A great book that was a lot of fun to read. Having grown up with 80s horror, I had a great time finding all the nods to the genre.

It took me a bit to get through this one, but once I did I was pleasantly surprised. Definitely for people who are fans of horror movies/slasher films. I was thrown for a loop by the ending and found it to be an exciting page turner.

This was an action-packed authentic story about survival and the importance of life - I loved it! I enjoyed the souther book club more, but this one felt more realistic

The conceit was good, but the twists back and forth were hammy and poorly executed. It made me deeply depressed and its lesson was a little obvious. But it was still an enjoyable read.

I am a Grady Hendrix fan! Grady added just the right amount of gore and suspense. Many times I had that creepy, gut-wrenching, no-please-don’t feeling.

Lynette Tarkington is part of a counseling group called The Last Final Girls. All the girls have survived unimaginable horror and massacre. They are all the last girls standing. They meet to keep each other sane and safe.

Then one of them goes missing and the monsters are at it again! The story is told from Lynette’s viewpoint and boy is she determined and strong-willed, even though she’s scared shitless.

There is a big cast of characters. Some are truly deranged and people are not what they seem. Thrilling, scary, and somewhat insane.

The Final Girl support group was a fun, riveting novel for any nostalgic horror fan out there. I will warn that it can drag, but the main character (in my case at least) was interesting enough to prevent that. If you are NOT a fan of pop culture references, horror references, etc. This book has plenty of them. The author’s love of the genre is clear within each novel written, and it is just as present in this book.
The trope of the ‘final girl,’ is meant to be rewritten by taking place years after the initial incidents. However, the book isn’t too deep with its characters. It is more of a fun read, similar to the author’s previous books. Despite this, I relate to Lynn deeply as a woman with a deep anxiety disorder, and thought she was quite funny and interesting to read about.

A lot of the same issues here as with TSBCGTSV...

It's obvious that Hendrix holds a lot of knowledge about the horror genre, but he struggles to revamp the tropes he chooses to write about into something that is truly worth reading.

Unfortunately, even with the potential in all his synopses, Hendrix's characters (who are usually female) and the messages surrounding their terrors are shallowly executed in a way that makes it painfully apparent he is writing from an outside perspective. The idea to focus on final girls after their "15 minutes of fame" are over is smart. However, doubling down on the same old formulas, with a little trite commentary ~as a treat~ and shoving half-baked ideas into a new slasher set up, does not make the self-aware horror that this story seems to think it is.

Book synopsis from the publisher:
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.


The Final Girl Support Group is the perfect book to read during the Halloween season. Who doesn't remember the cheesy horror movies of the 80s and 90s? I was terrified of them when I was a kid, but now I look back and see just how cheesy they were. The Final Girl Support Group is a throwback to those movies and what happens after the credits roll. Lynn Tarkington is eccentric. Being a "Final Girl" for Lynn means always being prepared for more "monsters" to find her and Lynn has gone to great lengths to be prepared. I don't blame her, I suspect I would be the same way if I were Lynn. Heck, I kind of am in some regards and I am not a Final Girl. The book was fast-paced, but I struggled with getting through it, it wasn't as gripping as I had hoped. The ending didn't even really provide a shocking reveal, it just felt meh.... CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS


Bottom Line - Just like the horror films of the 80s, The Final Girl Support Group may be enough to entertain you for a few hours or it may leave you shaking your head, wanting something more. At the very least, it will immerse you in the nostalgia of the horror movies gone by.


Details:
The Final Support Group by Grady Hendrix
On Facebook
Pages: 352
Publisher: Berkley Books
Publication Date: July 13, 2021
Buy it Here!
Thank you to NetGalley for the book in exchange for an honest review.

It was ok. I'm a fan of horror/thriller books, but not necessarily movies. I spend a good deal of the book trying to pair the characters with their movies. It made it a little hard to follow. But overall, I enjoyed the dark humor in the book. I thought it was a bit slow and slightly predictable. But it was still an enjoyable read.

Dnf. I do not appreciate pop culture references in books. However I do recognize there are people out there that do and will be sure to recommend this to them.

