THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “If you liked Gone Girl, you’ll like this.”—Stephen King Ten years ago, six friends went on vacation. One made it out alive…. In that instant, college student Quincy Carpenter became a member of a very exclusive club—a group of survivors the press dubbed “The Final Girls”: Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout’s knife; Sam, who … to a college dropout’s knife; Sam, who endured the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape the massacre at Pine Cottage. Despite the media’s attempts, the three girls have never met.
Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life. Her mind won’t let her recall the events of that night; the past is in the past…until the first Final Girl is found dead in her bathtub and the second Final Girl appears on Quincy’s doorstep.
Blowing through Quincy’s life like a hurricane, Sam seems intent on making her relive the trauma of her ordeal. When disturbing details about Lisa’s death emerge, Quincy desperately tries to unravel Sam’s truths from her lies while evading both the police and bloodthirsty reporters. Quincy knows that in order to survive she has to remember what really happened at Pine Cottage.
Because the only thing worse than being a Final Girl is being a dead one.
WINNER OF THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL
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This book kept me RIGHT on the edge of my seat. I really thought I had it figured out so many times, but then BAM, I would be wrong. Quincy is one of the “final girls” and she has repressed her memory of that night. She is making it look like she has completely gotten over the whole ordeal but when one of the other final girls ends up murdered, she has the last of the trio at her doorstep. There are so many lies and misconceptions in this story that honestly, I really had no clue what was going on. I enjoyed the twists, but I would have liked a little more closure at the end I think. There was something missing for me, I can’t put my finger on, but that didn’t take away from this being a great read.
A “final girl” is the survivor of an attack on a group, a trope used in many horror films. This book explores what happens AFTER.
Quincy bakes to find a calm, and she blogs her finished products, perfect culinary delights photographed to advantage. She lives quietly with her boyfriend, a Defense Attorney. When he visits from his Poconos home, she meets with her rescuer, the cop who shot the madman who attacked and killed all of her friends, a memory she’s suppressed. She ignores requests from the media for interviews. She huddles away from the disdain of her mother who detests the media attention her daughter’s “final girl” status brought. Quincy survives, adjusts, cocooned in a safe world of her devising – that is -Until, one day, Sam, who bears the title of “final girl” from a different attack shows up. Sam, with “survivor” tattooed to her wrist, “dropped off the grid” to escape the media attention thrust upon her. Sam, who seems intent upon disrupting Quincy’s world, forces Quincy to look at the changes the suppressed trauma made to her psyche.
This story is intense at times, action packed and psychological. Quincy’s lost memories slowly return in bits and pieces. Sam is an enigmatic wildcard of an inciting action. Final Girl keeps the reader guessing until the very end.
This was a fun and unexpected read. Every time I thought i had it all figured out, I didn’t. I liked the main character and didn’t always understand her choices. But that’s because I’ve never been a “Final Girl.”
Plot, plot, plot. This is one of those books that has you reading faster than your eyes can keep up. It’s so well-paced that you feel like your in a horror movie cutting between dual timelines. This book plays on common horror movie tropes while twisting your expectations which leaves you stunned at the end and wanting to go back and see what you missed. I’m just going to tell you… you missed a lot. If you love heart-pounding scary movies, you must read this book. Riley Sager is a master of suspense.
This was a backlisted book that took me forever to get around to, and I can truthfully say that I am so glad that I made time for it. This book has come recommended to me many times and I can see why!
Riley Sager wrote such a chilling and ominous tale about a final girl, the last one to live through a horror movie. Only this wasn’t about a movie. Quincy survived the brutal massacre that stole her six friends –– a night she fears she will never remember but one in which she will never move passed… Until one day, one of the other “Final Girls” turns up dead and the other comes knocking on Quincy’s door is she forced to confront her demons and learn the truth.
The constant flashbacks and teasing narration of what really happened all those years ago kept me perched on the edge of my seat. Each new detail earned sent me down a rabbit hole with no real answer as to what exactly took place. Between Samantha’s need for Quinn to remember, her boyfriend’s encouragement to move on from the past, and Quincy’s need to find out what happened to Lisa, the tension becomes too much to handle.
I pride myself on being able to figure out the twist in a thriller but Sager sent me on a wild goose chase numerous times. The end result was my shock and awe at how I missed such a key detail. Final Girls is an unsettling and intense read that I highly recommend! I cannot wait to dive into the next Riley Sager novel.
