What. A. Disappointment. – There, I said it!

 

Being a fan of Grady Hendrix, when I heard that he would be releasing The Final Girls Support Group, I became majorly excited. Especially since I wasn’t a huge fan of Final Girls, written by Riley Sager. I hoped that Hendrix’s novel would be similar in a premise without the same execution; unfortunately, it didn’t meet my expectations and ultimately felt like a waste of a good premise and an even better title.

The Final Girls Support Group introduces us to a group of final girls who have all survived massacres. There is Adrienne, a camp counselor who survived a killer who claimed to be seeking revenge for his dead son. Marilyn was attacked by a family of cannibals. Dani, whose brother Nick escaped a mental asylum on Halloween, killing all her friends. Heather fought off a killer known as a “Dream Killer”. Julia Campbell, whose boyfriend decided to turn her into his very own final girl. And Lynette, the stories narrator who survived an axe-wielding Santa Claus. Obviously, the premise and the characters are pretty cool as it’s an homage to final girls from epic films such as Friday the 13th, Scream, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and Terminator. Lynette exudes the characteristics of Sarah Conner. I forgot to mention that.

However, here is the actual problem with the story. There was only ONE real final girl in this group. The other ladies all fall into the very troupes that would have gotten them killed in the first place. What I was looking for, and what wasn’t delivered, is having a group of actual final girls come together who are equally as cunning, forceful, and resilient come together to battle the forces of darkness without falling into these mind-numbing troupes. I also want to add that if this novel wouldn’t be called The Final Girls Support Group, I would have probably liked it more because that certain expectation would not have been there.