Hendrix should be crowned the king of dark horror with humor. No matter how many times I pick up one of his books, I am never lacking for chills, wit, or dynamic characters. THE FINAL GIRL SUPPORT GROUP is no different. This book takes the slasher genre and makes it something unique. A bloody good time.

This book dragged a bit for me. The beginning and middle were a bit slow, but the end was worth it. I was NOT expecting the ending at all.

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

This one through me for a loop! I did not predict the crazy ending of this one, but man it was so good! If you're a fan of the horror/thriller genre, Hendrix does it well. Between this book and the Southern Book Club's Guide, you can't go wrong.

Overall I really enjoyed this! I'm a Grady Hendrix fan, so I knew I'd like it before even going into the novel. I think my favorite aspects were the pacing and the characters. I thought it was definitely a page-turner which is always good for a thriller/horror. There were moments that had my heart racing and forcing me to turn the lights back on!

fast-paced, brutal, kind of creepy, but fun - this was a quick and enjoyable read. I thought it was predictable about 75% of the book, but the end surprised me (in multiple ways). A really fun book, especially for fans of slasher movies (& books).

Definitely not a boring book. It got started and kept up a nice pace until the end. It does have some gore and violence so if that is not your thing, you might want to read another book.

In 2021, I swiftly tore through most of Grady Hedrix's work.. His latest, The Final Girl Support Group, is about famous horror "final girls," the young women who are the sole survivors of horrible, murderous attacks. All of the famous "final girls" meet in a therapy group, until they learn that someone is targeting each of them.

Although I've enjoyed all of Hendrix's novels, I've never been a fan of slasher films. I read this one through to the end, but I think that if I were better versed in the slasher genre, I may have enjoyed it more.

The Final Girls Support Group by Grady Hendrix is a unique take on the Final Girl horror genre that is exploding back into popularity after its slasher film heyday in the 80s and 90s. Several recent novels feature the Final Girl storyline, (Final Girls by Riley Sager and My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones) so I went into this one feeling like I was reaching Final Girl fatigue or genre saturation, but I was wrong. This novel takes the reader along a wild ride, as Protagonist, Lynn Tarkington, fights to survive as the Final Girl that isn’t really a Final Girl. News clippings and interview transcripts lend a hand in explaining the horrific events endured by Lynette and her fellow Final Girls, and help move the story along without bogging the reader down in backstory. I’m looking forward to seeing this novel come to life onscreen.

The was my first G.Hendrix book and the writing style was very good. I usually like horror/slasher books but this one was hard to follow at times. Would make a good movie and then it would be easier to follow the multiple characters stories. A good twisted ending, didn’t see it coming.

2.5/5 Stars

I'll start off my saying that I'm usually an avid fan of anything having to do with the trope of the infamous "final girl". Riley Sager's "Final Girls"? Yes. Todd Strauss-Schulson's "The Final Girls"? Double Yes.

So the idea of a "final girls" support group, one where multiple disillusioned and hardened women get together to support one another and review their individual traumas while fighting against someone out to eliminate them sounded A-mazing. However the execution of "The Final Girls Support Group" fell a little flat for me.

It's clear that Grady Hendrix loves the horror and "final girl" genre and it's also clear that "The Final Girl Support Group" is meant as an ode to all the final girls that have permeated the horror genre and the slasher/horror genre as a whole. However, as someone who is a thriller fan but has not really delved into the horror genre this book is based on, I had a hard time filling in the histories of the final girls and the motivations of their killers. It's clear that the final girls have backstories synonymous with final girls of the horror genre, but without that knowledge it's hard to gain that information from the book alone. The book relies on your knowledge of slasher films and without that knowledge it can feel like jumping into a book during it's sequel. I wonder if this is also why I had a hard time resonating with the characters and their relationship with one another through the support group.

Ultimately I felt that this book was not meant for me as an audience member and so I got lost in the nuanced background of it. I also had such a difficult time getting through the book that I ended up DNFing about 1/3 of the way.

If you're a fan of the final girls and the slasher film genre this is probably a good fit for you. However without that knowledge and love of the horror genre, I'd say skip it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Grady Hendrix for the advanced reading of "The Final Girl Support Group" in exchange for an honest review.