The Last Final Girl - Stephen Graham Jones

 

This horror/thriller takes place in a small town in Texas after the Homecoming party is brutally murdered, slasher film style, by a killer in a Michael Jackson mask. The lone survivor is Lindsay and she becomes the town's instant golden final girl.  However, when Lindsay chooses a new Homecoming court filled with the school's misfits, we learn that Lindsay isn't the only final girl at this school.  And, in typical slasher movie form, the killer Billie Jean isn't finished with this town yet.

I think the main standout aspect of the story is, by far, the narrative style.  It is written as almost a screenplay or script and it is a style that takes a bit of getting used to.  I've read through a good number of reviews and this style seems to be hit or miss for readers, although a number of people did mention that listening to the audio book was key in getting a feel for the narrative style and flow of the story. I've had to read a few plays in English classes so I didn't feel too out of place while reading but, of course, Jones puts his own spin on the format.  The style is a mix of traditional story narrative and screenplay in that we get the character dialogue in the traditional story format with the quotation marks (example: "blah blah") but most of the external framing or description is given as almost camera directions (example: POV pans over to the window...). It does take some getting used to, but I found it very effective, especially when it came to Act 3 and we're getting a lot of action. 

In regards to Act 3 and all the action, specifically, we do get a good amount of bloody slasher goodness.  The description of the book mentions that there is a fight to become the last final girl and I'll be honest that, at the beginning of this story I wasn't sure if that fight would be a physical fighting or maybe some high-school drama fighting to be Homecoming queen type of fighting.  I should have known better considering this is a Stephen Graham Jones book.  So, if anyone is having the same thoughts, I just want to be clear that we do get some great on-page blood and kills.  In regards to the horror aspects of the book, I did find the horror to be very slasher-movie-like which makes a lot of sense. I was surprised by the amount of comedy in this and I found myself laughing out loud a few times.  The dialogue and references to slasher movies (and 'not called a slasher but 100% is still a slasher' types of movies) was bordering on Gilmore Girls level quippy and I absolutely loved it.

This book had a lot in common with Jones's My Heart Is A Chainsaw that came out earlier this year.  Our protagonist Izzy has a very deep knowledge of slasher films and writes numerous papers on them for her classes in high school.  She's a bit of an outcast with a strained family life and seems to be one of the only people in town who understands what's going on and tries to warn the other people around her. There are also a good number of pop culture references to slasher films and, of course, they both focus on the 'final girl' trope. The two books are miles apart in terms of narrative style but it was interesting to have read both books because they are so similar in some aspects but drastically different in others.  I do think the narrative style of Chainsaw would be more widely liked since it is a more typical narrative and I felt it leaned toward the lit-fic side of the spectrum.  But I think Last Final Girl is more commercial in terms of the pacing and plot and readers who want that tension and quick kills would be more likely to enjoy it better.  [As an aside, I did read and review Chainsaw so click here for the link to that post for my full thoughts.]

My main struggle with this story came at the end when we were getting all the reveals and some very fast POV changes.  This is a short book, only 216 pages, and there's a lot of white space on each page due to the nature of the narrative structure.  By the end of the book, there had been so many characters mentioned that I really struggled keeping everyone straight.  There were a few points where something was revealed about a character and I could tell from the way the reveal was written that it should have been shocking but I just had no idea who that character was.  And this might be 100% a me-issue because I have such a hard time with character names that if two characters have similar enough names (like we had a few men with names that start with J in this book) I have a hard time keeping them straight.  I had a bit of this trouble throughout the whole book but mostly could keep people straight based on the other characters they interacted with.  But by the end, when all the characters are basically in the same area, I was getting all mixed up.  I also think this is one of the downsides to the narrative structure choices Jones made because we don't get a lot of character description or characterization outside of dialogue which left me a little less-grounded with characters than I normally would like to be. 

When it came to the execution/exploration of the 'final girl' trope, I really enjoyed this version.  This really felt like the sequel to a slasher where we pick up immediately after the initial slasher kills.  I loved the way the characters in the book acknowledged their final girl status and they each had a different relationship to that identity.  However, the fact that they were still in high school I think did lessen their ability to reflect back on their experiences and the outcome of those events as much as maybe some other books do.  The pacing was fantastic and while it did take me a bit to get acclimated to the narrative choices Jones made, I really found this to be a very engaging read and a fun exploration of the more immediate reaction/outcome of the final girl trope.  I also thought it was interesting that, because of the minimal setting details and descriptions, I ended up picturing my high school quite often and that, naturally, led me to picturing the people from my school as some of the side characters in this story.  Granted, I did grow up in a small town so I could really relate to a lot of the places and aspects of the story (not sure how a reader who grew up in a larger city would be able to relate in the same way). But I think a lot of the fun of horror stories, especially slashers, is the idea that this could happen in almost any place because rogue masked mystery killers aren't tied to one geographical location.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story.  I can understand how the structure might not appeal to every reader but after a few pages, I really found it immersive and fun.  I loved the set up and the way the plot read like a solid summer blockbuster slasher sequel.

The Dollhouse - Sara Ennis

 

This psychological thriller follows twins Angel and Bud as they are abducted and put in The Dollhouse - a room where a man named Alfred uses them to re-create photographs from his childhood but he always adds a sadistic twist. In the outside world, the search continues for the twins and Peter Baden extends his help to their mother.  Peter's daughter Olivia was abducted about a year prior and hasn't been found so he spends his days searching for Olivia and helping parents going through similar situations.  While Peter and the FBI search, time might be running out for the twins and the other 'dolls' as Alfred's temper becomes more volatile and as the photo album is running out of photographs, no one wants to find out what happens if they reach the end.

