I’ve had a lifelong love affair with horror and thrillers, whether in cinematic or written form. So when I got this book, it was because I found the title and the premise behind it fascinating. The final girl trope started with movies, the last girl or woman left alive. Final Girls is about three of these girls: Quincy, Lisa, and Sam. Each of them is the sole survivor of different horrific murders, linked by their shared experiences and trauma, even as they’ve never met.
They’ve each dealt with their “final girl” reality in different ways. For Quincy, that means throwing herself into becoming a social media baking influencer, her relationship with her boyfriend, and her ongoing friendship with the cop who saved her that terrible night. She considers it a blessing that her memories of the horrors she survived are incredibly limited. But then her carefully curated life is thrown into turmoil, when one of the final girls dies under mysterious circumstances, and the other suddenly shows up on Quincy’s literal doorstep.
There are so many twists and turns, red herrings that take the reader to unexpected places. There were so many times when I thought I had it figured out, only to discover that I had no clue whatsoever. I love, love, love that in a thriller.
The book has so many layers, largely because of the dual storylines. One takes place in the present day as Quincy struggles to figure who to believe and who to trust as she fights to remember. The other takes place in the past, at the time of the horrific events she lived through.
It is an utterly engrossing read, trying to puzzle out the story. I truly couldn’t put it down!