Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Length: 352 pages
Audiobook Length: 12 hours and 24 minutes
First Published: 2017
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Rachael’s Review
Ten years ago as a college student, Quincy Carpenter and her friends went on a vacation and the group was slaughtered, with only Quincy surviving. Although dubbed by the media as one of the “Final Girls,” the sole survivors of mass killings, Quincy, Lisa, and Sam have never met. When Lisa dies by suicide and Sam seeks her out, Quincy questions Sam’s motives. Now Quincy must finally dive into her missing memories of the past to keep it from repeating. Perfect for readers who want scary books that aren’t too scary, Final Girls is a solid thriller with slasher vibes throughout, but Sager saves the full-on action sequence for a big bang at the end.
Publisher’s Description
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.
Quotes from Final Girls
You can’t change what’s happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it.
There’s something energizing about getting what you want, even if that something is shame.
There’s safety in numbers, yes, but also uncertainty.
I make no attempts to disguise my scars. I just pretend they don’t exist.
About Riley Sager
Riley Sager is the pseudonym of Todd Ritter, a former journalist. Under the name Riley Sager, he is the author of six novels: Final Girls, The Only One Left, The Last Time I Lied, Lock Every Door, Home Before Dark, The House Across the Lake, and Survive the Night. He currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey Visit the author’s website →
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