Too much of doing nothing going on. I made it 50-60% of the way through before giving up out of boredom. Which was truly surprising give how stoked I was to read this.

This psychological thriller is gripping and intense. It's a twisty drama that had me guessing until the end.

Quincy Carpenter is the sole survivor of the Pine Cottage massacre her sophomore year of college. Now a young woman, living in New York with her hotshot lawyer boyfriend while running a baking blog, she attempts to live a life of normalcy under the press radar. She is one of three women dubbed a “Final Girl,” a derogatory term taken from campy horror cinema when, at the end of the gruesome bloodshed, one final girl remains. When Quincy hears that a fellow Final Girl, Lisa, has committed suicide her world view falters and, with a surprise visit from the other remaining Final Girl, Samantha, her life flips upside down. Sam brings havoc and is decidedly not telling the whole truth. Sam has a lot of questions about Pine Cottage. If only Quincy could remember what happened that night.

This thriller was a home run. Fun and frustrating characters, a seductively dark premise, seat-edge passages, and all the twists the readers’ heart desires. This is the most exciting, highly cinematic thriller I’ve read in some time. My only concern is (and I cannot believe I’m saying this) that I found the male characters flat and annoying. I’ll happily trade that issue for ever more one-dimensional female characters but believe either Jeff or Him or Coop could have had some complexity. Highly recommend–take this on vacation! My Rating: 4.5/5

This is a must read for fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train! Quincy spent the night in a cabin with a few friends who all got murdered except for her but she doesn't remember what happened. She is considered a Final Girl, along with two other girls who were the lone survivors of similar incidents. Quincy is doing well enough in life after the events until Lisa, one of the other Final Girls is found dead. Full of twists and turns, this story will grab a hold of you and won't let go. And that ending!!

This is an awesome thriller! Definitely going to be a favorite book for many readers this year.

If you are a fan of the old slasher horror films, have you ever wondered what happened to the survivors? What did they do after they escaped a masked murderer whom seemed like a legend, family member, or someone close to snap and change their world forever. This is the story of those survivors.

Final Girls is a brilliantly crafted thriller for the new age. It takes the question of "What happens next?" and blows it up to create this world that thrives on digging into these poor girls' tragic pasts and transforming them into celebrities who merely want to be normal again. Only they cannot be normal ever again nor can they hide from the cameras. These "Final Girls" have secrets and they are about to be exposed, but who will truly be the surviving "Final Girl" in the end?

I received this copy from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

The Final Girls follows Quincy Carpenter, the sole survivor of a massacre that killed all her friends some 10 years ago. She along with Lisa and Samantha, are sole survivors of horrendous massacres, and they have been dubbed Final Girls by the press. This is movie speak for the girl who is still alive at the end of a horror movie, and Lisa, Samantha and Quincy are the three unlucky real world members of this exclusive club. They are all survivors, they all have secrets, and unfortunately for them someone still wants them dead...

Final Girls is an excellent psychological suspense novel, it kept me on the edge of my seat. I really enjoyed the fast thrilling pace and the killer plot twists. Just when I though I had figured out the ending, and knew who the murder was going to be- BAM another twist!

One of the best thrillers I have read in a long time, and I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for Riley Sager’s next book.

I loved this book! One of the best I've read in a long time. It kept my interest, kept me guessing, and I didn't want to put it down. I can't say enough good things about this book and I would love to read anything else this author writes. I highly recommend it!

Any horror movie fan is familiar with the “final girl” trope. The one girl who makes it out alive from the massacre going on in the movie. Usually, she ends up killing the killer. This book looks at what life is like for the “final girl” after she is rescued and safe. Having to deal with the fame, and the constant media presence, people who just want a piece of her.

Quincy is a final girl, having survived a massacre at an isolated cabin in the woods. Lisa and Sam are also final girls, and the press keeps trying to lump all three of them together. Quincy is against meeting them, until she hears about Lisa’s death. Initially thought of as suicide, there is something suspicious about her death. And something suspicious about Sam, who shows up on Quincy’s doorstep shortly after Lisa dies.

Quincy does not remember most of what happened to her the night she and her friends were attacked. But she is unwillingly drawn into finding out what happened to Lisa, and what really happened to her that night in the woods.

This book was very exciting. The action was non stop and I was always interested in what was going to happen next. The story of Quincy in the cabin is parceled out slowly over the course of the book. By the end, we know the truth and so does Quincy. The ending was a real WTF moment for me. I did not see it coming, and I am not sure how I feel about it.

I loved seeing what happens to these women after the initial violence is over. The psychological damage is profound, yet they try to get on with just living a normal life. I enjoyed reading this book very much. 4 1/2 stars out of 5!

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a great book with a unique plot. Kept me turning pages into the night.

I find only a few books each year really pull me in and leave me on the edge, not wanting to put the book down, Final Girls is one of those books! Quincy appears to be a very average girl. She loves to cook and is a very popular food blogger, living with her boyfriend in a New York Apartment. Quincy she anything but average, her face has been on the cover of People Magazine and her name is all over the internet, Quincy is a Final Girl.

