The idea of watching people killed for fun sounds like something we may expect from Roman Colosseums but many a cinema trip for many years sees hundreds of people lapping up the death of the innocent in the form of the slasher films. The inventive deaths, the compelling villain and that mix of terror and desire to witness these events is addictive - I’ve seen a few over the years. One element that evolved out of the genre is the idea of the final girl – the one who survives. As many variations on a theme evolved as with any sub-genre rules about this character became established and criticism explores what this unusual role means to us. As with all stories there are all sorts of messages about being human and a woman in a dangerous world can come across. In Grady Hendrix’s interesting horror novel The Final Girl’s Support Group this character gets a further re-appraisal.

Lynette is one of the most infamous group of survivors in the world. The Final Girls the survivors of various nations and bloody crimes for whom their tormentors in some way never gave up. These events inspired many a successful long-running film franchise. But the girls just faded away…except for the girls themselves who lived their traumatic afterlives; coping with huge physical and mental scars they were isolated and alone. But one group have led to a monthly therapy group which Lynette has regularly attended under the kindly gaze of Doctor Carol. But the group rarely bonds; often suspects one another of sabotaging each other and things are looking like they’ve ran out of road. Then the first ever final girl is killed and soon after many others are under attack. Lynnete is on the run, but someone knows this group very very well and clearly a new deadly game has begun.

This is a really interesting story exploring this area of horror that can be both an expression of feminist rebellion and also a genre that happily treats violence and the deaths of women as entertainment. Hendrix although doesn’t use real movie franchises uses one you can guess pretty easily and links parallels to how many slasher films take some inspiration from true crime. Interestingly Hendrix empowers the women by courts awarding them all the production rights and yet money does not make the women happy. Lynette is very much agoraphobic and has no life beyond planning escape roots. Others have drug addictions, alcoholism and many more daily challenges.

With the violent death of one of the group, we get very much a chase story and Lynnete is our main character telling us her story in real time. Rather than a pure slasher film this is in more ways a thriller with aspects of horror as Lynette finds herself on the run and under suspicion. One challenge is that each woman stands alone here, and Lynette is many ways has not helped with her actions to gain trust. We also start to see the secrets each woman has held back from the therapy group finally revealed. Lots of chases, shootings and betrayals await and its very well paved with revelations slowly unveiled that make us start to understand Lynette and rot for her to get through this new horror.

At the same time my one observation is that I didn’t think Hendrix did anything particularly new in their analysis of the dilemma of the Final Girl. It can be both a badge of honour and something troubling about how we use women for entertainment. Its delivered well and does highlight the contradictions but while interesting to see what happens next to them it ultimately still has the same beats as the slasher films it links to. Perhaps a little more focus on the therapy aspects themselves would have been useful here but that felt more a set-up than an actual new element.

The Final Girls Support Group is very enjoyable horror. It makes its case and while none of it may be too surprising to you it still has a compelling main characters and storyline that at the very least will remind us of this role’s unusual history. But part of me wonders if we are now at a time this road bar reheated remakes may finally be itself finally going back to the grave it came from. An interesting read to look out for.

I love a slasher film and The Final Girl Support Group is just like one in book form. It's really cleverly structured and tips its hat at several classic horror franchises along the way. It is full of creepy twists and turns and builds to a brilliant ending. I will definitely read more from Grady Hendrix.

Not my favourite Hendrix, a slightly tedious thriller I was quite glad to finish, but still enjoyable enough!

Thanks to the publisher for an eArc via NetGalley.

Really enjoyed this one. Not my favourite of Hendrix’s though as I didn’t feel there was much scare factor as usual.
It was an interesting look at the final girl trope in horrors though, and I did enjoy the read quite a lot, although wasn’t as scared as I expected to be.

Unfortunately this is the worst book I've read all year. I haven't read any other books by Grady Hendrix but they've always been on my radar due to the mass amount of praise they receive online. I wonder if The Final Girl Support Groupis just a duff, but I can't see how the author of this book can be the same author that receives all that praise.

Truly over the top and ridiculous in a terrible way. The premise sounded great and I would like to read this book written by someone else. The motivations of the villain made zero sense and the rest of the characters were a mess.

Argh i'm conflicted about this one because I know in my heart that this was a good and interesting story, but it just didn't hit me in the same way that Hendrix's other books did!

I liked all the references to old horror films, and enjoyed the little hints at familiar stories, and the addition of the pieces of "historical" evidence were really interesting, but I just didn't like these characters.

This was such an exhilarating and intriguing read, I loved it from start to finish and thought the twists and turns were amazing!

This was (I'm surprised to say!) my first Grady Hendrix book. I knew of his work, of course, but just hadn't got around to actually picking one up.

I finished this book in about three days. It would've been sooner if I had no actual life tasks to do.

This tale follows several final girls - each a rather sweet nod to certain equivalents in famous slasher movies - as they try to live their lives Afterwards. Once the movie has ended. A movie that was a real, lived event that they survived.

Each is messed up, in her own way, and each has a different coping mechanism. I was already fascinated at this point, and fully engaged with the group.

Then they start to die. Someone is killing the Final Girls. So who will be the Final Final Girl?

Grady's writing is absolutely stellar, as he creates engaging (if not necessarily likeable) characters. He slips easily past any lazy stereotyping, and asks what WOULD it be like to be Laurie Strode or Nancy Thompson?

I'm not giving any more away. Suffice to say, this is an excellent read, and I'm already looking up more of Grady Hendrix's work. Excited to see what will come next from his delightfully twisted imagination!

A strong recommend. Go buy it.6

I ended up listening to the audiobook for this. Which I think definitely increased enjoyment of the book. I found myself just getting lost in the book and not wanting to put it down.

