Final Girls by Riley Sager
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Scare Factor: 💀💀
Plot: 📕📕📕
Format: 🎧
POV: Third Person


🕊️ ➞ Tropes:

👩🏻 Final Girl Vibes👩🏻
👻No One’s Safe👻
👤Whodunit👤
🔪🩸Slasher🩸🔪

✴✴✴ TW: Mentions of suicide and self-harm; Depictions of murder ✴✴✴


🕊️ ➞ Progress Notes & Initial Thoughts:

I am so thankful I listened to most of this book instead of physically reading it. It’s so slow. I enjoyed the flashbacks but the snippets were too short.



Also, I wouldn’t say I liked a single character in this book. No one had any redeeming qualities and they were all horrible people.



The idea around Final Girls is what life is like after surviving a massacre/murder spree. So, the storyline takes place a decade after the traumatic event that scarred our heroine and left all her friends dead. Having survived the attack at Pine Cottage, Quincy unwillingly became the third “Final Girl” in media headlines. Her predecessors were Lisa Milner and Samantha Boyd, and though she never met them, she shared a kindred with them. When Lisa turned up dead and Sam showed up on Quincy’s doorstep out of nowhere, things began coming to light that made Quincy question what happened to her friends that terrible night. The problem was that Quincy had no idea who in her life she could trust.




🕊️ ➞ Character Thoughts:

🐦‍⬛ ↳ Quincy Carpenter:

Quincy annoyed me. She was semi-likable in the beginning but turned out to be just as terrible as the rest. With the plot taking place ten years after the fact, putting Quincy in her early to mid-30s, she coped by baking and waiting for her public defense attorney of a boyfriend to propose. Pretending nothing happened. The only connection she had with the past was her relationship with Coop, the cop who saved her. When Sam showed up, things got dark very quickly. While I understood the sentiment that Sam was just trying to get Quincy to feel something, she took it WAY too far. Quincy was easily influenced and had no real backbone. Her denial gave Stepford Wives vibes and made me question her sanity. I understand PTSD follows such an event, the problem was Quincy surrounded herself with terrible people who took advantage of her skittish state. Quincy is 100% responsible for her actions and even for allowing those around her to enable manic behavior, although it’d be ignorant to deny their influence.

With that being said, the scene that turned me completely against Quincy was when she and Sam deliberately went into Central Park at night to lure a homeless person into stealing a decoy bag from them so Quincy could let her anger out on him. All he did was mumble an insult and Quincy lost it. She incited violence first. After she shoved him, he flailed and his hand grazed her face. Quincy took that as an invitation to legitimately beat this poor man into a coma. He even pleaded and begged for her to stop. Sam eventually pulled Quincy off him before she could kill him.

I was driving home from work and listening to this scene like:







They fled the scene and Sam took care of all the evidence. Except the decoy bag that they left at the scene. Quincy dealt with her guilt and anxiety by f@#king baking. Like she didn’t just almost kill another human being, so when a detective called her into the precinct, you’d think…



WRONG. They devised a story and an alibi on the way to the station. UGH, I hate them.









Quincy spent the majority of the book deciding whether or not she believed Sam as well as committing/covering up a felony. As Sam’s lies began to unravel, Quincy started questioning who she let live with her. When Quincy returned home from a trip to Lisa’s hometown, she found Sam and Coop about to do the deed in her guest room. Naturally, she was enraged. She kicked Coop out and began scolding Sam for crossing that boundary. Coop messaged her later on to ask to meet up so he could explain. Wanna guess what she did, guys?



She then herself HAS S3X WITH HIM.



Let’s just take a second to remember her boyfriend, Jeff. Poor guy.

🕊️ ➞ The Events at Pine Cottage:



Ten years ago during Quincy’s college years, her roommate, Janelle Bennett, invited her on a weekend getaway to celebrate Janelle’s birthday. The getaway was a rental cabin in the woods paid for by Janelle’s parents. Quincy and Janelle were joined on this getaway by Craig Anderson, Betz, Rodney Spelling, and Amy. After all six of them arrived at the cabin and got settled, the group went exploring in the woods. When they returned, a young man was peering into the windows of their cabin. Craig called out to get the man’s attention and the man tried to play it off as if his car had broken down up the road. However, when Janelle realized that this stranger was attractive, she invited him in. This stranger introduced himself as Joe Hannen. Janelle proceeded to attempt to get Quincy and Craig together while she mercilessly flirted with Joe. However, Joe showed interest in Quincy.