I think a lot of people would like this book, but, for me, it’s badly misrepresented. The synopsis and concept make it seem like an ode to slasher movies, but it reads more like a soap opera or teen drama show. We’re supposed to feel sympathy for the main character, but she’s always a horrible person, and the entire cast makes unrealistic decisions solely for the purpose of continuing the drama. To it’s credit, the plot does have some twists, and my original theory about the mystery turned out to be wrong.
4/5 Stars
This was my first Riley Sager book, and it did not disappoint. If you love slasher movies you will love this book. Final Girls is an adult thriller about Quincy Carpenter a New York blogger who also happens to be a Final Girl. When Quincy was in college, she went on a camping trip with her friends to Pine Cottage, a cabin in the woods near an insane asylum. Before the night is over, Quincy is the last alive. Deemed a Final Girl by the media, Quincy’s life turns into a constant barrage of interview requests and hiding from the media. She remembers so little about the events of the night she became a Final Girl and spends her time doing everything she can to be normal and never unlock those memories. Quincy is one of three Final Girls, and when the first one dies Quincy starts to wonder if she’s really moved on from the past. When Sam, the second Final Girl, walks into her life things take a turn for the worse. Quincy is forced to confront her demons and to remember what happened that night in the woods.
My favorite thing about this book was the originality. There are a lot of thrillers out there that are too predictable and too easy to figure out. Final Girls had me guessing until the last few chapters and made me feel like I was right there solving the mystery with Quincy. It was a serious page turner and I read the entire book in a matter of hours. I literally could not be bothered to put it down. There were a few moments where I was very aware that this was a male author writing from a female POV. There were times where Quincy’s inner monologue felt more like something a man thinks a woman is thinking, rather than what she’s actually thinking. Overall, this book felt like a very real representation of what any given Final Girl’s post-massacre life would be like. Quincy is definitely the roundest character, but that works in the author’s favor in this book. The other characters are there to help her in unraveling the mystery of Pine Cottage, but that’s pretty much the only reason they’re there.
I would 100% recommend picking up Final Girls. It’s quick, well written, and keeps you guessing until the very end.
So good. Totally different story line from what I’ve read and watched before.
Final Girls—the club you don’t want to belong to. Keeps you off balance until the end, alternating between characters as to who committed the horrible murders, how the victim’s life progressed in the years following until she is forced to confront memories of that night.
Lisa, Samantha, and Quincy are the sole survivors of three horrible massacres—Final Girls—until one of them turns up dead. Initially ruled a suicide, Lisa’s unexpected demise sets off a chain of events that leaves the other two with only each other for comfort.
Samantha Boyd, who has been in hiding for years, turns up in New York City, asking for help from Quincy Carpenter, the Final Girl with a severe case of memory loss. All of Quincy’s friends were murdered at Pine Cottage, a tragedy she’s worked hard to put behind her in favor of “normalcy.”
Quincy spends her days baking and working on her blog, living with her attorney boyfriend, Jeff, who acts, more often than not, as a voice of reason, and whose help Samantha seems to have been looking to enlist from the beginning.
Samantha is a dark presence. Someone who pushes Quincy outside of her comfort zone and sets off all the usual warning alarms to everyone around her, including to Coop, the police officer who had saved Quincy’s life at the cabin all those years ago. What is Samantha’s story? Where has she been? Why is she here? And what did she have to do with Lisa’s death, if anything? As Samantha more or less forces her way into Quincy’s life, the details surrounding Lisa’s suicide-turned-homicide casts a whole lot of suspicion onto Lisa, now comfortably nestled in Quincy’s guest room.
Riley Sager wrote one hell of a page turner. I could easily have read this in one day, but had to force myself to put it down, because… life. When I wasn’t reading this book, I was thinking about reading it. It’s been a while since I’ve been this engrossed. Excellent characters, a twisty-turny, unputdownable plot with slasher film charm, and some top-notch writing puts this among my favorite reads of the past few years. Maybe of all time. Any complaints I have (like the serious overuse of the character’s names in dialogue) are trivial nit-crits. Overall, a great book! I highly recommend it.
10 years ago, Quincy survived the slaughter of 5 of her friends, at a cabin in the woods. Before that, Samantha and Lisa did the same thing, years apart. The 3 survivors are called the “Final Girls”. Now Lisa is dead. Sam has come out of hiding and has reached out to Quincy. Why is Sam suddenly taking an interest in Quincy, and who killed Lisa?
Quincy seems like she has put the past behind her. However, there is a dark side to her that is just under the surface, waiting to be exposed. Sam brings this out in her, but why? Is she deliberately doing it to see what Quincy is made of?