TW/CW: abduction, physical/psychological abuse, suicide

Okay, so this might be a bit of a meandering review but here we go. I finished this book a few days ago and have given it a lot of thought.  I'm still not sure how thoroughly I can explain my opinions without spoilers but I'll do my best. I really enjoyed the first 1/3-ish of this book and then it sort of went downhill from there and upon reflection, I think part of that is due to my own expectations and preferences not being met and there's a good chance that someone who has a different reading history won't have the same issues I did.  Prior to picking this book up, I saw a number of positive reviews on Instagram simply raving about this book.  My reading schedule for this month was a little tight, but those reviews encouraged me to make some space for this story.  And I think this book had a lot I liked in it, but the times that it missed, for me, outweighed the positives.  As of writing this review, the book has an average rating of 4.3 on Goodreads (with 186 ratings) so a good number of people obviously really like this book.  I did take a skim through some of the positive reviews just to see what people were liking so much about it and many of the reviews specifically listed out aspects that were a negative for me so this might just be a very subjective reading experience.  In any case, here are my thoughts.

This book does not shy away from the physical or mental abuse and torture that Alfred is putting these kids through.  I've seen some reviews liken this to an episode of Criminal Minds and I would agree with that comparison (specifically, S6 E8 Reflection of Desire and S8 E10 The Lesson).  However, I personally felt that as the book progressed, a lot of the abuse was done just for shock value and thus is was less impactful as the story progressed.  Initially, we got an interesting back and forth between the abuse by Alfred and then his accomplice Jennifer caring for them almost like a mother would (making them dinner, making sure they did their school work, etc).  This dichotomy was really interesting and even Angel at times had little moments where she was almost enjoying this new 'family' that she had.  I would have liked if we continued that sort of back and forth but instead, as the book progressed, we really lost the Jennifer side of the equation and we got so much of Alfred torturing that those brutal scenes lost some of their impact for me.  I almost became desensitized to the violence because the last three chapters had been along similar lines.  I think if we had gotten less of the actual violence and more of a 'relax' period between those brutal scenes then it would be much more impactful overall. 

The first part I enjoyed was the POV switching.  We get a good number of POVs in the story but Angel is by far our protagonist and I'd say the majority (70%ish) of the book is told from her perspective.  Some of the other perspectives are Alfred, Jennifer, Peter, and a high school guidance counselor named Edward. I do, generally, like a multi-POV thriller because it usually allows the reader to see more layers to the plot and really up the tension.  However, in this case, it is not immediately apparent how all these POVs are related to the main plot line and that was frustrating for me.  I trusted that they would come together in the end (and they do), but while I was in the middle of the book I ended up being bored and confused why we were focusing on these other characters instead of following Angel.  These other POVs didn't have their own arcs and I didn't find the characters very compelling to follow.  Looking back, I can see how the events in these other chapters are important to the overall plot, but when it wasn't clear in the moment I just found myself not caring and sort of skimming those chapters. Ennis did a really good job with the timing of when these other chapters would come in and interrupt the main narrative.  I think since the main plot with Angel is so brutal that these other chapters did serve as little breaks for the reader which is a nice aspect and was really needed in some cases. I think the chapter POV choices were really smart and did lead to an overall good flow to the narrative so I can't complain too much.

I'm a character-focused reader and these characters were just not fleshed out enough for my liking.  The best way I can describe my issues is that I can list of facts about the characters but I never got a good sense of how those facts impacted the characters or their interactions with the world around them. For example, Angel and Bud's father was recently sentenced to jailtime for attempting to rob a bank but I didn't really get any good sense of how they feel about that or how that impacted their lives.  Did it make their relationship stronger?  Did they have conflicting feelings and maybe one thinks the punishment was too harsh and the other disagrees?  Did this change their relationship with their friends or other people in town?  I felt like a lot of the emotional and psychological impact of the story would have been so much stronger if we saw the physical or relational outcomes to the facts we know about the characters. Also, the first 25% or so of this story introduces us to the various other POV characters that we'll be following - one of which is Peter who uses his money and connections as a respected journalist to help families of missing children (I felt this was an obvious comparison to John Walsh).  He also has a friendship with the FBI agent who worked on his daughter's case a year ago.  Since we're introduced to Peter as POV character and he is interacting with Angel and Bud's case, I thought for sure we would follow both his investigation as well as the events taking place in the Dollhouse.  This was not the case.  In fact, we only get 3 main chapters with Peter and one of them is the climax of the whole book.  This was a point that many reviews listed out as a positive - they liked that the police/FBI investigation was missing because they find detective thrillers boring.  I am of the complete opposite opinion and thus wanted us to see Peter's investigation and how close (or not) he/the FBI were to finding Angel and Bud.

