Review of The Final Girl Support Group

Blurb: Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.

Review: This is the Final Girl Support Group, where each of the women have survived a horrific event. Lynnette Tarkington is the only one who didn't fight back. Yet since the murder of her family, she's lived in fear, locking herself away from the world. When one of the women from the group end up dead, Lynnette knows this is more than it seems. Someone knows about the secret group and is coming for each of them. This time, she's determined to fight back.

The Final Girl Support Group is a standalone slasher mystery horror. (For some reason, Amazon has it listed under vampire suspense, and I can guarantee you that there is nothing supernatural or vampiric about this book.) There are lots of twists and plenty of action even if the plot is clunky in parts. There's also the humor that Grady Hendrix is known for. He's making fun of the slasher genre, but he brings up some very important observations.

Why are these movies so popular? Why is it almost overwhelmingly always women who are victims? Especially with the trope of the final girl. The obsession extends beyond movies to real life murderers and their victims. That itself is terrifying. A few of the characters in the book offer up their theories, and it's disturbing.

People are dying in gruesome ways and Lynnette tries to find out who is responsible. She's more than a bit paranoid and reacts on instinct, and she isn't very likable at first. Yet her growth is massive, and I was cheering her on in the end. Each of the final girls is a trope too, and while I did figure out the surprise twist, it was still fun.

You can find Grady Hendrix on his site and buy the book here.