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I hated this book so much that I looked up Sager's other pen name to make sure I didn't accidentally read anything else by him.
The premise is that three women are the sole survivors of massacres, the media calls them "Final Girls," and then someone starts killing them...
The Final Girls were all the sole survivors of unrelated massacres. Considering how many massacres happen in the US, I'm not sure that would be enough to make them still famous ten years later (or that there wouldn't be a lot more Final Girls) but that wouldn't bother me if the book was generally satisfying. Be that as it may, the Final Girls are a media creation, not friends. Linda embraced the label and wrote a book about empowerment, Sam dropped off the grid, and Quincy, who hates being called a Final Girl, had one phone call with Linda and never met Sam.
Ten years ago, Quincy survived the massacre of a bunch of her friends on a camping trip in college, including her best friend. The story of the massacre (95% of it is lead-up) is intercut with her present-day life. Both timelines are boring and annoying. All we know about the massacre in the present day is that she ran screaming through the woods, was found by a cop who shot the pursuing slasher dead, and two other cops found it very very suspicious that Quincy was the lone survivor when everyone else was killed, she claims to have no memory of the massacre itself, and her wounds, though serious, were not life-threatening.
Right off the bat, this makes no sense. It's common for a massacre to involve many people killed and some or one not hurt at all; that shouldn't make them a suspect. Traumatic amnesia is also common. Quincy is a young white woman so there's an additional reason not to suspect her. Finally, if Quincy was the real slasher, then shouldn't the cops be trying to figure out who the dude who got shot was and why he was chasing Quincy with a knife?
Meanwhile, Quincy now has a baking blog and a fiance, compulsively shoplifts, and takes Xanax washed down with grape juice as is repeated a bazillion times. She's still in touch with Coop, the hot cop who rescued her. When Linda commits suicide, Quincy gets caught up in a media frenzy, and Sam shows up on Quincy's doorstep insisting that Linda was murdered.
Quincy makes absolutely no sense as a character because we're supposed to be in doubt as to whether she is the real murderer, so sometimes she acts like a violent psycho and sometimes she seems like a regular traumatized person, and she makes random, contradictory choices. Two-thirds of the book is her having repetitive conversations with the same three people while baking and/or popping Xanax, and then there's a flurry of utterly nonsensical twists.
There's tons of talk about what it means to be a Final Girl and whether Final Girls should stick together, but none of it is insightful or comes to more than "being a Final Girl means that you survived"/"actually us Final Girls have nothing in common."
I thought the book would be some kind of revisionist take on the Final Girl trope, and it's instead every misogynist stereotype from every bad slasher flick, only revised so it disappears up its own ass in a flurry of frantic handwaving and incoherence.
Also, THERE IS EXACTLY ONE SLASHING SCENE. It's like one percent of the novel's total verbiage. The heroine washing down Xanax with grape juice is probably four percent. I felt so cheated.
Sam eggs on Quincy to embrace the label of Final Girl and walk in the park after dark to get some vengeance on rapists. Because rape is something done by strangers who lurk in parks all night hoping some lone woman will come by, she is instantly attacked by a man with "cocoa skin" because of course the only time skin color is mentioned in the entire book it's a random mugger. She beats him up. Then she beats a homeless dude half to death. Then she freaks out and throws Sam out of her apartment, saying that the Final Girl thing is bullshit.
Then it turns out that Sam is not Sam! Sam is some woman named Tina who apparently murdered Linda! She kidnaps Quincy and forces her to remember the traumatic event! This totally works because all Quincy ever had to do was choose to remember. [Note: THAT IS NOT HOW TRAUMATIC AMNESIA WORKS.]
While camping, Quincy's best friend fucked Quincy's boyfriend because women are backstabbing sluts, amirite? In a rage, Quincy fucked a random stranded stranger who her best friend had more-or-less forced to stay in the cabin with them because Sager needed him to be present. We're supposed to think that guy is the slasher, but jealous angry slutty Quincy grabs a knife and starts stalking everyone! It must be her! But no! The random stranger comes upon her with the knife and says sinister things. It must be him! But no! It's actually Coop, who shoots the random stranger, pins it on him, and just crosses his fingers that Quincy will have traumatic amnesia and not remember that he's the slasher.
It turns out that Tina was friends with the random stranger, and she impersonated Sam to get Quincy to remember the massacre to clear her friend's name. Coop, who murdered Linda and the real Sam, tries to murder them both but Quincy kills him. In the final scene, Quincy meets a new woman who survived a massacre and tells her that "Final Girls have to stick together."
I literally have no idea what point the last scene thinks it's making, except it's probably supposed to be edgy and ambiguous when it's really just "like, whatever, man."
Final Girls: A Novel
The premise is that three women are the sole survivors of massacres, the media calls them "Final Girls," and then someone starts killing them...
The Final Girls were all the sole survivors of unrelated massacres. Considering how many massacres happen in the US, I'm not sure that would be enough to make them still famous ten years later (or that there wouldn't be a lot more Final Girls) but that wouldn't bother me if the book was generally satisfying. Be that as it may, the Final Girls are a media creation, not friends. Linda embraced the label and wrote a book about empowerment, Sam dropped off the grid, and Quincy, who hates being called a Final Girl, had one phone call with Linda and never met Sam.