From a purely plot perspective, I did enjoy how the story unfolded all the way until the end.  For me, a good psychological thriller has the main character overcome a mental block of some sort and, in this case, it is Angel trying to figure out how to escape while knowing that if she gets caught, it would mean possible death.  As discussed previously, I think the physical torture ramifications of disobedience are well established in the story, and I do think we get a good amount of Angel's internal monologue and her fears of what will happen if she fails.  There were moments where she would try something, fail, and face the consequences so both her and the reader know very well what is at stake when she tries again a few chapters later. I think Alfred is a compelling villain and I enjoyed how the reveals surrounding his weird stuff with the photographs were done.  I was also intrigued by Jennifer and wanted to know more about her and Alfred's relationship and how they came to be partners.  So while I did have my issues with the character work and the balance of torture to other plot, I was overall liking the plot and found the book interesting.  The ending twist is one that was unexpected and surprising but it has been done many times before and I just don't like it.  I can't give away too much but I will mention that it is mental-health related and it is a twist that I've come to learn is harmful and stereotypical and I'm just not a fan of it. I did like how we get a good amount of resolution after the climax and we follow our characters to see how they are dealing with the aftermath.  As a note, there is a sequel to this book coming later in 2021 that follows one of the characters from this book into a whole new situation (the plot arc of this book is complete and it feels like a standalone with a little bit of an open ending).

Overall, I feel this just boiled down to a 'not for me' type of book. My main gripe is the way the book gave me information early on gave me expectations that, when they weren't met, I was disappointed. I found the characters a little flat and the ending twist put me off a bit.  It isn't a bad book, by any means, but I think this author just might not be a good mesh for my reading preferences.  I might pick up the second book because it might give me some of the character development I was looking for and (hopefully) it won't have the same twist at the end.

Thanks to BookSirens and the author for an ARC in exchange for review 

Publication date: June 1, 2021

These Silent Woods - Kimi Cunningham Grant

 

 This story follows Cooper and Finch, father and daughter living in a remote cabin for the past 8 years.  It is the only life Finch knows and the two spend their days tending to their small flock of chickens, hunting, trapping, and reading the cabin's large selection of books.  No electricity, no running water, and no human contact except a neighbor named Scotland and Cooper's friend Jake who brings them supplies once a year.  This year, Jake doesn't show up on the designated day so Cooper and Finch much venture into town for supplies.   Finch is becoming increasingly interested in the world outside their secluded cabin and when she and Cooper spot a girl taking pictures in the woods, Finch latches on and can't understand why Cooper isn't interested in this new person.  This sets off a chain of events that may bring an end to their years of solitude.

TW/CW: PTSD, animal death, domestic violence

I overall enjoyed this story, but I think it is being a little mislabeled as a mystery/thriller.  I found this to be more of a general fiction book with some slight thriller elements in the last 25% of the book.  I think the description really plays up the dramatic plot points of Cooper and Finch's lives being threatened because of Jake not showing up with supplies, this mysterious stranger in the woods, and Cooper's past coming back to haunt him.  I was expecting a little more of a survival/isolation thriller with maybe some outside force tracking down to attack or kill Cooper and Finch.  In reality, this is a book mostly about a father trying to do his best for his daughter and there's some unfortunate events that happen almost as an accident that may put an end to Cooper and Finch's quiet life together. I think this was a really good story but I was disappointed that it wasn't quite the mystery/thriller I was expecting it to be.  I do also want to mention that I don't read a lot of just general fiction books so my gauge for some of the story-telling conventions for these types of stories may be a little off.

The highlight of this book was by-far the characters.  The book is from Cooper's POV, but I found all the secondary characters to be well developed and compelling.  Obviously, we mostly see Cooper with Finch, but we do see some moments with Scotland as well as flashbacks to Cooper with Jake when they served together in Afghanistan. We don't get a ton of information about the secondary characters outside of their connection/relationship/threat level to Cooper and Finch. I actually enjoyed that decision since we are so deep in Cooper's POV that he would be more focused on surviving and making sure he and Finch are safe.  Cooper was an Army Ranger and served 3 tours in Afghanistan so he does live with PTSD and we do see those struggles on-page.  I can't speak to the accuracy or authenticity of the representation, but I can say that the way Cooper deals with and struggles with his PTSD felt authentic to his character and didn't feel like simply a plot device (in the acknowledgement section, there was someone who reviewed these sections and helped to make them more accurate).   Finch is 8 years old and, as with most children in books, she comes across to me as a little mature and a little overly cutesy. It didn't bother me too much, but she really read more to me like a 12 year old than an 8 year old.  That being said, I really enjoyed her relationship with Cooper and it was refreshing to get a little glimpse of childhood wonder amongst Cooper's internal worry and dread.  Finch understands some of the dangers they face out in the woods, but she also gets excited about seeing a certain type of bird or being able to go sledding once the first snow falls. I feel like all of the secondary characters gave us different lenses to see Cooper through and his interactions and choices with each of them really helped give us a well-rounded view of him as a character. 

The pacing was my biggest issue and it felt a bit inconsistent. The first 75% of the book was pretty slow paced with us getting to really settle and see Cooper and Finch's relationship dynamic and how their lives are out in the wilderness. We do get some little pieces of the outside world slowly breaking through into their isolation and the panic that brings to Cooper.  However, I didn't find these little breakthrough moments to be necessarily building on each other to ramp up the tension.  The narrative then would shift back to Cooper and Finch's normal pretty quickly so even if Cooper was really worried about X interaction, that panic didn't seem to last long.  Then, the last 25% of the book really ramped up that danger feeling and the consequences of the previous moments sort of all came to a climax.  I found the pacing in the last 25% really fast and thus it felt really different and sort of detached from the earlier 75%.  I wish the smaller moments of danger built upon themselves better so that there was a consistent ramping up of tension and danger.  The main plot of the book only takes place over only about 2 weeks so all of these events happening so close together could very well put Cooper on edge, but I didn't get that sense of tension that I expected. Most of the book really seemed to be about Cooper and Finch's relationship and then these outside forces come to really force Cooper to face (some of) his demons and choices in life. I wish that either the first 75% spent more time building that tension and dread in Cooper or if the last 25% wasn't so drastically differently paced.  I thought both sides of the story were really compelling but they were really disconnected for me. 

