ShayKay's Review of Final Girls by Riley Sager

Goodreads: Final Girls by Riley Sager

Synopsis from Book

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 Slack 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 fiance, 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, 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 has sought 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. 

Thoughts Before Reading

I have been interested in Sager's books for a while now, but I haven't gotten around to picking one up yet. I ordered this one from Book of the Month a couple of months ago and after having a streak of romancy/contemporary books I think I'm ready to swap it up on a little. The synopsis sounds really interesting and I'm really curious about what is going on. I actually thought about waiting on this read but since reading up on the author I figured out how it could fit for my HouseCupaThon that I'm working on this month. I think I'm going to look for a readathon for next month, I definitely want to try to fit one more in this summer so we'll see if I find one that we can just jump into. Anyways I've heard a lot about Riley Sager's books since being apart of Book of the Month, and even though I really wished they had Elin Hilderbrand's book this summer I went with his newest book this month so maybe I'll jump into that one next. We'll see I have a lot of prompts for the reading challenge that I could potentially do so we'll see what happens. 

Halfway Through Thoughts

I really am enjoying Quincy so far. I think she is a really interesting character to follow and overall I think the Sager really used Quincy's whole life as part of this book. By this, I mean that sometimes we are told that a character does baking for a living, but the story doesn't draw any part of that into the story, we are just told that this is what they do. In Final Girls, we actually see why she bakes and even is introduced to her baking. I think it is so far really developing really good and I am so hooked to it! I've heard a lot of good things about Sager, but also a lot of bad things too. So I went into it really open-minded into this read. But the chapters are short and really captivating, I even really love the flashbacks because Quincy has no memory of the massacre and this was an interesting way to learn about what she went through. I have a feeling that either Sam or Jeff could potentially be the 'new' bad guy in Quincy's life. I think maybe Jeff because we don't really see him that much, at the beginning of the book he was even out of town when everything happened to Lisa, and he is a public defender that loves sticking to the fact that they are innocent until proven guilty regardless of if they are actually guilty or not. We really see that value shine in his character a lot when he first meets Sam. I kind of really want Quincy to end up with Coop because I think they just have that connection that she should have with Jeff, but she doesn't. 

I really don't know why I've been holding off to read Sager's work! I've become really obsessed with this book and should hopefully finish this tomorrow! I really need to know what is happening and what is going to go on with Quincy! Does she ever remember the attack? Who killed Lisa? I really love how this is kind of a mystery with a settle undertone of a thriller because we are watching Quincy figure out what is going on but at the same time, you know this is a thriller so I like I said I need to finish this book ASAP!

We even have some books in the wild pictures this go around! I read on the way to the lake last weekend and then some at the wake. Summertime we get really active because I love taking my dogs out to go swimming! 

On the way to the Lake

It seems like a pretty accurate bookmark for this one!

After Thoughts

OMG! I just finished this book and I cannot believe it! It really tied up really fast, but the book didn't feel rushed while I was reading it. I feel like everything really got tied up and guys I was wrong about people in this book! I'll get to that more in a little bit I want to try to stay spoiler-free first. I think this is a new favorite. I think I really need to do a reread of it now that I know how it ends just to see if there were signs that I missed because even though I was kind of right about the ending I was also so freaking wrong! So it is kind of obvious that this book had to be a 5-star read! I mean I could not put it down, I loved the writing style and the pace of it, the characters were so amazing and interesting to read about, and overall I just could not put this book down, plus I already want to do a reread of this book.

Since it is still June this book was able to be apart of my HouseCupaThon, and I used it for Tom Riddle's journal which was reading a book where the author used a pen name or their initials and Riley Sager is a pen name, he actually publishes books under another name too, and I actually fell into this bit of information. I really thought this book wouldn't count on my chart but it did and I'm so happy that it worked out this way. I'm going to add the pictures before the spoiler section so that you won't accidentally see spoilers if you don't want too. So there is a spoiler review (kind of) at the very bottom underneath the pictures. 

***** Spoilers Below *****

Looking back at my notes that I made while reading this book is so funny because I was so close! I guessed that either Jeff, Sam, or Joe's girlfriend was the person that killed Lisa. The reason I put Joe's girlfriend is that back in the beginning of the book, well more of the middle of it, Joe is explaining that he does have a girlfriend. So that really pulled in a new suspect to Lisa. But there was never a name for that girlfriend until the end of the book, which was Tina Stone who was in the asylum with him! I love how even these small details ended being a really big thing in the book. I'm not going to talk about the big bang at the end of the book even though I labeled this section as spoilers, I just think that Tina was already a huge spoiler and I don't want to go further into it as to who was the killer. 

Anyways I'm not surprised that Quincy and Jeff ended up splitting up. I don't think they really had that much chemistry together and even though he was her rock I don't think she loved him how she thought she did. I just wish she would've broken up with him versus doing what she did. I kind of think Quincy might check in with Tina from time to time now that everything ended, but I don't think they will be friends or anything like that. I do love that she remembers that night even though it was painful for her because that added so much more OMG moments for me. You really need to read it because you won't expect it, at least I didn't and this isn't my normal genre. But this was such a fun, unexpected read. At the very end of the book Quincy kind of picked up Lisa's shoes and went to be there for a new Final Girl and I really loved it. I think it kind of helped the book go full circle and I really loved it. Definitely a 5-Star read for me.