Last One Standing
We’ve all witnessed the final girl montage. She rises from the wreckage, bloodied and bruised, no one left standing but her, that lost and vacant look in her eyes that makes her realise her old life has ended, wondering what awaits her in the future. We’ve seen it all: from Ghostface’s reckoning of Sidney Prescott; dear old Nancy escaping the nightmarish halls of Mr. Krueger; the “get away from her you bitch!” shout from Alien fighter Ellen Ripley; and hands down to Laurie Strode for best scream queen of the century.
But what happens when they’re dragged from the wreckage? Cleaned, stitched, and thrown back into the world again. Where do they go? And do people still remember what these girls went through?
Lynnette Tarkington 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 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 realised — someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.
Grady Hendrix, The Final Girl Support Group, July 2021
The Final Girl Support Group is a fast-paced, gripping and intense novel that will have that brain of yours ticking away till the very end. When I first dove into this book, I was going through a bit of a reading slump. One of those you have so many books you want to read, but somehow that book beside your bed just never leaves that spot. Well this book completely changed that. From the first 100 or so pages, I was completely immersed in it. With deaths around every corner, serial killers on the loose, and a final girl with an itch to scratch and her guns blazing. How could I not put it down?
The Final Girls
The characters all have different backgrounds, and each one has different stories to share. It’s no surprise that they still fight for their lives every day since the night it all changed for them.
Lynnette’s POV is the main centre of the story. The hectic and fragmented writing really helped her character, with the text constantly depicting fear on the brain. She’s tough, won’t back down, and has long been preparing for this. It kept the story ever increasing in energy, twists and turns.
Grady Hendrix uses a lot of his inspiration from the horror classics, twining his characters’ lives within their stories. If you’re a horror buff like me, then you’ll recognise the influences that helped drive his story along. From the likes of Scream, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and many more.
At first I was a little bit confused, because I thought this was Grady’s take on slasher movies. Bringing his own final girls and thrusting them into modern day America. But, every time one of the characters’ pasts came about I kept feeling like he was slightly ripping off the classics. Some of them felt considerably similar. One example that stuck out the most for me was Julia’s backstory.
Julia’s killer was her high school boyfriend, who, together with his best friend, went around murdering everyone in their year, all the while wearing a black robe and ghost mask and brandishing a black knife as their weapon.
Now for me, that just sounded like Scream. And you could say that maybe I’m overthinking it, or maybe it was just a coincidence, but something smelled fishy and a little bit off. It felt too close to the story, and maybe that was what the author was trying to do, but it all just felt unoriginal and flat.
Who Dunnit?
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
We all love a big reveal at the end. The mask ripped from the psycho’s face, or the scary monster that creeps from the open wardrobe. Mr. Hendrix does this justice with the way he weaves and twists his characters’ choices so it makes the reader feel as though you can’t trust anyone, even if you can’t stop falling for their honesty and final girl loyalty.
It seems to be a running theme in Hendrix’s novels, from My Best Friend’s Exorcism, when the demon is revealed and the evil is out. The Final Girl Support Group ranks high on my shock factor scale for books. I cannot express enough how much this book made me feel. From the start it’s all about sisters sticking together through all of it, the ones who have their back and have no one at the same time. They’re alone, yet have each other, and this is why it keeps the book so captivating: you want them to win but at what end? And when can they finally find peace in their lives?
The Finale
If you’re looking for a book that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to the end, then this is for you. It’s gripping, intense, and downright mental. But hopefully you might love it as much as I did. If you like this, maybe check out some of Grady Hendrix’s other novels. Like Horrorstör, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, We Sold Our Souls, etc. This author is not one to miss.