The setting and background of this cabin in the Appalachian wilderness was really great. This was a very atmospheric read and I think a lot of that came from the amount of time we spend with Cooper and Finch outside.  I think there was a good balance of the realities of their living situation and the romanticized version of rustic living.  I also appreciated how focused Cooper was on making sure Finch was well cared for.  I was a little worried going into the book that it would be the situation where Cooper's mental state negatively impacted his daughter like we see sometimes in these types of stories.  Cooper isn't preparing for the end of the world and doesn't think the outside world is 'evil' or anything like we sometimes see.  Instead, this is the one place where Cooper feels he and Finch are safe from his past and he wants to be able to keep up this lifestyle for as long as possible.  The main plot of the book takes place in early December so the weather is turning more harsh and dangerous which, of course, mirrors the plot of the book and makes what may be a relatively low-stakes plot point suddenly more intense.  

Overall, I really enjoyed this story but it isn't my normal read so I think I wasn't quite the right audience for it.  This is much more of a general fiction book rather than the mystery/thriller that some people are labeling it.  This had some interesting thriller-y moments, but overall it was a story of a father trying to do right by his daughter. 

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for review

Expected publication date is November 16, 2021.

Romance Wrap-up 10/1/21 to 10/15/21

 Not Your Average Hot Guy - Gwenda Bond

 

 

This paranormal romance follows Callie and Luke.  She helps run her family's escape room business while trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life.  He's the Prince of Hell who has yet to secure any souls and he's on a strict deadline.  The two meet when an apocalyptic cult looking for a celestial weapon kidnaps Callie and summons Luke.  The two of them (along with Callie's brother Jared and her best friend Mag) team up to defeat the cult and stop the literal end of the world. This was a super fun, paranormal, rom-com read.  I flew through it in one sitting and absolutely fell in love with both Callie and Luke.  I thought their relationship was super fun and had a lot of great banter.  This book takes place over a weekend so they did fall on the insta-love side of things.  However, there is a second book scheduled to come out Spring 2022 which has them continuing to date so I look forward to seeing their relationship progress.  Side characters were well developed and I would love to read the story of Mag and Jared one day because they just seem so perfect together.  I thought this, in a lot of ways, was similar in plot points to Harley Laroux's Her Soul To Take but obviously a much fluffier, lighter, more rom-com version. 

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for review.

Publication date: October 5, 2021. 

Morning Glory Milking Farm - C.M. Nascosta

 

This monster romance novella follows Violet (a human) and Rourke (a Minotaur) and is the first in the Cambric Creek series. Violet gets a job at the titular Milking Farm but instead of milking for dairy, they're milking the male Minotaurs because their potent *ahem* deposits are used in the pharmaceutical industry. Yep, Violet is giving handies to Minotaurs all day (and the pay is great!).  All jokes aside, this was such a cute and fluffy romance and I greatly thank Twitter for constantly talking about it so I had no choice but to pick it up.  The town of Cabric Creek is home to humans and monsters alike and we get to see a few of them during this first installment of the series (Violet befriends a vampire, for instance).  Violet and Rourke's romance was a bit of a slow burn since they met basically at work in an official capacity.  They slowly build a friendship during Rourke's appointments and that friendship turns flirty and then downright dirty.  Rourke was a perfect gentleman and I really appreciated him wanting to show Violet that he was actually interested in her as a person and didn't just want her to work from home (wink wink).  I personally like my romances more on the slow-burn side of things and I really loved how we got that in a novella length story.  This did leave the ending a bit open but I'm hoping we see more of them in other books in the series. This was zero-angst, slow burn, high heat, and such a sweet romance - I can't wait to read more from Nascosta!

The Ghost - Jessica Gadziala

This is the second book in the Professionals series and follows Gunner (The Ghost) and Sloane. Sloane witnesses a murder and soon finds herself in danger as the murderer is a well known and ruthless criminal boss.  Running out of options, Sloane turns to Quinton Baird & Associates for help.  The only way to keep her safe is to make her disappear - which is Gunner's specialty.  The two embark on a cross country road trip from NYC to Nevada while working on her new identity.  But a lot of time on the road (and in snowy cabins and hotel rooms) lead to a lot of thinking and talking and the two slowly find themselves letting down their carefully constructed guards.  Only problem is, when they finally reach sunny Nevada, is that Gunner's job is over and Sloane is on her own.  I really enjoyed this book and the way Sloan and Gunner's relationship developed.  This was a bit on the shorter side (239 pages) so even though I would call this a slow burn romance, it didn't read as super slow because of the page count.  I really loved that their relationship was built mostly on talking and feeling safe enough to open up to each other before things got physical.  I think Gadziala does a great job with making her characters complex but also she seems to be able to make the romantic couples just fit together so perfectly.  I can't want to continue on in the series.