After dinner, the group spread out amongst the house, drinking and smoking w33d. Craig and Quincy eventually made their way upstairs where they engaged in pushy foreplay. When Quincy wanted to slow things down, Craig showed his colors and dipped.



After a sob fest, Quincy went looking for Janelle and found her r!ding Craig on top of a boulder in the woods. Feeling betrayed, Quincy ran back to the cabin. She decided to try to head to sleep but when she realized Joe occupied her room, she ended up losing her virginity to him after he comforted her a bit.



Hey, I don’t make the rules…

Post coitus, Quincy found herself angry again and stormed into the woods with a knife to go looking for Janelle and Craig. She only made it a little way down the trail before Joe caught up to her and convinced her to return to the cabin. She ran past him, leaving him alone in the woods.

Eventually, Janelle’s screams from the woods got everyone’s attention back at the cabin. Craig came out from the path and begged Quincy to run. By the time Janelle let out her fourth scream, Amy and Rodney had joined Quincy out on the back deck. Janelle came limping toward the deck with stab wounds to the chest and stomach and clutched at her slit throat. She died in Quincy’s lap. The killer came from the bushes and stabbed Quincy twice. She fell beside Janelle’s lifeless body as the killer made his way into the cabin where he killed Amy.



Rodney and Betz went back for Quincy and took her back inside the cabin. Craig went to get the car and ended up crashing the car. After the crash, the killer dragged Craig out of the car and stabbed him six times. Back inside the cabin, Quincy was going in and out of consciousness. During which Betz was killed. Quincy came to when Rodney had locked himself and her in a room. There Quincy sustained a knife wound to the gut before collapsing. Rodney was stabbed twice in the abdomen, once in the arm, and once in the heart. He died trying to protect Quincy.

By the grace of God, Quincy came to and found Joe downstairs in the great room with Amy’s body and the knife. He tried to explain himself and she just ran for the woods. It was there that she ran into Coop and he shot Joe dead.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Jefferson:

I couldn’t stand this character. I can best convey my distaste by providing you with a series of gifs. Enjoy…













Jeff was one of the worst characters in the entire book. Within the first few chapters, I was rooting for him to die. He was a public defense attorney amid a controversial court case defending a cop killer that I’m hoping just left him on edge because he sucked. I was not too fond of the way he spoke to our heroine and how he pushed his beliefs on her about how ✨ she ✨ should be coping with ✨ her ✨ trauma.



He offered no real support, overstepped his bounds regularly, and picked fights with people for no reason other than to argue. He also was on business trips for most of the story. Provided nothing except a character to hate.





🐦‍⬛ ↳ Samantha Boyd:

Sam was a hot mess.



Sam was described as being in her forties with a grunge fashion sense. Having spent the last eight years off the grid, she popped back up shortly after the death of Lisa Milner. Sam began influencing Quincy to do manic and drastic things under the guise of letting her feelings out and getting her to remember. Which I’m all for, but go to a rage room! Don’t let your friend beat some poor soul within an inch of their life because you want everyone to be as angry as you are.



Things started coming to light as the story progressed. After being arrested, we learned that Sam changed her name to Tina Stone after disappearing… sus, but okay.



Her reasoning seemed explanation enough, she got tired of the “fame” that came with her birth name. I get that, I’d be pretty tired of people either trying to finish the job or going full-on crazed fan on me. That sounds like actual hell. But still… an interesting fact to just leave out…



Quincy also caught Sam about to sleep with Coop in her guest room. Boundaries weren’t in Sam’s vocabulary.

We learn that “Sam” really was just Tina Stone. Samantha Boyd never changed her name, Tina Stone only said that to get close to Quincy. Tina was a victim of SA from her stepfather who killed him after years of abuse. She was sentenced to Blackthorn Psychiatric Center at the same time Joe Hannen was there serving time. They were friends. Tina took on the persona of Sam after being mistaken for her at work. She figured it was the best way to get answers about what happened at Pine Cottage in hopes of clearing Joe’s name.

