A great read for horror and old-fashioned slasher movie fans like me. Just like My Best Friend's Exorcism and The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, this book is well written and has an interesting plot. A fun, at times over the top, ride that keeps you in its grip until the end.

Grady Hendrix is such a unique voice. He makes me feel like I'm watching a movie when I read his books. He's ambitious and has a way of world building that is almost unmatched.

In the world of The Final Girl Support Group, all teen slasher movies are based on real life killing sprees. A very intriguing proposition. It brings a new level of creepiness to the movies and the fans that love them. What would it say about these fans? Real people died in the exact way they are praising.

A great read that makes you think.

This book is awesome! 80"s horror movies gave us the "Final Girl." The last survivor of horrifying murder scenarios. This trope has become so popular is slipped into books and modern movies. Who better to tackle it than horror novelist Grady Hendrix? No-one! The book starts at a support group for the final girls' years after their moments of pain and fame. You hear about each girl's origin story as the plot leads us to the knowledge that someone is picking off the final girls one by one. A perfect blend of nostalgic horror fun and new suspense. This book manages to be clever, funny, and genuinely scary. If you enjoy horror books, or those old campy horror movies pick this book up immediately. Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks go to Berkley Publishing Group and Netgalley for this advanced digital copy!

As with any Grady Hendrix book, I cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy! He always does a fantastic job of immersing the reader in the world he’s creating by adding something extra. In this case, the extras are book reviews and news reports before each chapter. I am also really digging the cover.

One of Hendrix’s best traits as a horror writer is his attention to detail, particularly in the book’s high intensity scenes. I thought the final chase scene, starting from their arrival at the camp through the end, was awesome. It felt like it came right out of a slasher movie. Speaking of slashers, as a horror movie fan, it was also a lot of fun to try to figure out which slasher movie each woman in the support group came from. The fact that our protagonist Lynette came from a <spoiler> Silent Night, Deadly Night </spoiler> remix absolutely tickled me.

Some of the same issues that I had with The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires popped up in this Hendrix novel as well (major spoilers ahead). <spoiler> As in his previous book, I had problems with how Hendrix handled his non-white characters. I thought it was unfortunate that the only Black woman in the group was killed off-screen at the beginning of the novel and was only given significant book time in flashback scenes. Especially since she was described as being the glue that held the group together, and was the final girl from the book’s equivalent to the Friday the 13th franchise, this felt like a lot of wasted potential. I also wish that the group as a whole had more significant time together. Narratively it makes sense that the group is not working together since Hendrix establishes early on that the group is splintering and members are moving on. However, personally I wanted more of them working together and supporting each other. Many of Hendrix’s novels focus on a single protagonist going on a personal odyssey with some outside assistance, which I do enjoy, but I wanted more of the strong bonds between characters that he wrote so well in My Best Friend’s Exorcism. </spoiler>.

I was not expecting to like the first-person narration, and it did take me some time to adjust to it. However, it ended up working with the story Hendrix was trying to tell. This story is about a final girl taking her power back, so writing in first person gives her a voice and prevents readers from misconstruing her thoughts. It’s still not my favorite form of narration, but I came to appreciate it in this novel.

Overall, I give this book 3.5 stars. I think it is a great tribute to slasher movies and every horror fan should give it a read!

Grady Hendrix’s latest jaunt into a horror sub genre immediately gets to the heart of why slasher movies work: the baked in paranoia. Fans of Halloween, Scream, and Friday the 13th will find a lot to like about this tale, which pays homage and plants Easter eggs to countless movies in this space, but may find the ending doesn’t land due to a similar conclusion of a famous film of that ilk. In any event, this slasher mash up has much to offer and a breakneck pace that keeps your from putting it down.

Final girls are the last girls standing at the end of the horror movie. After their friends, family, and neighbors have all been murdered by a monster, they slay the beast and live to face the trauma. Lynette Tarkington is a real final girl. She lived through the brutal murders of her family and became a paranoid shut-in as a result. The only time she leaves her apartment for more than necessities is to attend what she calls the Final Girl Support Group - a group therapy session once a month with five other final girls. When one of them dies, she becomes convinced that someone is back to finish the job that their monsters couldn't.

For someone who loves 80s slasher flicks, I enjoyed this book. It featured a lot of references to the slasher films of that time. Each "final girl" was named for the actress who played a final girl in the 70s and 80s. That made for a campy bit of fun. The fun ended there, however. Where you get a campy, almost humorous feel from some of the 80s horror films, this book brought a serious tone and a real terror to the final girl trope, something that was intentional and even referenced by the main character who ponders why the fictional stories of women being brutalized and murdered is often made to be so entertaining.