All the Feels - Olivia Dade

This is the second book in the Spoiler Alert series and follows Alex and Lauren.  Alex is an actor on the highly popular TV show Gods of the Gates but after he ends up in jail after a bar fight, the studio decides to assign him a watcher to keep him out of trouble - Lauren.  The two are complete opposites in the beginning - charming and talkative Alex vs chilly and quiet Lauren - but the more time they spend together, the more compatible they discover they are.  This is my first book by Olivia Dade (so I haven't read Spoiler Alert yet, I confess!) and I absolutely loved it.  This was pure rom-com magic and I found myself laughing out loud many times.  Alex is diagnosed with ADHD and while he does take medication, it is still a big source of struggle in his life.  Lauren is a burned-out former ER therapist who has spent so much time giving parts of herself away for others to be comfortable that it is just old habit at this point.  The two are also physically different, with Alex being a tall, handsome, sculpted TV star and Lauren being short, fat, and not conventionally attractive.  The two may be very different, but when they come together the chemistry is out of this world. I loved how their romance was a pretty slow build up considering both of them had to work through some personal baggage.  They really do become friends first and slowly warm up and open up to each other first before any further intimacy happens.  Their banter was delectable and Alex's chattiness and witty comments were perfect.  I loved Lauren's dry sense of humor and the times when she was able to sneak a joke in while Alex was talking were perfection. I really think Alex and Lauren are among the rare romance-book couples where I really feel they are soulmates and are just such a perfect fit for the other.

TW/CW: domestic abuse, weight talk/insults

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC in exchange for review.

Expected publication date is October 26, 2021

The Love Interest - Kayley Loring

 

This story follows Emmett and Fiona after they meet by chance one late night at a diner in NYC.  Emmett is the author of a best-selling action/thriller series and Fiona is getting her MFA in creative writing.  The two have an instant connection and end up spending the rest of the evening together - exploring the city and checking off some items on Fiona's NYC bucket list. As they separate with plans for later that day, Emmett gets a job offer to fill in and teach a creative writing master's course.  He accepts the job, only to find Fiona's name on his new class roster. The two try to keep their relationship professional but their connection was too strong for them to ignore.  This was a surprisingly cute story with a lot of heart and almost no angst.  I really liked how they met before they were student/teacher and how their connection was so clearly shown to the reader.  I loved the letter writing they do and how each of them use the other as inspiration for the love interest in their current writing projects. This did have some laugh out loud moments but overall, I was just in love with how sweet and caring Emmett was and just how many feelings were packed into this story.  We get snippets of the writing each of them is working on and their characters are almost secondary characters in the main story because they would talk to Emmett/Fiona.  I do wish we had gotten more from the actual secondary characters in the book (Emmett's sister and Fiona's roommates) because they were basically used only for advice on how to deal with the relationship. 

 

TW/CW: death from cancer

The Highland Fling - Meghan Quinn

This enemies to lovers story follows Bonnie and Rowan.  Bonnie and her best friend Dakota need a fresh start and some distance from the current job and relationship woes so they apply and get hired to manage a coffee shop in a small town in Scotland for 6 months while the owners go away on vacation.  They were expecting fresh air and kilts but were not expecting the grumpy mountain of muscle named Rowan, who is the son of the coffee shop owners.  Bonnie and Rowan continuously butt heads, despite the rest of the friend circle and town in general welcoming the American women to their town.  Eventually, Rowan and Bonnie give into their undeniable chemistry and find out they have more in common than they initially thought. Meghan Quinn is an author who I'm always intrigued by her premises and her books get great ratings, but I've DNF'd the 2 I've tried reading. And I'll be honest, I almost DNF'd this one too because I was getting some pretty bad secondhand embarrassment from the way Bonnie was acting in the beginning (who moves to a new country and does ZERO research???).  The only reason I picked it up in the first place was that it was basically trope candy for me and I'm glad I stuck it out. This is grumpy/sunshine perfection and once I got past the 25% mark or so, the secondhand embarrassment was pretty much non-existent.  I really loved all the characters and thought the side characters were pretty well fleshed out.  I loved how begrudgingly both Bonnie and Rowan admitted they actually liked the other and the banter between them was great.  This story reminded me a lot of Tessa Bailey's It Happened One Summer so I would recommend this one if you liked that book (or vice versa). I loved the discussions about finding your place in the world and figuring out what you want to do with your life and when a grumpy hero finally opens up and uses his words to tell the heroine exactly how he feels it is *chef's kiss* perfection.

 

TW/CW: death from cancer

Whisper Island - Carissa Ann Lynch

 

This isolation thriller follows 4 friends - Riley, Sam, Mia, and Scarlett - all recently graduated from art school.  They decide to take the summer and vacation together to relax, make art, and figure out what to do with the rest of their lives.  Whisper Island - a private island off the Alaskan coast - seems like the perfect getaway.  Until people start dying. Between the four girls, Sam's brother, and his girlfriend - that makes six people on the island ... that they know of.  Each person has secrets and there's a chance that any of those secrets could have followed them to the island.  Or maybe, the killer is closer than they might think.