I enjoyed this book. I don’t feel like it was exceptionally fast-paced. I kept reading this waiting for the “thriller”. That didn’t come until the end. That being said, I wasn’t bored. I read this book AFTER “The Last Time I Lied” and to me that was a tad bit more heart pounding.
Final Girls is a brilliantly plotted, well written thriller that kept me gripped but just didn’t have that *thing* (whatever that thing is), that had me loving it. This is an undeniable page turner, and was the first thriller in a while where I truly didn’t see the final twist coming, but for some reason it just left me feeling a teensy bit cold. Reading is so subjective though, and I know a lot of people loved this one – I just didn’t connect with any of the main characters in a strong way, and think that when it comes down to it, I prefer my thrillers to be more intimate than this one felt. Final Girls – as the title would suggest – is almost cinematic in scope, and while I love film, I read for a different reason. By and large I tend to prefer the thrillers I read to feel as though they could happen to the person sitting next to me, whereas Final Girls covers crimes so vast in their scope that the survivors have online followings, reporters at their door, and their faces on the front page.
5 out of 5 stars
Quincy Carpenter is a member of a very exclusive club, she is a final girl. There are three girls that are members of this club and to be one you must be the lone survivor of a mass murder. Quincy managed to survive the Pine Cottage Killings ten years ago back when she was in college. She thinks she has her life together now, a live in lawyer boyfriend, a successful baking blog and a lovely apartment in NYC. Sure, she also happens to drink too much wine and she depends on Xanax a little bit too much.
The life that Quincy thinks she has starts to fall apart after she finds out that the original Final Girl Lisa is found dead and the only other Final Girl Sam shows up on her doorstep.
I loved this book. It totally read like a horror film. There were many good twists and turns some I completely saw coming and some that did come as a surprise. The biggest weakness was the fact that Quincy was so easily influenced. That is something that I would have expected to change after all that she had been through but I guess sometimes people just are who they are.
If you want a twisted, taut, well written thriller I would definitely pick this up.
The narrator was great! the book was very unique very well written good story I couldn’t put it down. I really enjoyed this book who is very entertaining
Just when you think you know, you don’t. This was an original. I loved the way that the narration moved from the past to the present. I know that I read reviews that started with “predictable.” but I’m not sure what was predictable. Color me stupid, but I did thing the ending was more than a bit of a surprise for me.
Quincy Carpenter is the sole survivor of a killing spree that occurred when she and several of her friends were away for a birthday getaway weekend at Pine Cottage. Quincy is dubbed a “Final Girl,” as are Lisa and Sam, also sole survivors. After Lisa apparently commits suicide, Sam shows upon at Quincy’s apartment. Quincy’s facade as a food blogger and fiancé begin to erode. Is Sam who she claims to be? Why is she pushing Quincy to remember details of Pine Cottage? Quincy further decompensated as she slowly recovers some memories. Quincy reaches out to Coop, the cop that helped her that night and who has kept in touch. But as they discover that Lisa was actually murdered and did not kill herself, even more questions arise. No spoiler alert here, but suffice to say that you won’t want to put this down. Twists and turns as the book nears its conclusion.
Quincy Carpenter survives a massacre at Pine Cottage in a forest of Pennsylvania.
Along with two other women, who have also survived similar horrors, she becomes known as a Final Girl. The last one standing.
She can’t remember what happened at Pine Cottage. She just wants to move on with her life.
Ten years later, after a tragedy occurs with Lisa, one of the Finals, Samantha Boyd, the third Final, shows up on Quincy’s doorstep in Manhattan.
Sam has been living under the radar for years. Now she’s there for Quincy. To offer support in the wake of Lisa’s misfortune.
She insinuates herself into Quincy’s life and offers something far different from support.
Quincy slowly begins to recall, in bits and pieces, what really happened that terrifying night at the cottage.
Shock after shock, twist after twist, this story will leave you second guessing the whole time.
As you read it you get a constant tingle of anticipation of what’s going to materialize next.
A thriller in the best nothing-is-as-it-seems tradition, it’s an amazing ride.
READ IT!
I really enjoyed this book, flaws and all. Riley Sager is a genius at twists. There were so many red herrings in this book and then the big reveal blew them all away. Was it completely from left field? Sure. But entertaining all the same. I had the same complaints as other reviewers. Slow beginning, but it does work up to something. Desire to smack Quinn for letting Sam into her life and house, yep, definitely that. But I was definitely entertained. Worth the read.
Holy cow what a ride. I never in a million years could have predicted this one. Really great.
This book was s great read! Very interesting from page 1 and definitely unpredictable . I hated for it to end. Recommend!!