The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix – a Review
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Description:
In horror movies, the final girl is the one who’s left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her?
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who 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 actual 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 realized–someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.
But the thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
Review:
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix is a wild crazy standalone horror thriller. A final girl is the lone survivor in all those horror slasher movies, where they managed save themselves and kill the crazed killer. There are six girls (each having been victorious in saving themselves against the evil monsters), who meet with a therapist monthly, to help them try to get beyond the trauma they suffered through. Though with many years having past for most of the girls, they still need these sessions to help them try to move past the horrors.
Lynette Tarkington, one of the final girls, is the main heroine in this story, as we follow her throughout the forth coming ordeal, when one of the girls does not show up, and is found dead. Lynnette goes home to lock herself in, and we watch what she has to go through to get back to her place (multiple buses, train, cage outside her door, keeping her address secret, and no social life at all, etc), which showed how much her life was still like, living in fear.
When one of the other girls comes to visit her, Lynette knows she has been compromised, and suspects someone is out there, planning to kill the remaining final girls. When shots are fired, Lynnette manages to escape, leaving the other girl injured. Lynette was a good heroine, though at times a bit batty, but then again, constantly being faced with a murderer on the loose, we can understand that. She is determined to find out who is out to kill them, (though she constantly suspects various people along the way), as well as try to save her friends.
What follows is a wild intense dark ride that never let up, with a number of twists and surprises along the way. With Lynette acting mostly on her own, she does everything she can to escape an evil killer, and try to save her friends; with a surprise betrayal. It is a gruesome and at times gory journey that will give you the chills. At the same time, it was amazing how these women, especially Lynette, would continue to fight, never giving up.
This is a difficult review to write, as the action is non-stop and saying too much would ruin the book for you. The Final Girl Support Group was a chilling dark story, with lots of violence and gory details. Grady Hendrix did a great job writing this book, tying together many of those massacres from those movies. If you enjoyed your slasher movies, this book might be for you.
Reviewed by Barb
Copy provided by Publisher
