Author: Riley Sager
Publication: Dutton; Reprint edition (January 23, 2018)
Description: 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-fiancĂ©, 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.
My Thoughts: This twisty thriller had me glued to the pages as I tried to find out what happened at Pine Cottage when Quincy and her friends went for a party weekend and only Quincy survived to come home. Quincy doesn't remember. The whole horror of the trip is lost in a dark hole in her memory.
Quincy has tried to rebuild her life. She is a cooking blogger, has a lawyer boyfriend, and a cool apartment in New York City paid for the by the settlements she got from a number of lawsuits regarding the crime. But Quincy is also lonely and living an wine and Xanax. The only one she can trust is Coop - the police officer she ran into when she was running from the horror at the cottage.
Quincy is only the most recent of what the press call the Final Girls. Lisa survived a massacre at her sorority house and Sam survived horror at the motel where she worked the night shift. They are joined together by their situations but the women have never met.
When Lisa dies, apparently a suicide, Quincy is forced to think back to the time she is trying to put behind her. When it is learned that Lisa was murdered, things get even more tense. Then Sam shows up at Quincy's door in New York. Quincy feels sorry for her and feels that she might be the only one who can really understand what Quincy went through.
But Sam is hiding things, keeping secrets. She really wants Quincy to remember what happened at Pine Cottage and to show the rage she must be feeling. Sam goads her into doing things that she would normally not even think of.
Twists and turns abound in this fast-paced thriller. Characters aren't who they seem. The memories that finally resurface add even more confusion as Quincy tries to figure out what really happened on the night that changed her whole life.
This was a totally gripping story that made me suspect that all the characters were lying. I really enjoyed trying to dig out the truth about Quincy and the other Final Girls.
Favorite Quote:
Final Girls is film-geek speak for the last woman standing at the end of a horror movie. At least, that's what I've been told. Even before Pine Cottage, I never liked to watch scary movies because of the fake blood, the rubber knives, the characters who made decisions so stupid I guiltily thought they deserved to die.I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.
This sounds so good and terrifying. I don't really watch scary movies either, but I can sometimes read scary books. I guess there's a big difference between seeing something and reading about it!
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