TW/CW: drug abuse, hazing

The real star of this book for me was the isolation sub-genre and how well Lynch implemented it. I love a good isolation thriller because of the instant tension, suspicion, and questions it poses.  Whisper Island is the last island in a archipelago, about 10 miles off the coast of Alaska.  The characters are told the whole island is owned by one family but it has been abandoned and used as a vacation rental for years.  The girls are brought over to the island by a hired boat but since they plan on staying for 3 months, they plan on using the boat provided to them on the island for trips back to town.  Because of this set up, all it takes is for a few things to go wrong and the group is completely cut off in a very believable way.  From that point, the tension really ramps up and Lynch does a great job at showing us the characters problem solving, only to be thwarted by the killer.  They are basically stuck on the island with only what they initially brought with them and the characters are doing their best to not only survive, but to figure out who is killing them off and why. 

The characters, I'll admit, took me a while to warm up to.  When I initially read the synopsis on NetGalley, I thought the friendship dynamic was going to be much different.  I think in most of these "a group of friends goes on vacation" type of isolation thrillers, the friend group is usually a little older and maybe has fallen out of touch a bit (for example, The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley) and thus part of the point of the trip is to reconnect and possibly reconcile.  In this case, some of the girls had been friends for a while, but some were newer to the group so the dynamic was a little weird for me.  I didn't feel like these people were close enough to vacation on an island together for 3 months.  The story does give us a bit of background and shows us how the 4 friends all came to meet in college, but it wasn't enough of a set up for me to believe the initial premise of the book. As we got to see the group work together to survive their situation, I then got to see more of how the friendship group dynamic worked and I became more invested in the characters.  I still didn't entirely believe they liked each other enough to go on vacation together, but I could at least understand how the group dynamics would have them ending up on the island.  I wish we had gotten either more set up in the beginning or more flashbacks during the plot for further character/group dynamic exploration and explanation.  I don't really feel like there was much character development going on but maybe if I had seen more of the 'before' versions of the characters then I could see how the events on the island were changing them.

I really loved the POV choices in this book.  Initially, we only get the POV of the original 4 friends, but once we're on the island we get Sam's brother and his girlfriend's POVs as well. I recently read One by One by Ruth Ware and we only got 2 POVs in that book and I made a point in my review that the POV choice by Ware made me discount any of the other characters as viable suspects and that if we had more POVs in that book, the identity of the killer would have been more of a surprise for me.  In Whisper Island, we do get the POV of all the characters and it does make for a much more compelling read. All of the characters have their own secrets that may or may not be connected to the events happening on the island.  It was a little frustrating in the beginning to have a lot of the chapters have some veiled reference to that secret where a character would say something like "good thing we're having this vacation, I needed to get away from home for my own safety". This, obviously, helped the mysterious aspect of the book because we didn't know which character's secret was the key to figuring out the truth but it was a little too heavy-handed for my personal liking.

This was pretty much a straight up thriller. There was a mystery aspect, but none of the characters really seemed concerned with figuring out the who or why - they just wanted to survive long enough to get off the island.  Once the characters got to the island and the bodies started dropping, I had a really fun time reading this.  However, it took a bit too long to get there for my liking.  They got to the island at about the 20% mark and first body drop was closer to the halfway point. I really like my isolation thrillers to get to the isolation part faster and for those bodies to start dropping pretty quickly (but that is just a personal preference).  In most isolation thrillers I've read, there's always a moment when they start to suspect that the killer is one of the people inside the group and a lot of the tension and suspense in those stories comes from that angle.  In this case, any time a suspicion was presented that one of the characters might be responsible, it was almost immediately dismissed.  But the dismissals, I felt, were very surface level and along the lines of "I would never do that, we're all friends here" and I thought these would be perfect times for the friendship group to show the cracks under the surface but nothing ever came out like that.  I needed more drama from these early-20-somethings!  I will admit the reveal of who the killer is really got me good.  However, the way the ending played out was extremely unsatisfying for me.  After some reflection time, I think my main issue with the ending stems from the fact that we didn't get a really good view of this group before the events on the island so, as I said above, I couldn't get a good view of how the characters changed. I didn't have any plot-level issues with the ending and, in a lot of ways, I think it made a lot of sense.  I think the ending would have been much more impactful from a character-level perspective if we had gotten to know the characters better and got to see just how much impact the events on the island had on their lives going forward.

Overall, this was a fun read, but there were a number of issues I had that, overall, impacted my enjoyment of the book.  I think the isolation elements and POV choices were excellent.  However, the character development and group dynamic was really lacking for me and I think if that was dialed in a little better, this could have been a really fantastic read.

Thanks to NetGalley and One More Chapter for the ARC in exchange for review

The Kindle edition was published February 2, 2021 but paperback edition has an expected publication date of November 16, 2021.

Final Girls - Riley Sager

 

This thriller follows Quincy Carpenter 10 years after she survived a horror-movie style massacre at a vacation cabin. Now, she's managed to recover from that night and lives in NYC with her defense lawyer fiance, Jeff.  She spends her days baking and updating her successful baking blog and trying to put that part of her life behind her.  Until one day when she runs into a woman named Sam who tells her that Lisa has been murdered.  Sam, Lisa, and Quincy were each the survivor of their own personal horror movies and the press lumped them together and called them "The Final Girls".  Eventually, each woman went out on their own but with Lisa dead and Sam at her doorstep, Quincy might finally be forced to try and remember exactly what happened at the cabin in the woods all those years ago.

