From Goodreads: "Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media's attempts, they never meet.
Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.
That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa's death come to light, Quincy's life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished."

Thank you to Dutton Books for providing me with a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for review! All opinions are my own.

This was a book that had been one of my most anticipated of the year but for some reason, life kept getting in the way of me reading it. But finally, I was able to sit down and fly through this and oh my goodness was it a good one. If you're a fan of slasher horror movies, Final Girls is one you won't want to miss!

Plot:
Generally this is where I would sum up the story in my own little way but honestly, the synopsis up there does a...detailed enough job on its own. So don't just skim it if you want to know what this book is about- which you totally want to know.

As a fan of horror movies in general, this was a book I knew I was going to love just from the synopsis alone. And thankfully, I was not wrong! The story is so well written and really gives you that feeling you get when watching a slasher movie. It's not cheesy or silly (kind of like the Scream movie franchise, if you've seen that) but rather gives you this constant creepy vibe like something just isn't right. Reading Final Girls really felt like I was reading a horror movie script and I absolutely devoured it. It has an absolutely killer (haha, see what I did there?) opening and the momentum just keeps going from there. I loved how everything unfolded at what felt like the perfect pace where nothing was rushed through and nothing dragged on forever and got boring. It was such a suspenseful story that had me rapidly turning pages to find out what was going to happen next! My favorite part of this whole book was probably Quincy and how as you're following her story, you start to question quite literally everything about her and the things she does. You don't know who to trust and you're not even sure if Quincy is reliable and that was just such a fantastic aspect of the book that really elevated things to a new level. The blurb by Stephen King is a great way to describe this book: "The first great thriller of 2017 is here." Final Girls has just the right amount of horror, thrills, and suspense to keep you guessing until the very end and trust me, you won't see the ending coming at all.

Characters:
Everyone loves an unreliable narrator and Quincy is exactly that. You think she's got it all together and that she's at the very least managing to live a relatively normal life after Pine Cottage, but as the book progresses, you really see her start to unravel. She still can't remember everything that happened but something about Sam's presence causes Quincy to start remembering small details about that night. Is she telling the truth about what happened? Does she really not remember anything? As the reader, you just don't know and you're only able to go by what Quincy says. But as her life starts to fall apart after the arrival of the tornado that is Sam, you start to question Quincy and everything she says and does. I think I loved her character the best because of her unreliability and unpredictability. One minute she's baking and taking photos for her blog and the next she's beating a guy to a pulp. You never know what to expect, especially once she starts digging into Lisa's death more, and it's one great roller coaster ride with Quincy as the ride operator. Except this roller coaster has no safety bars and the conductor is a bit crazy.

I also really enjoyed all of the other characters in this book as well. Sam was, as I already described her, a tornado, and she was actually exciting (on the more suspenseful side) to follow because I never knew what she was going to do next. Coop was a strong, supportive character that Quincy was able to lean on when she needed him and I really enjoyed his presence throughout the book. Jeff was more of a side character, I personally felt, but he was also pretty supportive and helpful with Quincy although he definitely had his moments where he put his butt on his shoulders. But something that I liked was that Quincy and Jeff's relationship was more on the realistic side where instead of things being perfect throughout the whole book and them never fighting, they got into arguments and got upset at each other. It's just always nice to read a book with a relationship that I can actually believe because real relationships are not all kittens and rainbows, but rather hard work, fighting, disagreements, and even nights spent angry at each other. To have a horror book with a realistic relationship in it was just A+ for me as a reader.

Writing:
I believe I stated this above but Final Girls truly read like a horror movie script. It was so suspenseful and creepy and just constantly built up more and more suspense as the book progressed. It unfolded at such a great pace, never lagging or speeding through things, but rather giving the reader just what they needed to know at the perfect time. There were flashbacks to Pine Cottage that allowed the reader to find out exactly what happened despite Quincy not remembering. It really was just an absolutely fantastic read that was literally impossible to put down once I started. The writing felt like I was reading a long time horror/thriller author's work, but Final Girls is in fact Riley Sager's first novel! It's an absolute thrill ride from start to finish with descriptive and eerie writing that will draw you in and have you looking over your shoulder for the Pine Cottage killer!

Final Girls was definitely one of my favorite reads of 2017 and I highly recommend it to anyone that is a fan of horror movies and books. You'll be drawn in by Quincy's narrow escape and will be left with your jaw on the floor by the final page. Don't miss this exciting debut horror novel that's absolutely impossible to forget!