I enjoyed most the characters and action of this book. Lynette, the narrator, is a complicated character and while I didn't always understand her decision-making process, she grew so much on the page that by the end of the book, I loved her. I was really rooting for her every step of the way as the book wrapped up. The other characters, even the ones made for you to despise were well-developed, interesting characters.

One criticism, probably the only thing that really bothered me about this book was the pacing. It stopped and started a lot for me. It started slow, amped up, slowed way down again, zoomed forward with some intense revelations, crawled again, and only in the end did it stay at a steady fast pace until the resolution. A more even pace would have flowed better for me.

Fresh off the monumental success of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix's new title takes on the concept of the final girl. The members of this support group are being picked off, one by one, as Hendrix dives deep into various horror franchises, which are thinly fictionalized here. Horror fans will recognize and appreciate the nods to different scream queens and their favorite villains, and the tension never lets up in this wild ride.

Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley publishers for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I love cheesy horror movies, and while I tend to find the slasher genre a bit meh, the concept for this book sounded like a lot of fun (for the reader, not for the characters!). A bunch of final girls form a support group, and then slowly start getting killed off again.

I figured out the biggest twists early, but that didn't really diminish the entertainment value of the story and the journey to the end. I do wish we'd had a little more after-the-fact closure, but I think the ending did justice to the characters and who they were, and I liked the growth in the heroine.

Was it as good as The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires? No, I don't feel that it was. Would I recommend it? Yes, it was still very entertaining.

Four stars!

What if the final girls from every horror movie you remember met up to try to get past their trauma? That is the basis for this story of thrills and scares.

Lynnette survived a horrific attack against her parents, little sister and boyfriend as a teenager, and as an adult, lives a hermit-like existence of always checking behind her, locking every door and window, having multiple escape routes and no friends beyond her support group - a counselor and five other women who have been through the same thing and lived to tell about it. All of them have witnessed their story become part of pop culture and been made into movies, seen their "monster" be turned into a pop icon, and even had betrayal from within. When one of the final girls says she's not going to come to group anymore, Lynnette feels like her world is spiraling out of control. But when one of the members doesn't show up, it appears a sequel is in the works once again, as terror has arrived at a small camp and their friend was one of the body count. But as each woman gets targeted, Lynnette soon realizes that someone who knows too much is trying to pick them off one by one, and there may not be anyone she can trust. As she decides to try to help a young girl who just went through her own ordeal, will Lynnette be tempting fate and will her past finally catch up to her?

This is an ode to the slasher movies of the 80s and 90s, and readers will easily be able to pick out who each character is supposed to be. For those who ever wondered what would happens to those Final Girls once the movie ended, this definitely explores that thought. It also explores trauma and overcoming it as well. And there's plenty of creepy scenes to enjoy. This needs to be made into a movie ASAP.

I thought, from the title and description, that this would be more tongue-in-cheek than it ended up being. I spent the book very concerned for all the characters and didn’t get a satisfying resolution.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

3.5 - This was a very interesting book all around. I loved the premise of a different type of thriller that you never read about these days - slasher sort of thriller. It was enjoyable to read and the writing and character development was well done. I was on the edge of my seat through a lot of this book. I also didn’t guess the ending which is always awesome. Things I didn’t like were that some thing didn’t quite add up for example one of the characters is so paranoid that she has a cage built around her front door but didn’t do anything ab all her windows. Additionally, said character goes to write a super secret book which wouldn’t align with her degree of paranoia. Overall, it was a good quick read but nothing that I loved.

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix is another riveting work of horror by one of my current favorite authors. This time around, Hendrix has decided to explore slasher tropes and the psychological trauma of violence. Hendrix focuses on six amazing heroines who are true survivors of mass-murderer rampages whose experiences inspired the splatter-film franchises that saturated horror cinema in the 1980s and ’90s, earning them minor celebrity. However, when one of the six is murdered decades after she escaped her assailant, and others come under violent assault, Lynnette Tarkington—herself a survivor of the Silent Night Slayings of 1988—realizes that someone is trying to orchestrate an extravagant final girl finale. But is the killer a garden-variety homicidal maniac, a deranged superfan of the films, or someone more knowledgable and intimate with their group?

So who is orchestrating this final girl finale? And why? The answer might genuinely shock you.

As usual, Hendrix does a great job playing with popular culture by subverting popular culture's (unhealthy?) fascination with the slasher genre. And Hendrix has always written women characters well (a rarity for a male author) but here he shines. All the heroines are deeply fleshed out and believable - flaws and all. Lynnette, in particular, with her paranoid existence comes across as a resilient and strong character while everyone around her questions her insanity.

Really this book goes out to all the battered and bruised “final girls” out there, whose trauma goes unseen. It's about how these women are tough, resilient, and adaptable.

It's also an exploration of when interest in true crime/horror becomes an unhealthy obsession.

