Final Girls by Riley Sager

Final Girls by Riley Sager

Published by Dutton July 11, 2017

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Pages 342

Quincy Carpenter is trying to move on. In fact, life has become almost great - she has a successful baking blog, a caring and protective boyfriend, a Xanax prescription that never runs out, plenty of wine, nightmares that only happen once in a while, and she has faded from the media’s grotesque camera lens. She works to put her nightmares of ten years earlier behind her, shedding her media-dubbed title as a Final Girl much like she shed the dress soaked with the blood of her friends after they were all murdered around her. She rejects being thrown into a macabre and casually morbid club with Lisa, who lost nine of her sorority sisters to a college dropout’s butcher knife, and Sam, who single-handedly killed the Sack Man after his rampage during her shift at the Nightlight Inn that left six people dead. 

But “recovery” and “moving on” come to a standstill when one of the Final girls ends up dead, and the other shows up on Quincy’s doorstep, intent on discovering the truth. The questions become who is lying and who is telling the truth? Just what happened to Quincy and the others at Pine Cottage? And, most importantly, is what happened all those years ago actually over?

I would be lying if I said I was not at war with myself to read Riley Sager’s debut novel, between a recommendation from Stephen King, awards, and positive reviews almost everywhere it would have been easy to get swept up in the blind positivity. However nothing is ever as good as it seems, and I tried to keep a level head while reading. I was terrified that I wanted to love it and would end up bitter and hating it instead.


That was impossible with this book.

“Only Quincy remained.

All the others were dead.

She was the last one left alive.”

I finished Final Girls in less than a day. With an opening that was fast-paced, cinematic, and ended with the three lines above it was hard not to charge forward and finish it as soon as possible. With a tone of a satirical and self-aware slasher flick, Sager creates a story that is unputdownable - even if it was not flawless. 

The page-turner quality comes from the fact it is not a blood and gore slasher flick story as one would glean from summaries circulating on the internet and even the book itself. Final Girls weaves a bloody backstory and past events through current events, truly focusing on the unnerving psychological aftermath of the carnage.

“I know what happened at Pine Cottage. I don’t need to remember exactly how it happened. Because here’s the thing about details—they can also be a distraction. Add too many and it obscures the brutal truth about a situation. They become the gaudy necklace that hides the tracheotomy scar.” 

We view the story from Quincy’s perspective, filled with and her blunt and straightforward inner monologue. She has inner chaos and worry that is at odds with her seemingly perfect life. takes anxiety meds and bakes when she can’t cope, takes up running because she can never leave to adrenaline and energy of her past behind, and routinely meets with Coop – the police officer that found her – for impromptu half-assed therapy sessions/conversations. Quincy is convinced that she is moving on. She is coping on a good day but lying to herself on most of them.

Coping and surviving take on very different lights in this novel.

Lisa takes what happened to her as a means of becoming stronger and helping others, writing a tell-all book and seeking out troubled youth and survivors of tragedies. She aims to guide them through the aftermath that threatens to destroy.

Sam disappears - only to return with a vengeance and more than one bad habit. She has learned to thrive on the chaos and risk.

"We were, for whatever reason, the lucky ones who survived when no one else had. Pretty girls covered in blood. As such, we were each in turn treated like something rare and exotic. A beautiful bird that spreads its bright wings only once a decade."

The author creates multi-faceted personalities for the characters, full of depth and candid dialogue. I found myself immediately immersed, turning page after page to understand just how deep the scars could run in the characters. I found myself pausing and thinking about how insightful the writing was considering the topics of violence, substance abuse, and risky behavior as a means to cope with traumatic events. Paired with the portrayal of media involvement and sensationalized stories, the invasions of privacy, and the role of society and those who serve as an audience added layer of depth to the novels events.

The constant anxiety that is felt by Quincy concerning who will recognize her, worse that those people will want something from her such as an autograph or will offer empty words and thoughts, looks of pity or ghoulish fascination without knowing the real story served as a gripping point for me as a reader. How do you move on when no one wants you to? They are content to stare at you like a show pony because you survived an event no one should ever want to experience.

I would call the ending a double-edged sword. At first, it seemingly came almost out of nowhere, without foundation. However, I was able to let this go because the lead up had urged me to constantly theorize the possibilities. By the time I was done it alone made me immediately want to reread the book and see if any small details were hidden by Sager to point the reader in the correct direction the whole time, to see if I had missed them in my haste. But it was also, in hindsight, predictable and made sense without the details .

Ultimately, Riley Sager’s Final Girls is a 4 out of 5. The book offered an unending subtle thrill, and under-the-skin dread that I couldn’t shake. That anticipation fell a little by the end of the novel, dropping with a few random, cliché and predictable scenes. Like I said, it is not perfect – but for a debut book it is a very compelling read. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to horror, thriller, and psychological book lovers.