This one is for every fan of slasher franchises and final girls.

Once again, Grady Hendrix delivers a perfect blend of humor, horror, and heart. This time, he's also serving up a bit of horror pop culture critique (that's also a valentine to the genre). This one's become one of my favorite Hendrix novels, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be one of my favorites of the year.

3.5 stars rounded up. Read this one in 24 hours! Definitely a page turner. My only critique of the book is that it gets a bit confusing at times. It was hard to tell what each woman’s story was, and which movies were made about their lives. The characters sort of were hard to tell apart from each other. I also wish they wouldn’t have had each chapter start with an interview or news article. The print on my Kindle was so teeny that I had to take photos of the article with my phone and zoom in on them. I wish each woman’s story had been told as a section starter so we got to know them better. I didn’t love being confused at multiple points in the book when a new “final girl” was talked about. Especially Chrissy and Stephanie. Those two felt thrown in and I had to go back and remember who they were.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my advanced copy. All views are my own. :)

Lynette meets with a group of women who like herself were the last surving victims of a mass murder spree. She is paranoid and lives in an apartment that is like a panic room, only venturing out for her support group. It seems someone is targeting the final girls in her suppport group, as one goes missing and then Lynette's apartment is the target of bullets. Soon Lynette is on the run from the police and her attacker. She has to warn the other final girls but they don't want to listen to her. There are lots of red herrings along the way but the ending was a surprise. Throughout the book there are interviews, emails and other supporting documents that detail the the crimes the women survived. The only part that bothered me was after Lynette left jail, she presented herself as a therapist. How would she be believed after sitting in a jail for days? She would be a mess and not professional at all! Other than that I really enjoyed this horror story of the final girls.

This book was a wild ride from the first page to the last, and I was enthralled the whole time.

If you grew up in the 80s and 90s like me, or are a connoisseur of classic slasher films, there will be a lot to recognize and love in this book. The author, who is very familiar with horror tropes, uses these tropes as the backstories for the final girls. The final girls have all survived the unthinkable, and in the course of this book they have to confront the demons of their pasts and come together to survive once and for all. What you end up with is a supremely feminist plot that turns horror tropes on their head.

I have read several books by this author, because the plots sound amazing and like they’d be right up my alley. Unfortunately, several of those books (notably The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires) just didn’t deliver for me (why the obsession with mentioning public hair OVER AND OVER?). Fortunately, this was not the case with The Final Girl Support Group. This book was everything I hoped it would be, smartly funny and entertaining the whole way through. The author’s affection for the genre shone through, and it’s clear he had a ball writing this book. Fans of horror and suspense will eat this up, just like I did.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book!

I originally gave it 3.5 stars but after sitting on it, I decided to give it 4. I'm a huge fan of Hendrix's work and after [book:The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires|44074800] I had super high hopes for this one. It didn't click with me the way Southern Book Club did though, but that might be because even though I'm a massive fan of horror, slashers aren't exactly my favorite subgenre. I did enjoy the nods to slasher films, especially having the final girls be from popular franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream, but some might find it derivative and too on the nose. But I did really enjoy how it looked into how these franchises affected the final girls. There were also excerpts from interviews and books between each chapter, which unfortunately were very hard to read on the Kindle in the ARC because the print was so small, and they were pictures so it took more finagling than just increasing the font to read them.

Lynette, the main character, was very layered and frustrating. It was hard to root for her with some of the choices that she made, but as you found out more about her story, it was easier to sympathize with her situation and understandable how she came to be the way she was. The other final girls ranged from pretty cool but not in the book much, to super easy to hate and in the book a lot. This didn't make for a super pleasant reading experience, but I get it. In the end, the book was definitely a love letter to the slasher genre and hit all the beats of a good slasher, so I can appreciate it. I just don't think this particular work of his was totally for me.

Grady Hendrix at his best! All kids of 80's horror. Loved the story and the twist at the end was perfect.

Hendrix has used the final girl theme to create a gripping, clever horror story. The callbacks to classic slasher films are sure to appeal to any horror film buffs, but the exploration of trauma and resilience push it past a generic slasher tale. Once again, Hendrix provides us with a thrilling, character-driven journey.

As usual, this lived up to Grady Hendrix standards. Pleasantly amusing, and not at all predictable. I liked that the main character had some moral ambiguity, especially when it came to her survival. Highly recommend, even to non-horror readers.

The Final Girl Support Group started out intriguing and compelling to read, but somewhere it seemed to take a turn and in the end just sort of ended up being "meh" and just OK. Definitely think that I prefer Hendrix's early books to this one.