I just wanted to know who was behind it all and why. I kept trying to figure it out but Hendrix has a way of making me question everyone. Well everyone except one of the people involved.

This was full of action. Non stop. Twists and turns. Keeping my attention throughout.
I could look passed some of the unrealistic moments as I was enjoying the book overall.

After enjoying Grady Hendrix’s Horrorstör, I was curious about other books by the author. Horrorstör was an interesting read, albeit one that was much quicker than I would have liked, and it left me curious about the author’s other work. As I’d heard so much about The Final Girl Support Group, I decided to give it a try.

At first, this story had me curious. It felt like it was trying too hard to be kind of story that would be turned into a movie, but it had me curious about how things would progress. Unfortunately, the more I read, the less invested I became. It was repetitive and the characters had me annoyed, plus there were so many elements that required too much suspension of belief considering the way we were supposed to believe this was a possibility. It all felt a bit too much for me, and it lessened my enjoyment of this one.

All in all, this was one of those cases where I think I wasn’t quite the right reader. If you want to read something that seems made for transformation into a movie, then I’m sure you’ll love this. For me, it didn’t quite work.

I received an eARC in exchange for an honest review

Lynette lives each day following a strict set of self imposed rules she’s put in place to keep herself alive. After surviving a brutal attack as a teenager, she became a ‘final girl’ - a group of lone survivors of mass, deadly attacks. But when the other members of her Final Girls support group start getting picked off, she’s in trouble all over again

I enjoyed the references in this book to slasher films and the final girl trope. I liked how it looked at that genre of horror films and how it played off them. However, for most of this book I felt it was too slow and not enough was happening. I lost track of the details of the other characters and sometimes the other final girls all merged into one. My biggest gripe was the writing style, and how Lynette and the other women were written and portrayed. You know when you can tell women are written by men? Yeah. Just some of the ways they spoke and acted felt contrived and not very real. There was also a fair bit of telling, not showing in this book.

However, by the end of the novel is picked up a bit and I quite enjoyed it towards the end.

My Review - ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

Excellent thriller/horror!
The twists were well played out, it was dark and gory full of surprise revelations and tension a plenty. Loved the premise and the use of mixed media in the book. It's the kind of book I found myself squeezing in reading pages here and there (eg while making a cuppa or waiting for the kids to get ready before school) as it's SO enjoyable and unputdownable!!!

All in all I really enjoyed it as a teen slasher movie fan - albeit behind my fingers sometimes!

TFGSG is bread and butter Hendrix. It's fast-paced and it's thrilling. I loved the way it was written because I think Grady Hendrix has such a great writing style in the sense that it's always exciting and always punchy.

The storyline and concept, to me, was really interesting as I'm not into horror or slasher movies. I also didn't know that the concept of a "final girl" was a well-known thing until reading this.
BUT despite not giving TFGSG the full five star shebang I didn't feel as though I was walking into something I wouldn't fully understand but I do think part of the context or inspiration behind TFGSG was lost on me.

There's a huge slasher movie presence in the story, but knowledge behind it isn't a needs must for Hendrix fans or casual Horror fans. I would hate for that to put anyone off because you do get a jist of it. It may even prompt you to learn more once you finish it.

Ultimately, TFGSG was a great read. Was it my favourite Hendrix so far? No. Would I recommend it? Yes!

Great first Grady Hendrix book that I’ve read. I enjoyed the concept, and the twists and turns! I also enjoyed the concept of hearing the final girl slasher stories

It took be a while to review The Final Girl Support Group because I couldn’t make up my mind exactly how I feel about it. On the one hand, I liked the the final girls were strong women. I also thought that the story was unique and interesting, and who wouldn’t enjoy a homage to the best slasher films of the day.

On the other hand, the tone of the book changed too often for me to really get a grasp of it. At some points it is a thriller, at others a dark comedy, and at one stage it felt like a satire. While these changes didn’t make it a bad book, it keep it at a three-star read for me.

The book is a thrill ride from start to finish and is the perfect read for slasher film lovers.

Grady Hendrix has such a skill in combining true horror, gripping action and humour all in one page.

I loved the cast of characters in The Final Girls and the story is something that’s stayed with me for long after.

A really great book that I would be happy to read again.

Absolutely loved the central idea/premise, and the writing is good - engaging and pacy without being superficial - but I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped I would (though I would be intrigued to see a screen adaptation). However, I'd still recommend it to those who like the genre and who've enjoyed the author's previous work.

I loved this book! As someone who grew up with the slasher movies of the 80s and 90s. It was great to see something like this that explores the lives of Final girls after they survived their trauma. How they would deal with what happen to them, how the world would treat them etc. Of course, there is a bit of a nod to the meta-narrative of Wes Craven's Scream [one of the final girls even had a similar experience of that franchise[.

I loved the characters. One of my favourites was Heather. She's what I actually think would happen if I would have ever went up against a dream demon [or Dream King in her case]. The story was a great mystery that was really close to Scream. I feel like Scream was a tremendous influence on this book. It kept me reading to find out who the killer was, and their motive.

In the end, it's another win for me from Grady Hendrix.

This was good, but... I don't know why, but even though I enjoyed my reading experience, I was left feeling like TFGSG was just good - not great. I really liked the premise, and I didn't have any qualms with the execution, but it still didn't move above the three-star rating I tend to assign books that don't hit me as exceptional.

I just adore Grady Hendrix. After reading the southern book clubs guide to slaying vampires I just knew I would have to read this one. I loved the premise and felt it was such a unique storyline that I knew it was going to be good. I loved the fact it was a horror storyline without being too scary, I liked the characters and h the story in its entirety. It kept me reading all the way to the end and overall I felt it was very good!