A Final Girl is a name given to them for having survived a horrific ordeal where everyone else was murdered and they are the lone survivor. Quincy is the only surviver of The Pine Cottage Murders. All of her friends were stabbed to death in the woods at a cabin and she is the only one who came out alive. Quincy has no memories of that night, her mind has chosen to block out all the horrific memories and details for the past 10 years.

Quincy has been spending years pretending to be normal until she gets the news that the first Final Girls named Lisa Milner has killed herself. When Samantha Boyd, the second Final Girl shows up at Quincy's doorstep after Lisa died, Quincy finds herself forming a friendship with Samantha which leads to Quincy's normal world she has built for herself to shatter and she must finally face what happened at Pine Cottage.

This story pulled my in from the first page. Well written and so many twists and turns to the story. I never give spoilers on my reviews but want to so badly this time (don't worry I won't). Quincy's memories of what happened at Pine Cottage slowly come out in each chapter of the book, leaving me not wanting to put it down because I have to know what happens next!

I know it is very early into 2017, but I have to say this has been one of the best books I have read this year and I am sure it will stay in the top 5 for 2017. Don't let the storyline keep you from reading this if you think it is more of a horror book and you aren't into that. It falls more into the Thriller/Mystery/Suspense categories.

I received this book as an ARC and it will be published on July 11, 2017.

I lost interest in this book but skipped to the end to see what happened.

Quincy Carpenter goes on a trip to a secluded cabin in the woods with her friends to celebrate her roommate's birthday. What begins as a fun getaway from their college classes ends with her friends viciously murdered and her the lone survivor. Unable to remember the terror she survived she begins to slowly rebuild her life despite her new status as a Final Girl, a name given to the lone survivors in horror movies.
Reading this book brought a feeling of being trapped in a maze, racing one way along a path only to come out facing a completely different direction. And the ending...well let's just say once you get to the middle of the maze you're in for a surprise and definitely not one I saw coming. I look forward to reading more thrilling novels from Riley Sager!

Wow! I really enjoyed this. There were times I thought I could guess where it was going and I was momentarily disappointed in what I thought was the predictability of it, but then it took a turn and surprised me after all. Stayed up late reading and stealthily read during work the next day (don't tell my boss) so I could see how it ended. Definitely recommend!

Enjoy with a slice of red velvet cake.

** Trigger warning for rape and suicide. **

“While there were other multiple homicides during those years, none quite got the nation’s attention like ours. 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. Or that flower that stinks like rotting meat whenever it decides to bloom.”

“I understand that urge for more information, that longing for details. But in this case, I’m fine without them. I know what happened at Pine Cottage. I don’t need to remember exactly how it happened.”

Quincy Carpenter: marketing grunt, food blog maven, massacre survivor.

Quincy was just a sophomore in college when it happened. She and her five best friends – boyfriend Craig, BFF Janelle, and friends Betz, Amy, and Rodney; collectively known as the East Hall Crew – were renting a cabin in the Poconos, celebrating Janelle’s birthday, when Joe Hannen stumbled into their lives. Janelle, being the wild and carefree member of the group, invited him to stay for dinner. Since she was the birthday girl, she got to call the shots.

You kind of wonder whether things would have went down differently had they known that Joe wasn’t a stranded motorist, but rather a recent escapee from the nearby Blackthorn Psychiatric asylum. (This sounds hella ableist, and there’s certainly that potential; but the many plot twists don’t necessarily play into the stereotype that mentally ill people are inherently violent, and vice versa.)

By the end of the night, everyone would be dead, save for Quincy. Almost before the blood could dry, the media nicknamed Quincy the Final Girl – one of three, at least in recent memory. Though Quincy had no desire to be defined by tragedy, she would forever be lumped in with fellow survivors: the reclusive Samantha Boyd (Nightlight Inn), and do-gooder Lisa Milner before her (a sorority house in Indiana).

Nearly ten years later, Quincy is living a life of forced normalcy. Adopting her repressed WASP mother’s strategy of “fake it till you make it,” Quincy spends most of her days baking and photographing goodies for her food blog, Quincy’s Sweets. She’s in a long-term relationship with a public defender named Jeff (an odd pairing, to be sure) and has a swanky apartment on the Upper West Side, thanks to her Pine Cottage settlement money. Things are okay-ish; that is, if you overlook the Xanax and social misanthropy.

And then Lisa turns up dead of an apparent suicide, thrusting Quincy and Sam together – and into the spotlight – once more. Why would someone who’s been to hell and back kill herself, after all these years? What’s with the cryptic email Lisa sent Quincy right before she died? Why’s her closet safe stuffed with files on the Final Girls? Is someone hunting them, trying to finish the what their tormentors, all long since dead, started? And just when are Quincy and her savior cop Coop going to knock boots, anyway?