Ten years ago, Quincy survived the massacre of a bunch of her friends on a camping trip in college, including her best friend. The story of the massacre (95% of it is lead-up) is intercut with her present-day life. Both timelines are boring and annoying. All we know about the massacre in the present day is that she ran screaming through the woods, was found by a cop who shot the pursuing slasher dead, and two other cops found it very very suspicious that Quincy was the lone survivor when everyone else was killed, she claims to have no memory of the massacre itself, and her wounds, though serious, were not life-threatening.
Right off the bat, this makes no sense. It's common for a massacre to involve many people killed and some or one not hurt at all; that shouldn't make them a suspect. Traumatic amnesia is also common. Quincy is a young white woman so there's an additional reason not to suspect her. Finally, if Quincy was the real slasher, then shouldn't the cops be trying to figure out who the dude who got shot was and why he was chasing Quincy with a knife?
Meanwhile, Quincy now has a baking blog and a fiance, compulsively shoplifts, and takes Xanax washed down with grape juice as is repeated a bazillion times. She's still in touch with Coop, the hot cop who rescued her. When Linda commits suicide, Quincy gets caught up in a media frenzy, and Sam shows up on Quincy's doorstep insisting that Linda was murdered.
Quincy makes absolutely no sense as a character because we're supposed to be in doubt as to whether she is the real murderer, so sometimes she acts like a violent psycho and sometimes she seems like a regular traumatized person, and she makes random, contradictory choices. Two-thirds of the book is her having repetitive conversations with the same three people while baking and/or popping Xanax, and then there's a flurry of utterly nonsensical twists.
There's tons of talk about what it means to be a Final Girl and whether Final Girls should stick together, but none of it is insightful or comes to more than "being a Final Girl means that you survived"/"actually us Final Girls have nothing in common."
I thought the book would be some kind of revisionist take on the Final Girl trope, and it's instead every misogynist stereotype from every bad slasher flick, only revised so it disappears up its own ass in a flurry of frantic handwaving and incoherence.
Also, THERE IS EXACTLY ONE SLASHING SCENE. It's like one percent of the novel's total verbiage. The heroine washing down Xanax with grape juice is probably four percent. I felt so cheated.
Sam eggs on Quincy to embrace the label of Final Girl and walk in the park after dark to get some vengeance on rapists. Because rape is something done by strangers who lurk in parks all night hoping some lone woman will come by, she is instantly attacked by a man with "cocoa skin" because of course the only time skin color is mentioned in the entire book it's a random mugger. She beats him up. Then she beats a homeless dude half to death. Then she freaks out and throws Sam out of her apartment, saying that the Final Girl thing is bullshit.
Then it turns out that Sam is not Sam! Sam is some woman named Tina who apparently murdered Linda! She kidnaps Quincy and forces her to remember the traumatic event! This totally works because all Quincy ever had to do was choose to remember. [Note: THAT IS NOT HOW TRAUMATIC AMNESIA WORKS.]
While camping, Quincy's best friend fucked Quincy's boyfriend because women are backstabbing sluts, amirite? In a rage, Quincy fucked a random stranded stranger who her best friend had more-or-less forced to stay in the cabin with them because Sager needed him to be present. We're supposed to think that guy is the slasher, but jealous angry slutty Quincy grabs a knife and starts stalking everyone! It must be her! But no! The random stranger comes upon her with the knife and says sinister things. It must be him! But no! It's actually Coop, who shoots the random stranger, pins it on him, and just crosses his fingers that Quincy will have traumatic amnesia and not remember that he's the slasher.
It turns out that Tina was friends with the random stranger, and she impersonated Sam to get Quincy to remember the massacre to clear her friend's name. Coop, who murdered Linda and the real Sam, tries to murder them both but Quincy kills him. In the final scene, Quincy meets a new woman who survived a massacre and tells her that "Final Girls have to stick together."
I literally have no idea what point the last scene thinks it's making, except it's probably supposed to be edgy and ambiguous when it's really just "like, whatever, man."
Final Girls: A Novel
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And that "cocoa skin" bit is absolutely appalling. That's some disgustingly pseudo-coy phrasing there, too. It reminds me of a terrible coworker I once had who thought she could say anything racist as long as she said "of the Mexican persuasion" (in a hushed tone) rather than just "Mexican."
Also, this is just a jumble of bullshit. What.
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Thank you for falling on this grenade for us.
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I suspect the point is "Series potential" :(
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Whaaaaaat?
In the final scene, Quincy meets a new woman who survived a massacre and tells her that "Final Girls have to stick together."
Well, that's a waste of a premise. And ink. And wood pulp. And memory.
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+++++1.
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Maybe they're famous because the massacres were done with a knife rather than the ever-popular US gun massacres?
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(I'm not a prescriptivist except when you're getting paid a lot of money, hmpf.)
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