Book Review Wednesday: Final Girls by Riley Sager

To keep up with the spooky theme of the season, I'm only reading thriller novels, and first up was Final Girls by Riley Sager. This author has been on my radar for a long time but I never picked up one of his books, until now.

Final Girls was on sale a few months back and I've had it sitting in my Kindle library for a rainy day. Well, that was last week and I finished the book in less than two days.  

I can confidently say that this was one of the wildest books I've ever read. It was very twisty, very interesting, and had a deep psychological layer that was really interesting to see come to light.

Publisher's Summary

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale 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: 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; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them and, with that, one another. Despite the media's attempts, they never meet.
 
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, wrists slit; and Sam, the second Final Girl, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa's death come to light, Quincy's life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.

My Thoughts

Let me start off by saying that there are multiple major twists in this story. Some revolve around Quincy, some revolve around Sam, and some I just won't give away. 

This wasn't a novel that I was able to predict the ending. I didn't see most of the novel coming at me, even if I had been using GPS. It was a complete and utter surprise, which I love. I don't like it when books are predictable... Final Girls was anything but predictable.

The book had a nice pace... it was slow at first but I appreciated that they didn't rush into major plots. Also, like any good mystery novel, the back and forth

I don't think I was as wary of Quincy as I should've been. I thought it was kind of rude that people kept blaming her and saying that she knew more about the night at Pine Cottage... but the more the characters asked her about it, the more I started to suspect that something was wrong. The moment when she realizes everything that happened, it's awe-inducing and left my jaw hanging open.

*There were moments in the book where I really disliked Quincy and wanted to just scream at her to get over it or use her brain a little more. It was a tad bit frustrating. 

The way the novel played out was pretty intense. After the mid-way point, the secrets start to unravel and what you thought was actually happening isn't what is happening at all. The entire book just fell apart in a few chapters and I loved every moment of it. It was like Sager was holding the cards so close to his chest we didn't even see it coming.

From the revelation about what actually happened at Pine Cottage, who IS Sam, and how Quincy came to the conclusions she did... it was just wild. I cannot stress how good the twists were and I think without any of them, the book wouldn't be the same.

As much as I loved this book, I did kind of think it was a weird concept... the idea of a Final Girls banning together through tragedy. Maybe it's because I couldn't think of a real-life 'Final Girl' to relate the story back to but maybe that was the beauty of the book.

This might go in my top 5 thrillers of all time... which is a great idea for a blog post! Basically, I recommend Final Girls by Riley Sager for a creepy read this October! 

I have another Riley Sager book, Home Before Dark, ready to read after I finish my current read and I can't wait!

Have you read Final Girls? What did you think?

xoxo

B