So, full disclosure, I DNF'd this at about the 20% mark in August of 2020.  And I'll be honest, I wish I'd never picked it back up.  The only reason I did continue reading this now is because of the Final Girl reading project I decided to do and while this isn't the first book about the final girl trope ever written, I do think it was the most widely known for a few years and thus it seemed important to include in the project. The reasons I DNF'd last year were basically the writing - the characters were not well developed and the writing style was really heavy with the foreshadowing.  The scene that made me decide to actually DNF?  Quincy, Sam, and Jeff were all having dinner together and someone spills their glass of red wine and the heavy-handedness of the prose where obviously Sager wanted to use the red wine spreading on the table cloth as a symbol of blood yadda-yadda-yadda.  Upon finishing the book, I can now confidently say this wasn't for me, and the issues I had with the first 20% continued through the rest of the story. 

The pacing of this book was the best part about it (and it still wasn't that good).  The story starts off pretty slow with Quincy baking a bunch of stuff and trying to figure out the best way to decorate/photograph them for her blog. Quincy has no memories of what happened to her and her friends during the massacre but she does seem to have some underlying panic or anxiety generally in her life (enough so that she has a prescription for Xanax). As the book progresses, we see the events of that night in the cabin unfold so we know that, by the end, at least the reader will know what happened.  It isn't immediately obvious if Quincy will remember the events or not since she seems very content on not remembering and doesn't like it when Sam tries to push her to remember. These flashbacks happen more frequently as the story progresses so they work to sort of artificially increase the pacing and tension in the story.  For me, the main plot of the book was really frustrating because it was just Quincy sort of falling apart because Sam came into her life and injected a bunch of chaos that she didn't need.  Sure, that chaos does eventually lead to Quincy's memories starting to break through her mental block but not nearly enough to support the plot on their own.  We needed the flashbacks to propel the reader forward in the story as a sort of promise that we will find out what happened that night in the woods, eventually.

The characters in this book were infuriating in the worst ways.  I've heard multiple people express their opinion that Riley Sager doesn't write women characters well and I haven't read enough of his works to make a broad generalization like that, I can say that the women in this book did not read like real people.  Now, obviously, this is a work of fiction and are there real-life women who may act exactly like the characters in this book?  Sure.  Are they the majority?  Absolutely not. I can't go into exact details because of spoilers, but suffice to say that some of the situations Sam and Quincy put themselves in and the way they conduct themselves while out in public are so unrealistic to me that I couldn't think about it too much or else I'd get mad and I just had to accept that they needed to do that because of *plot reasons*.  And I think this problem was exacerbated by the fact that the choices they make don't even feel like choices their characters would make.  For example, if a character in a book went base jumping off the Grand Canyon, that would be an activity that most people would not choose to do and thus some readers might label it as 'unrealistic' .  However, if the character is written as an adrenaline junkie or as being super reckless, then it would make sense for that character to do that activity even if most 'normal' people wouldn't.  I didn't get any such characterization details that would really explain why Sam and/or Quincy would act this way.  I also felt Quincy had a weird lack of agency throughout the book that I didn't love.  She always seemed to more or less go along with what Sam, Jeff, or Coop (the police officer that found her after the massacre) wanted for her.  She would occasionally put up a little bit of a fuss, but I never got a good sense of what Quincy actually wanted (and maybe that's on purpose because she doesn't know what she wants either, but if that's the case then that should be made more clear in her characterization).  The only character I actually liked was Jeff and he deserved way better than what he got in this book.

Thrillers, to me, should be thrilling and have some twists and reveals in the narrative.  This book did have some surprise reveals, but I was not thrilled in the least and the few reveals we did get really didn't land for me. So much of this plot felt so incidental and almost accidental that it is a miracle Quincy actually remembered anything.  The two main reveals we get in the book both came out of nowhere and they were the type of reveals that should have had breadcrumbs that the reader could have picked up on.  There should have been cracks in the plot where we could have seen flashes of the truth coming through, even if Quincy didn't specifically pick up on them. After I DNF'd the first time, I did look up spoilers on what happens at the end so I did know the big reveal and I was specifically looking for the breadcrumbs while I was reading - I didn't pick up on any.  Then, in the actual climax of the book where we get the big reveal and I was so ready for some sort of big final slasher-movie type chase scene or something we instead get a *womp-womp* ending where it is pretty much solved immediately.  It didn't feel like the climax was more than like 3 pages and not nearly long enough for the conclusion to be at all satisfying. So to all the people who say in their reviews that the writing and characterization was so-so but the ending was amazing and makes it worth the read - I'm glad it worked for you, but I disagree.

Finally, I want to talk about the final girl trope and how it was used in this book (since that was the whole reason I made myself read this again).  In short, I thought the use of the final girl trope felt like an easy out and made for a gimmick-y book pitch that people would be interested in.  On the one hand, the whole point of getting a book deal is to sell books and this is the first book published under the "Riley Sager" pen-name so it makes sense that they wanted to play up that aspect of the book.  However, in my reading experience the final girl aspect and the fallout from those events weren't used nearly as much as I think they should have been.  We get a little summary of how/why these three women are connected but we're told they haven't really had much contact over the past few years and don't have any ties to each other except the fact that they're all final girls.  Going back to the characterization issues, I don't believe that Quincy would readily invite Sam into her home when Quincy has done just about everything she can to forget about being a final girl. I needed more of a link between the three women and Sager did not establish the final girl connection nearly enough for me to be on board with it as a plot device.  Also, Quincy seems to have little to no lasting effects or PTSD-type reactions to anything.  I would think that even if she can't remember the specifics that maybe she'd have some quirks that effect her life now.  For example, maybe if she almost drowned in a lake then she would never want to take a bath and she wouldn't know the exact connection but she'd know that she hates baths and refuses to take one.