FINAL GIRLS is a compelling and suspenseful read, though it falls into the same trap as many books belonging to this genre: the many outlandish plot twists threaten to snap your credibility after a while. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there are several gotcha! moments, and with the last one I came perilously close to an exaggerated eye roll. Thankfully this is offset by the sheer entertainment value: the writing is skillful, the characters command your attention, and the mysteries will have you white-knuckling your Kindle until the very end.

Quincy and Sam are both engaging protagonists, even if they didn’t always push the story in the direction I expected or hoped. (Those scenes in Central Park? I was mouthing a silent prayer that Final Girls was about to morph into an adult version of Mindy McGinnis’s THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES. If this is you, don’t despair! The ending gets you there, kinda sorta, in a roundabout way.)

Though we’re witness to several work-related arguments between Quincy and Jeff, I wish the narrative had explored this conflict between them – she, a survivor of a violent assault; he, the defender of the accused – in greater depth.

Overall, FINAL GIRLS is a solid addition to the genre – if not the genre-busting book I was craving (think: THE CABIN IN THE WOODS).

** Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. **

Some problems with character building and a "twist" at the end that was predictable midway through, but overall an enjoyable read and a perfectly respectable thriller.

This seems like the type of book that is set up to be the next big thriller-turned-popcorn seller. There are an unfortunate number of books with the title "Final Girl" or some play on it (see my most recent Mira Grant review) so it maybe have a hard time reaching the surface just based on that alone. This particular "Final Girls" follows the story of Quincy, lone survivor of a slasher-movie style massacre some tens years earlier, as she tried to live her life following her traumatic ordeal. When another of a group of similar survivors (deemed the Final Girls) pops up at Quincy's door, something isn't right and a lot questions about the past drudge up some dark, dangerous secrets.

Overall, I think fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train will most likely find this an entertaining read. It is very much a mainstream psychological thriller. Quincy is a likable enough character who is developed just enough to carry the story, which is also developed enough to have kept my interest. It has a few of the expected twists and turns, with some being better than others. The are some violent scenes but not enough for me to label it horror. There's some tension, but not enough for me to label it as suspense. So while it plays on a popular horror trope, it doesn't really delve that deeply into the concept. Which brings me to my biggest questions about this novel: who is this book for?

For the uninitiated, the concept of a "final girl" comes from horror films, mostly of the cult-status variety, in which the film ends with a sole, female survivor of an otherwise endless bloodbath. The two biggest examples of this concept are Laurie Strode from John Carpenter's "Halloween" and Ellen Ripley from "Alien." There are tons of other examples from both well known and more obscure pictures, but you get the idea.

With that in mind, I can't help but feel like a lot of opportunities to play up and play with the concept are missed. The novel tries to blur the line here between the cult-concept and the mainstream delivery, to mixed effect. Which leaves me torn in deciding whether or not the author neglected the concept in favor of making it accessible to mainstream readers or if she just plain doesn't know what she's talking about. I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt here and hope that Sager does understand the concept and just didn't go in too deeply to intentionally avoid alienating the airport book-buyers.

To me, either scenario is a bit of a disservice. By calling it "Final Girls" there will no doubt be horror fans that are drawn to it (in fact, it was brought to my attention by a blurb from Stephen King...which is a whole other issue) based on the concept to which the title alludes and will be disappointed by its lack of understanding and depth. Others will be fooled into thinking that this is a unique, new idea and be presented a 101-level example of a modern storytelling/genre trope.

Perhaps that is Sager's intention: to introduce a horror trope to a mainstream audience. If so, I think there's potential for this to be successful as the popular thriller crowd will probably like it and may not be as familiar with the common concept. There could very well be a large audience for this novel, assuming it can make itself known with such a generic title. I'll be very curious to see how this is received. Personally, I wish it had took stronger advantage of its namesake.

I would like to thank Riley Sager, NetGalley, and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Final Girls by Riley Sager is about three girls, Quincy, Sam, and Lisa, sole survivors of three separate murderous killing sprees, but linked by their trauma. Lisa dies mysteriously and Sam suddenly turns up on Quincy's doorstep. A series of events ensue following their new friendship. Will Quincy totally remember the events of that terrible night 10 years ago? Who can Quincy trust? This book is full of twists and turns that keep you guessing. Just when you think you have figured it all out you realize that you are wrong. You don't know where the story is going to end up because it is well written and plotted.

There are two stories that are being told simultaneously. The two stories are about the present day Quincy and the unfolding events that occurred that horrific night she survived the ordeal at Pine Cottage. This is one hell of a roller coaster thrill ride. Riley Sager's writing style is great, and the way she wrote this book is perfect for a horror/suspense/thriller. The story line is smooth and the twists and turns are applied perfectly, keeping the reader guessing. The ending had me on the edge of my seat, biting my nails. I didn't see the ending coming!

I think this book will be adapted into a movie. I will definitely read her future work. I am a fan!

I highly recommend this book to fans of horror and thrillers!