The Final Girl Support Group is a fast-paced horror thriller featuring strong heroines, one that plays with the tropes of the slasher genre. If you're looking for a "fresh" take on the slasher, read this one!

Thank you so much to #Netgalley, #BerkleyPublishingGroup, and the talented @Grady_Hendrix for the ARC in exchange for my honest reviews.

A final girl is the sole survivor of a horror movie...
the one who fought back, AGAIN and AGAIN defeating the killer, to be left standing, bloodied and bruised, but ALIVE, as the credits roll.

One problem…I never liked slasher movies like Friday the 13th, Chucky or Scream.
Too gory, too silly, too OVER THE TOP.

So, WHY did I read this when I was invited to? Simple.

I LOVED ❤️ the author’s previous book-“The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires”!!

So, I had to give it a try!

Unfortunately, although this book pokes fun at these movies, it lacks the HUMOR and LOVABLE characters of the other.

I did not feel like I really got to know the FINAL GIRLS, and although they meet the first Thursday of every month with their therapist, I didn’t feel the same camaraderie as in the book I mentioned-

Not even when Lynnette Tarkington, one of the survivors, realizes that the members of the group have become targets for a new deranged killer, and she makes it her mission to save them.

Perhaps it is because we mostly got to know the others through excerpts of police transcripts, newspaper articles and emails, and on my KINDLE the font was too small and too dark to read most of them.

I may have missed out on some of the story because of this...🤔 Hopefully that is corrected for the final copies of the book.

This book is gory, silly and OTT-just like the slasher movies-as it is meant to be!

But, this time, my lack of enthusiasm for those movies, did translate to my lack of enjoyment of the book!

I am just not the right reader THIS time, though true fans of the pop culture of slasher films, should enjoy this a lot more! Available July 13, 2021.

Thank You to Elisha at Berkley for providing a gifted copy through NetGalley.

It was my pleasure to offer a candid review!

This was such an exciting read! I loved the whodunnit of it all. I was convinced at each turn of events I knew who did it and why it made sense. I have read several of Grady Hendrix's books and they just keep getting better. I think this one might be my favorite. I love the Final Girl trope and this was just a really fun twist on it. I had trouble putting this book down!

Read if you: Are enjoying the small wave of historical horror novels being published, were a fan of 80s horror slaher movies, or are a Grady Hendrix fan.

Librarians/booksellers: The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires was a big hit; this will be anticipated by his fans!

Many thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I had trouble getting into this one. Hendrix is one of my favorite authors, and his ability to create female characters I can consistently root for is unparalleled. He doesn't disappoint. Every female character he writes is nuanced, deeply flawed, and totally heroic. I love his characters, his dialogue, his writing feels fluid and natural. But there was something specifically about the pacing on this one that feels off--there are ten different plot twists and none of them hit successfully--they were either too obvious, or too loaded. And if you think that's intentional to play off the predictability of slasher films, that's fine, but it's not clever. I constantly felt like something was being SAID about female portrayals in slasher films, but the message took a back seat to the non-stop action movie of it all. It's my least favorite Hendrix, but even a least favorite Hendrix is better than the best Sager. If Riley Sager ever reads this, please don't hate me--I religiously read every book you write, but Grady Hendrix is OG.

I have wanted to read a Grady Hendrix book on the recommendation of several friends and colleagues and I'm glad The Final Girl Support Group was my first. The author has a clear love and understanding of what makes a compelling slasher horror as well as the issues the genre raises about trauma, feminism, the deification of monsters, the flattening of the lives of victims, and the numbing power of the sequel after sequel cycle. To raise and engage with all these issues while still keeping the story a tense and page turning slasher itself is so smart and genuinely fun for a fan of horror.

Wonderfully Grady Hendrix! Loved the tie in to the old Slasher flicks. the main character was a little hard to get behind as a hero, but I really liked that about this book. Plenty of twists and turns. Kept me guessing right up to the end.

I think this is the best Hendrix book yet, and that's saying something. more detailed review coming closer to publication, but do put this one on your top read list.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Thank you Netgalley and Berkeley Publishing Group for an ARC for my honest review.

I wanted to like this one so much. I am a huge horror fan and have always loved the "final girl" over the serial killer. As soon as I read the synopsis, I knew I had to request to read this book. However, the story fell flat for me. I was really interested in all of the "Final Girls" backstories, but unfortunately, you get little glimpses of them here and there. Other than Lynette, you don't really get to know the other "final girls". There really isn't a chance to get to know them or to understand their trauma.

You also don't really get an explanation behind the real killer's motivation until super late into the book and by then, it was too late for me. If the character developments were more fleshed out, I might have cared a bit more about them.

Overall, I did like the premise of this story, but the character development really lacked here. I am going to give this one 2.5 stars.