Book Review: The Final Girl Support Group (2021)

“final girl (n.)—the last and sole survivor of a horror movie”

Plot in under 25 words: Someone is coming for the final girls; the girls who survived bloody massacres. One paranoid, lonely final girl is determined to stop it.

Who Wrote It?

Grady Hendrix

First paragraph

“I wake up, get out of bed, say good morning to my plant, unwrap a protein bar, and drink a litre of bottled water. I’m awake for five full minutes before remembering I might die today. When you get old, you get soft.”

What’s It About?

Final girls are the ones who got away; the ones who fought back and survived the bloody massacres that killed their friends and family. But what happens to them when the world moves on from their stories?

“We’re an endangered species…It used to make me sad there weren’t more of us out there, but we were creatures of the eighties and the world has moved on…”

Six final girls have been meeting as a group once a month with their therapist, for sixteen years. They’ve all dealt with their crises (and sequels) in different ways, all of which are designed to give them the feeling of control they never had at the most important moments of their lives. Some of them are now questioning the need to continue with the group therapy because it seems to be miring them in their pasts and not letting them move on.

Lynnette, the narrator of the story, is defined by her trauma. Being a final girl is her whole identity and has been for twenty-two years. She moves through the world with extreme paranoia and fear for her safety. She’s hyper-aware of things around her and escape routes. She sits on the bus equidistant from the doors. She lives on the third floor so no one can get in her window but she can jump out without sustaining serious damage. She built a steel cage inside her front door so no one can enter without her allowing it.

“Group is the only time I leave this apartment except to go to the mailbox place across the street once a week, to check my escape routes once a month, and my biweekly trips to the corner store for supplies. I don’t like risk. My hair is short because long hair can get grabbed. I wear running shoes in case I have to move. I don’t wear loose clothing.”

Heather is the one who turned to drugs and hustling. She lives in halfway houses and cadges money off whoever she can.

Marilyn is the one who married into money and wraps herself in wealth, status, and security guards.

Dani is the tough one who withdrew into herself and lives in isolation on a horse ranch with her dying wife.

Julia is the one who turned to politics and social justice.

Adrienne – whom we don’t meet in person – is the one who bought the camp and lake where her massacre took place and turned it into a place for trauma survivors to heal.

Adrienne misses a meeting of the support group and they learn that she’s been murdered. Horrified, they all scatter, heading for their homes to deal with the news in their own way.

Julia discovers Lynnette’s address and comes to talk to her about the rumour that one of the group is writing a book. While she’s there, someone starts shooting up Lynnette’s apartment and Lynnette barely manages to get out alive.

Lynette finds all her escape plans thwarted and she realises that someone is hell-bent on killing all the final girls. She knows she’s the only one who can work out who’s behind this and stop them before anyone else gets killed. Just like a real final girl.

What Should I Expect?

Expect just about every slasher movie trope that’s ever been used in a slasher movie.
Expect an author with a deep understanding of 1970s and 1980s horror fiction.
Expect a wild ride with dizzying highs and depressive lows.
Expect an easy read that’s humorous but not ‘funny’, amusing but not laugh-out-loud.
Expect to want to read the whole book in one sitting.
Expect an unreliable narrator. Lynnette speaks with little emotion but we feel just how lonely and scared she is. Externally she acts tough but internally, she continuously doubts herself.
Expect to feel like you’re always ‘on’ like Lynnette and to feel like you need to slow down for a rest every so often. Expect to need a lie down once you finish and a few days before you start a new book.
Expect twists and turns. Every time you think you’ve worked it out, you haven’t.
Expect unusual fascinating characters that have you flip-flopping between like and don’t like.
Expect to wonder what’s real and what’s not. Expect to wonder if these are truly separate people or just one person with multiple personalities dealing with trauma.
Expect the images and language to prime you and draw you into the slasher movie aura without you even realising it. At one point there’s a forest of dead dolls and plush toys, all the things that normally denote happiness now denote rot and decay. The author uses negative descriptive words throughout most of the story, like: slumped, sagging, cartoon tumours, failed, degrading.
Expect a change in the imagery and language in the last chapter to positivity, like: glittered, flashed, jewels, growing, life.
Expect excellent commentary on violence against women, forgotten victims, famous murderers, the different ways people cope with trauma, how society sees survivors, and more.