I wasn’t too sure about this book at first. I started it and then it was weeks before I came back to it.

I’m glad that I did.

While the beginning didn’t fully hook me, once the action got started, I couldn’t put this book down. The concept of the Final Girl is always one that I’ve enjoyed and Grady Hendrix found a way to make it feel new, while honoring all the final girl trope that’s come before. It felt incredibly meta and was a real love story to all the final girls of classic slasher films.

Overall, this book just felt fun. There were moments when I wasn’t entirely certain which direction it was going to head, but I was more than happy to be along for the ride. I can see this being a fantastic summer read for horror readers.

The Final Girl Support Group is made up of women who survived massacres that readers will recognize from classic horror films. Readers are introduced to the women several decades after their respective massacres, when the characters are considering ending the support group and moving on with their lives. When one of them is murdered and another attacked, the main character, Lynnette, challenges her own fears to figure out who is targeting final girls.

This is easily my favorite Grady Hendrix novel so far. I never thought I'd experience a jump-scare from a book, but somehow he nailed it. For the most part though, this is less a horror story and more a story for horror fans. There is a lot of tension that puts the reader on edge, but most of it does not quite reach the level of terror or dread that horror novels require. Most of my enjoyment came from understanding the references, which added another layer of storytelling without making the book 600 pages long.

A fast-paced horror novel that keeps you in suspense. Not Hendrix's best, but still a compelling horror novel. Some of the message gets muddled (effectively skewering some tropes while unironically employing some offensive ones when it comes to the one Black character.) Good read for fans of slasher films.

This is my third book by this author and I'm just not that impressed. It's a bunch of 80s camp horror. I felt like I was watching boring Halloween movies that weren't scary. It also reminded me alot of Riley Sager's Final Girls.

Author Grady Hendrix sets out to answer not only where those ever-popular slasher flicks originate, but also what happens to those ‘final girls’ who are so often the last person standing at the end of the movie. What sort of psychological damage has been wrought on those characters, and how many years of therapy might it take to recover from such horrific incidents? Lynnette Tarkington may have an idea, though some of the other women in her long time support group don’t even consider her a real ‘final girl.’ She has been meeting with the other final girls and their therapist, Dr. Carol, for years, but even now trust is a hard commodity to develop within the group. Lynnette, who has been living her life always looking over her shoulder with the certainty that someone is out to get her, is abruptly proved correct when someone attempts to murder her in her own apartment. Suddenly, she’s on the run, trying to unmask her adversary, and doing everything she can to save all the final girls along the way. Plucky little Lynette has a backup plan for this, though, and while they might verbally snipe at each other in group, the final girls will work together to defend each other against their monsters.

This fast-paced thriller will trap you with anticipation of what will happen next. There is a fair amount of violence, though for the most part the descriptions avoid getting too gruesome. I found the story to be exciting and even darkly funny at times, but with the extreme paranoia of the main character, some of the actions are almost unbelievably over the top – putting it solidly in line with the most popular classic slasher flicks out there. Recommended to anyone who enjoys their thrillers or horror with a touch of dark humor and a considerable amount of paranoia. Especially for those fans of movies such as Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream, Friday the 13th, and other such films. Anyone who is a fan of classic slasher flicks will feel right at home between the pages of this book.

This is your classic Grady Hendrix novel, so basically a movie in written form. It was just as fun as any of his other novels and this may be more of a hit than others, though the idea isn't exactly original in my eyes. The look into where a final girl comes from, the take from the old school movie franchises was interesting, but I would have liked something new, innovative, but still it was fun!

This is another great book by Grady Hendrix. The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my chair, just like a good horror movie. My review for Monster Librarian is forthcoming.

I sadly didn't like this much & couldn't wait for it to end. I normally enjoy his books, but this one being more true to life, no supernatural/paranormal elements, felt too harsh & less fun. I wouldn't have finished it if I wasn't such a fan of his.

This was a very fun trope for a book premise, the final girl. Grady Hendrix books are always so fun for me. This one was a really good mix of fun and gore that somehow works.

I'm sort of torn on this one. I loved the premise and much of the writing, but I felt like a little something was lacking for me. Maybe it'll be a creeper where the more I think on it, the more I grow to love it. I know a whole host of patrons who will love it, so we will be purchasing a few copies for the library. Thank you!

Such a fun read! Everything Grady Hendrix writes creeps me out in a fun new way! A fast paced thriller, with plenty of twists and turns. There are several characters which can be tough to keep track of, but the more you read, the more you understand.