When Quincy began unfolding Tina’s lies, her next natural move was to drug Quincy and drag her back to Pine Cottage to make her remember.



As Quincy began to remember, she declared that Joe was innocent. She couldn’t remember who the killer was though. Tina was shot by Coop upon his entrance after Quincy was able to send him an SOS text earlier on.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Joe Hannen:

Joe was described as the shy, mysterious, and nerdy type. More cute than smoldering but still hot. He was also an escaped patient from Blackthorn. He was committed after stabbing his bully in the side with a steak knife. He escaped into the woods and came upon the cabin. After convincing Quincy to drop the knife and head back to the cabin, he continued on his way to head back to his home. He claimed to Quincy that he returned to the cabin after hearing the screams. When he began chasing after Quincy with the knife, he became the perfect fall guy.


🐦‍⬛ ↳ Frank “Coop” Cooper:

Coop was the cop who found Quincy running through the woods in a blood-soaked dress. He was also the cop who killed Joe. He was introduced as very stoic and standoffish while also caring towards Quincy. She described him to be in his 40s, making him about 10 to 15 years older than Quincy. Coop visited Quincy in the book initially to break the news to her about Lisa’s death and the circumstances around it. The initial report had ruled it a suicide pending autopsy. Lisa’s wrists were slashed. This factor was a shock to everyone who knew Lisa, which was why Coop felt the need to drive hours to see Quincy and break the news… 👀👀

Coop was the perfect villain. He truly had me going. Distracted us with the obvious but cold lovestruck jealousy he displayed regarding Quincy and her boyfriend. But he was a cop, right? A cop could never do such a thing…



It hurts how accurate it is that there are psychopaths and sociopaths in law enforcement.

Anyways, Coop was at Pine Cottage hunting those woods for Joe. To bring him in or kill him, he never said. He stated that he came upon Quincy when she stalked toward the woods with the knife. He claimed he was struck by the beauty in her anger.



After she left, Coop followed the direction she was headed and saw Janelle and Craig going at it. This disgusted him and reminded him of when he lost his virginity to the “town slnt” and how his self-shame turned into hatred for the girl. Said only his fear of getting caught stopped him from k!lling her.



He didn’t go through with killing Quincy because hE sAw SoMeThInG iN hEr. BIG ICK. Then he went on to express pride in creating his very own “Final Girl.” The misogyny and toxic masculinity was strong with this one. I threw up in my mouth. “I hAtE wOmAn. My MoThEr DiDnT lOvE mE” most generic motive for every woman-hating male killer. I wish it had more depth. Most substance than this crap.



Coop went on to confess that he sought out the other Final Girls shortly after the events at Pine Cottage. Claimed he wanted to meet them and compare them to Quincy. Early on after Pine Cottage, he met and seduced Lisa. Then he moved on to Samantha, the real one. He said he found her weak, chubby, and way too eager to get into his pants. He killed her for not being up to par with “Quincy’s strength.” Explains why he was suspicious when “Sam” showed back up, eight years later.

Coop copped to killing Lisa out of necessity since she was getting too close to the truth. He continued to profess his undying love for Quincy and tried to convince her to run away. She played along, just long enough to stab Coop and get away.


🕊️ ➞ Closing Thoughts:

The first two-thirds of this book was so slow. I thought this would be more of a slasher but I was wrong. The story behind Pine Cottage didn’t pick up until the last 100 pages. Drove me nuts. The plot ended with Tina doing fifteen months in jail after confessing to Quincy’s assault as well as a few fraud charges. Quincy and Jeff broke up after she confessed to sleeping with Coop, and began to move on. When news hits of a new Final Girl, Quincy flies to her side (a random stranger) and offers to teach her how to be a Final Girl.

I mean, I guess all the loops are closed but I was so unsatisfied by this ending. Sager is an articulate and well-versed writer, this story just pissed me off. I needed more action, more suspense, and SOMETHING to keep me on my toes. All I found myself doing as I listened to this and cleaned was cursing Jeff and shaking my head at Quincy. I wish I didn’t also spend my money on a print copy.

I give it two stars because I said Sager is a good writer in the structural sense. Just not fond of this story and how it ended.



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