In conclusion, some DNFs should stay DNFs, even if you're doing a reading project.

The Final Girl Support Group - Grady Hendrix

 

This horror/thriller follows Lynnette Tarkington 22 years after she survived a massacre at her family home.  She has spent the last two decades of her life protecting herself and preparing for the possibility of another attack.  Over the past 10 years, she's been involved in a support group where all the other members were the 'final girl' of their own horrific massacre.  The group is close to disbanding as many of the members have put the pieces of their lives back together and have moved forward.  However, Lynnette's worst fears are realized after one member of the group is found dead and other members are put in danger.  It seems like someone has found out about the support group and is dead set on taking out these last surviving women. 

This is an absolutely phenomenal ride of a book.  It is pure summer slasher blockbuster in book format and if the premise is at all interesting, I highly recommend you pick it up.  I did pick up on a lot of structural similarities between this book and Hendrix's previous book (The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires).  Similarities include: the group of women all connected by one aspect of their lives but very different in the others, the main character is convinced she is right but the other characters think she's overreacting, and the group of women come together at the end to face off against the main antagonist who has highly underestimated them.  I think this is a really great horror-lite book that really feels like it embraces the slasher genre and takes the final girl trope further than other similar books I've read. 

The characters in this story were my favorite part.  I thought they were all incredibly well developed and interesting while being so different from one another.  There are six members of the support group and each had their own very different characterization and response to their different final-girl situations.  I really loved the choice to have them be older women because that gave us the chance to see how some of the maybe more immediate outcomes of being a final girl would have long term consequences.  For example, books and movie deals may seem like a good idea at the beginning, but having to re-live your trauma constantly by going on book tours or to movie releases might not be so satisfying. And, of course, just because a group of people have one thing in common does not mean they get along automatically.  There's a good amount of disagreement in the group in regards to how things were handled/should be handled for the best outcome individually and as a group.  These differences then act as stress points for the rest of the plot as some of the unresolved tension between members comes to the surface.  There are so many layers to each character that they feel very developed and well fleshed out even though we are only in Lynnette's POV through the whole story.

There's a multimedia aspect to this book that I really liked where in between some of the chapters, there would be examples of movie posters or news articles about the different women.  It felt very similar to a documentary/true crime style of book instead of fiction.  We get the basic information in the narrative, but these extra bits did add extra depth to the backstory of these different women.  It is one thing to know that one woman had a multi-movie franchise basically made of the massacre she survived and it is a whole other level to see the movie release announcement in the book.  As a downside, these little breaks did break my immersion in the story a bit and thus it felt like they slowed the pacing down.  This was a very fast paced book and normally I would like having a bit of a break but I was so entertained by the plot that I just wanted to stay in that world and keep reading.  Another thing that annoyed me a bit was how many of the events the women in the book survived are direct nods to classic slasher films.  Now, obviously, this could just be Hendrix giving a nod to the slashers that inspired him but I just wish the events were more unique because it felt a little less like an homage and more like not very well hidden Easter-eggs for slasher fans. Maybe it was just me, but I would be reading through the summary of an event and I'd say to myself "oh, that's just Friday the 13th". 

The horror and thriller elements were really well woven together in this narrative in a way that I think would attract readers of both genres.  I really feel that Hendrix, especially with the success of his previous book, is a pretty commercial author so maybe this book would be overlooked or discounted by 'real' horror fans.  And while I'm not a super-fan of the horror genre, I think this book had a lot going for it on that front.  Hendrix is fantastic at capturing Lynnette's panic in the high-tension situations she finds herself in. The event that she lived through initially has obviously shaped her entire life and she'll see some more horrible things by the end of this book.  It goes full slasher by the end, but there's a really great psychological horror build up before where we aren't sure if Lynnette is seeing and understanding things correctly. Also, the events that the women survived, even if they're just summarized, are really horrific so I think it has a lot to offer horror readers who like those sort of psychological/slasher horror tropes.  From the thriller side of things, this book is pretty much pure thriller.  There is a bit of a mystery element included where Lynnette is trying to figure out who is killing off members of the support group.  However, her following clues and piecing an investigation together is done while she's dodging bullets and stealing cars.  There are some fantastic thriller twists and reveals in this book that gave me such a rush when I read them I cannot recommend this book enough.

Finally, I just need to talk about the writing style and how fantastic it is.  I've seen from some reviews that they felt the narrative style and plot points were a bit over-the-top and unrealistic.  And while I can agree with them on that point, I don't view that as a negative.  Hendrix's writing, for me, is so vivid and cinematic it is like I'm watching a movie in my head.  I don't usually visualize very clearly when I read but there's something about the things Hendrix chooses to focus on or point out that really work with my brain.  Yeah, this is over-the-top in the way every summer action movie is over-the-top and I wouldn't necessarily point to this as an accurate representation of support groups after traumatic events.  But I would absolutely recommend it as a really fun and fast paced read especially for readers looking for horror/thriller elements but aren't looking for anything too serious.

Overall, this was a fantastic read.  Summer slasher and blockbuster action movie all rolled into one. The plot and writing style are a little over-the-top and aren't going to be for everyone, but I absolutely loved this book and Hendrix is quickly becoming an auto-read author for me.