviews and boards.
Today I’m sharing my latest book review, The Final Girls Support Group
Title | The Final Girls Support Group
Author | Grady Hendrix
Pages | 352
Genre | Horror, Thriller, Fiction
GR Rating | 3.52
Purchase | Amazon
Synopsis
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.
My Rating & Review (☆☆☆½)
from Final Girls Support Group
“Men don’t have to pay attention the way we do. Men die because they make mistakes. Women? We die because we’re female.”
The premise of the Final Girls Support (in my head) goes like this. Think of all the scary movies in the 80s (which are fictional) but create a final girl for each story, then fast forward 20-25 years and visit said girl to see if she’s a functioning adult.
This was an audiobook for me, and I liked the general synopsis of the story but right off the bat the main final girl (Lynn) was getting on my nerves. I get PTSD sufferer, but still, 25 years later your triple bolting your door, keeping knives under your pillow (not exactly, just paraphrasing), and taking a different path every day is a bit extreme.
from Final Girls Support Group
“The line between being too careful and not being careful enough is a line you only get to cross once.”
Enter the “Support Group” where members of this group sit down with a therapist and work out their shit. Some are thriving, some are pretending that everything is ok, and others are just hanging on by a thread.
However, in the distance trouble was brewing. Lynn (and the group) would learn of the death of a final girl due to her absence at a meeting. Lynn’s good friend mysteriously dies, and she goes into overdrive. Someone is killing final girls, and that someone is laying the groundwork perfectly, so it points back to Lynn.
from Final Girls Support Group
“The final girl and the monster are two sides of one person. Think about it. One runs fast, screams, and is resourceful, and fights for her friends. The other is slow and implacable, and silent, and he kills, and is alone.”
Lynn gets caught up in a game where she doesn’t know the players, and someone is trying to pin all the mysterious deaths including that of the killer on Lynn. She would soon discover friend from foe relying on some unsuspecting characters.
It’s interesting how this story plays into media and fame, and how everyone (even psychopaths) wants a piece of it. Final girls rarely want that type of attention they just want to live a peaceful existence after these horrendous circumstances. I also want to point out the clever marketing of the audiobook.
from Final Girls Support Group
“You say tomato and I say shamanistic vision quest that uses an ordeal to lead us inward on a journey of spiritual discovery and eventual synthesis and peace.”
What better way to promote this than using actress Adrienne King? The actual final girl from Friday the 13th, Alice Hardy (1980). Again, this main character Lynn drove me crazy just by her day-to-day actions, and her violent tendencies, but one must imagine that if you saw your whole family slaughtered, some of that stays with you.
I gave this book 3 ½ stars because I like most of the story, but it gets stupid towards the end and it’s a strange frenzy of this killer of final girls and the main character Lynn dueling out it until one meets a tragic end.
from Final Girls Support Group
“I don’t wear headphones, I don’t wear sunglasses, I make sure my jacket is tight so there’s nothing to snag, and then I say good-bye to my plant, take a deep breath, step out of my apartment, and face a world that wants me dead.”
My Good Reads Challenge Progress
Thanks so much for visiting the blog today. Don’t forget to follow and subscribe, as I really appreciate the support. — Peace
