Final Girls by Riley Sager

In July, I got the book Lock Every Door from Book of the Month. When it came in, I couldn't help but think that the cover art looked familiar, but couldn't place it. It was not until I was packing my books for my move that I saw it. I had also received Final Girls by Riley Sager from BOTM and had purchased The Last Time I Lied. I got a chuckle out of it. When I finished The Whisper Man, I was thinking that I really needed to make a dent in some of my BOTM books, and since I have by chance purchased all of Sager's books by one means or another, it seemed like a good place to start. I decided that I would go back to his first publication, Final Girls, and work my way forward.

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

A Final Girl is the only survivor at the end of those thriller movies that usually involves teens going to some remote place and being attacked by some deranged person/people. The Final Girls are Lisa, Sam, and now, Quincy. Lisa survived a brutal slaying at her sorority house that killed the other nine sorority sisters. Sam went head to head with the Sack Man at the Nightlight Inn, and was the only survivor. Quincy ran away from Pine Cottage after a man murdered her friends, leaving her bloody and with an hour missing from her memory. Despite the thread that ties them together, and the medias prodding, the Final Girls never meet. Ten years later, Quincy is living her best life with her amazing boyfriend, Jeff, a baking blog on the rise, a beautiful apartment, and a good friend in the officer who saved her, Coop. But when the first Final Girl, Lisa, unexpectedly takes her life, and then Sam appears after being off the grid for years, Quincy is forced to relive her past and try to regain that lost hour, otherwise Sam or her could be next.

For being a first novel, Riley Sager does an amazing job of giving you a plot line you need to know everything about. The characters he creates are very dynamic, especially the Final Girls. It is obvious to the reader that Quincy really wants to believe she has moved past that night at Pine Cottage and has not let it define her life, but that is far from true. You cannot lose your five best friends in a carnal slaying and not have it affect you and your life. Through the novel, this becomes apparent to Quincy as well. Despite her brush with death, she really sucks at reading and understanding people and lets Sam into her life, no questions asked. Her naivete is at times annoying, but she makes growth by the end of the novel.

(Source: Giphy)

Sager does a brilliant job of getting the reader to follow any and all red herrings. Throughout the course of the book, I thought the killer was him (even though he had been killed), Sam, Quincy, Jeff, and basically every other character except for the one who was actually the killer. I did not put the pieces together until right before the reveal. And as mad as I was at the fact that I could not figure it out, I was not disappointed with the killer or the reason. I wish more clues had been given throughout, but I know that if that had been done, I would have put it together and possibly been disappointed in the book. 

Every few chapters is a chapter from the night Pine Cottage happens, and occasionally after the events of that night. As a reader, it is really annoying to get all of the details except the ones you want. But also, Quincy's college friends seem like assholes, making those chapters tedious to get through. At the end, there is a chapter devoted to the day of and years after the attack from "Sam's" point of view, that while interesting, I wish had been dispersed through the book like the other flashbacks. It felt slightly rushed sticking it in all at once. 

(Source: Giphy)

Overall, I was really impressed with the book and could not put it down. I finished the bulk of it in one day while I worked around the house. I am excited to dig into The Last Time I Lied and see how Sager improved an already almost flawless writing style.

Rating: 9/10

Author: Riley Sager

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Horror

Dates Read: August 27-28, 2019