Final Girls Book Review – Gone Girl Meets Scream
Written by Riley Sager
Published by Dutton
Each girl survived an unthinkable horror. Now someone wants them dead…
For those who might be unaware, the term final girl is “a trope in horror films (particularly slasher films) that refers to the last woman alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story.” You know, the final girl. The last one standing. Sidney Prescott, Nancy Thompson, Alice Johnson, etc.
The “trope” of the final girl in horror movies (especially slashers) is one of my favorites and so when I heard about Riley Sager’s novel, I jumped at the chance to give it a read. I received it on Friday, and here we are on Sunday and I have finished the 300+ page novel in (mostly) two sittings. Must mean it was fantastic, huh? Yes and no. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
First, the plot. By the way, this review is SPOILER-FREE.
Final Girls tells the tale of Quincy Carpenter (get it?), a young girl who goes on vacation with five friends to a cabin in the woods and comes back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie-scale massacre. In an instant, the press dubs her a “Final Girl,” coined for the group of similar survivors. From there we quickly learn there are two other “Final Girls”… and one has just died under strange circumstances. Muahaha!
Where to begin with Final Girls? The good or the not so good? Hurm, questions, questions. Let’s start with the good. I really dug the novel’s central premise. It works and (mostly) stays true to its horror/slasher roots. The flashback sequences to that night in the notorious cabin in the woods are very interesting. It’s just too bad we have to spend so much time in the present.
The novel also sports a killer who-dun-it, no pun intended. And as a guy who prides himself on figuring out who-dun-it quickly, I was taken by surprise by the novel’s final reveal. And thank God because that is what saved it. Up to that point, I was on the fence about the novel. But the ending, in my eyes, closed the deal. And that’s all that one could hope for when the book is first cracked open.
And this brings me to the novel’s biggest short-coming: all the girl-talk. Wait, stop! I don’t mean it like that. What I mean is the girl-talk would be all fine and good if it weren’t for the fact that the novel was written by a guy. Not that there is by any means a rule that says guys can’t write compelling female characters but this book struggles with stereotypes in a big bad way.
The novel is credited to Riley Sager (the jacket tells me that this is a pseudonym) but USA Today claims that it’s actually novelist Todd Ritter, author of such books as Death Notice and Devil’s Night. And I totally get why they went with a fake name. The novel just doesn’t read the same when you’re stuck feeling every bit about these girls is fake. If you haven’t read the book yet, you’ll see what I mean. If you have, you’re currently nodding in agreement. The portrayal of the two main female characters is just… Urgh.
In fact, I recently reviewed My Best Friend’s Exorcism here on Dread Central and that novel was also about (teenage) girls and was written by a guy (Grady Hendrix). But while Hendrix’s insights into the minds of teenage girls in My Best Friend’s Exorcism felt genuine (but then again what do I know?), Final Girls feels like imitation Gillian Flynn.
Now I’m not going to sit here and make the novel sound like garbage. It isn’t. Not by any means. That said, it’s kind of hard to sit through full chapters of our final girls making cupcakes. I kid you not. This book could function for large portions as dessert-porn. Way too much time and detail is put into the lead’s obsession with baking.
While the book spends too much time with the two remaining final girls baking out, stealing, and beating up homeless men, the book is still a true page-turner. And that’s one hell of an accomplishment. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I read as many novels as I should (as a writer) but it is such a f*cking chore to sit through a boring novel. So when one comes along that I can read as fast as time permits, that gets a seal of approval from me.
The two lead girls are (eventually) a likable paring, and, again, the central mystery is both surprising and air-tight; the best combination when it comes to a “who-dun-it.” Add to that, the flashback sequences to the night of the slasher are fun and capture a creepy-cool 80’s slasher vibe that had me smiling ear-to-ear.
In the end, most of my gripes are fairly surface level. You’ll sigh and roll your eyes more than a few times reading the prose, sure. But at the end of the day, with the final page turned and the book back on the shelf, I believe you’ll look back on the whole experience with fond memories.
Recently, the book was optioned by Universal and we can (hopefully) expect to see a movie one of these days. I look forward to that. Again, that should tell you all you need to know. Oh, and Stephen King called it “the first great thriller of 2017.” So there. Stephen King recommends it too.
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Final Girls
Summary
Final Girls spends way too much time literally baking cupcakes. But in the end, weaves a compelling mystery with a killer reveal, and fun 80’s slasher-style flashbacks. Think Gone Girl meets Scream.
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