Book Review: Final Girls

Quincy Carpenter leads an ordinary life – sort of. It’s a settlement, and not her job (running a baking blog), that pays for her Manhattan apartment. And aside from her boyfriend Jeff, a public defender, the only other person in her life she trusts is Coop, the cop who saved her on the worst night of her life. Ten years ago, Quincy survived a massacre. She doesn’t want to talk about it, or think about it.

The media, however, won’t let her forget. Quincy and two other women in similar situations have been dubbed the ‘Final Girls’, after the horror movie trope of the girl who survives to tell the tale. Lisa, the oldest of the three, now a child psychologist who’s written a memoir of her experiences, has just been found dead – and Sam, the recluse, turns up on Quincy’s doorstep, worried about what might happen next. Or so she claims.

Neither woman is particularly trustworthy. Quincy’s memory gap is suspicious, and she’s a little too fond of her morning Xanax; Sam is deliberately vague about where she’s been all these years. When new information is revealed about Lisa’s death, it’s clear something very dangerous is going on. Precisely what is only revealed at the end, in a twist that manages to genuinely shock. This is a compulsive stay-up-late-to-finish book.

Final Girls is published on July 11th.