The Final Girl Support Group

“There’s so much life and it just keeps going. Maybe not everyone’s life, but Life. (...) Because no matter how hard we try, we can’t stop life. No matter how much we fight, no matter how many we kill, things keep changing, and growing, and living, and people get lost, and fall away, and come back, and get born, and move on, and no matter what it’s all so much, it’s all so hard, the way life just keeps going and going.”

The Final Girl Support Group is a psycho thriller written by renowned horror author Grady Hendrix, centered around a small group of “Final Girls.” What is a Final Girl, you ask? 

A Final Girl is a woman who suffered an attack from a “monster,” as described in the book. The monster is usually a man, and the attack usually involves the deaths of friends and family members, as well as the torture of the Final Girl. In the novel, Lynette Tarkington is a Final Girl herself, but her attack occurred 22 years before the events of the book. Every month she attends a support group in the basement of a church with a small group of women who are also dubbed Final Girls. This group is unlike any other, defined by their special circumstances. Each one has survived at least two attacks from their monster, or someone related to him.

The twist? Each girl is based off of a real horror movie found in the real world. Based on movies like Friday the 13th, Halloween, Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silent Night, Deadly Night, the story of Lynette and her fellow survivors is intriguing and horrifying, filled with twists, turns, and gore. I absolutely loved it.

“I’m every girl who’s ever run from a man with a weapon, every girl who ever ran for her life across spaces where she was supposed to be safe. I crash into the next studio and I’m Julia running through her dorm, I’m Heather running down her high school halls, I’m Marilyn running through the Texas afternoon, I’m Dani running through a hospital, I’m Adrienne running through this camp, this camp where there will always be a girl running and screaming and screaming, and I’m Lynnette, running at last, and he can’t catch me, I’m as fast as all of us put together, I’m faster than Billy Walker, I’m faster than the Ghost, I’m faster than the entire Volker family, I’m the fastest girl in the world.” 

The novel touches on the inherent sexism of old horror movies, as well as the real-life effects of these franchises; although less extreme than portrayed, both are still important topics with real-life impacts. 

This was a perfect Halloween read that had me on the edge of my seat in anticipation, desperate to find out what happened next. I read the entire book in one night and regretted nothing. Not only is it a wonderful horror novel, but it also has an interesting commentary on the world we live in. I definitely recommend this book to any reader, even if you don’t like horror. 

“We tend to die, women who’ve been through the fire. Sometimes we choose obvious ways, suicide and overdoses; sometimes we’re more subtle, marrying someone who likes to use his fists, or we drink too much and keep getting behind the wheel until we run out of luck.