The Final Girl Support Group
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
VOTED GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD BEST HORROR NOVEL OF 2021
A Good Morning America Buzz Pick
“The horror master…puts his unique spin on slasher movie tropes.”-USA Today
A can't-miss summer read, selected by The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Time, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN, LitHub, BookRiot, Bustle, Popsugar and the New York Public Library
In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?
Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. From chain saws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films—movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.
But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
VOTED GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD BEST HORROR NOVEL OF 2021
A Good Morning America Buzz Pick
“The horror master…puts his unique spin on slasher movie tropes.”-USA Today
A can't-miss summer read, selected by The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Time, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN, LitHub, BookRiot, Bustle, Popsugar and the New York Public Library
In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?
Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. From chain saws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films—movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.
But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
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Community Reviews
Originally reviewed on Cyn's Workshop
I absolutely loved every moment of The Final Girl Support Group, as a huge fan of Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and Halloween, the way Hendrix honors those was brilliant and entertaining.
Gripping Story
The Final Girl Support Group follows Lynette, a final girl who survived the murder of her family, impaled on the wall above as the murderer killed and butchered her mother, father, and little sister. Haunted by that night for years, she joined the “Final Girl” support group, a group of other women who survived serial killers, leading the media to call them the “Final Girls.”
Hendrix does a fantastic job of paying homage to the classics, bringing in and reinventing some of those scenes to draw in fans.
My favorite part is the Scream reference and the way the Stab movies made it into the book as well! Those small nods to slashers brought this novel to life.
Hendrix uses those classic slasher tropes to build this novel up. He goes from one scene to another without losing momentum, and you’re drawn in just like you would be drawn in watching a movie. Lynette is, you know, haunted by her past. She’s haunted by this idea that she’s not a final girl because she played possum.
However, Lynette proves her point here. She is proving that there is someone out to get her and all the “Final Girls,” and it’s not just paranoia. She’s learning to become the hero she’s learning, still dealing with the trauma of such a traumatic event, watching her entire family and her little sister butchered.
You’re seeing the psychological effects of what it means to be a final girl. And you’re seeing it through all these different characters. Hendrix took our classic movies, those slasher favorites, and gave those final girls a new life. He shows you what comes after the movie ends and how these women cope. But he’s also showing the insanity of being obsessed with final girls and how it can drive people to do insanely bizarre things.
I just absolutely loved the storytelling here. I loved the momentum, the pacing the character grows with Lynette, and the way Hendrix has created his own final girl with this novel.
Final Thoughts
The Final Girl Support is an absolutely fantastic novel. I love the humanity that Hendrix imbues the characters with; the relatability of these women makes them jump off the pages. Hendrix did a phenomenal job of grounding this novel into reality while paying homage to classic flashers and making them real.
See more reviews at Cyn's Workshop and follow me on Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter | Tumblr | Spotify Podcast | YouTube | BookBub | Goodreads+ | LinkedIn
Honestly, this is an amazing novel, and I think everyone must read it.
A delightfully entertaining horror novel, The Final Girl Support Group will make all fans of classic slashers giddy with happiness.
I absolutely loved every moment of The Final Girl Support Group, as a huge fan of Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and Halloween, the way Hendrix honors those was brilliant and entertaining.
Gripping Story
The Final Girl Support Group follows Lynette, a final girl who survived the murder of her family, impaled on the wall above as the murderer killed and butchered her mother, father, and little sister. Haunted by that night for years, she joined the “Final Girl” support group, a group of other women who survived serial killers, leading the media to call them the “Final Girls.”
Hendrix does a fantastic job of paying homage to the classics, bringing in and reinventing some of those scenes to draw in fans.
My favorite part is the Scream reference and the way the Stab movies made it into the book as well! Those small nods to slashers brought this novel to life.
Hendrix uses those classic slasher tropes to build this novel up. He goes from one scene to another without losing momentum, and you’re drawn in just like you would be drawn in watching a movie. Lynette is, you know, haunted by her past. She’s haunted by this idea that she’s not a final girl because she played possum.
However, Lynette proves her point here. She is proving that there is someone out to get her and all the “Final Girls,” and it’s not just paranoia. She’s learning to become the hero she’s learning, still dealing with the trauma of such a traumatic event, watching her entire family and her little sister butchered.
You’re seeing the psychological effects of what it means to be a final girl. And you’re seeing it through all these different characters. Hendrix took our classic movies, those slasher favorites, and gave those final girls a new life. He shows you what comes after the movie ends and how these women cope. But he’s also showing the insanity of being obsessed with final girls and how it can drive people to do insanely bizarre things.
I just absolutely loved the storytelling here. I loved the momentum, the pacing the character grows with Lynette, and the way Hendrix has created his own final girl with this novel.
Final Thoughts
The Final Girl Support is an absolutely fantastic novel. I love the humanity that Hendrix imbues the characters with; the relatability of these women makes them jump off the pages. Hendrix did a phenomenal job of grounding this novel into reality while paying homage to classic flashers and making them real.
See more reviews at Cyn's Workshop and follow me on Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter | Tumblr | Spotify Podcast | YouTube | BookBub | Goodreads+ | LinkedIn
Honestly, this is an amazing novel, and I think everyone must read it.
I loved this take on the trope of the “final girl.” It explored the what comes after in a beautiful way and opened the door to Grady Hendrix for me. It perpetuates that just because a woman escapes the killer doesn’t always mean they escape their trauma. I wish I could go back and read it again.
Grady Hendrix’s The Final Girl Support Group is a fast-paced, darkly witty thriller that pays homage to the “final girl” trope popularized by classic slasher films. The novel follows Lynette Tarkington, a reclusive survivor of a brutal massacre, who attends a support group for other final girls each loosely inspired by iconic horror movie heroines. When one of them goes missing, Lynette must confront her paranoia and fight for survival all over again.
Hendrix blends suspense, satire, and emotional depth to explore trauma, resilience, and the cost of survival. The result is a clever, self-aware horror novel that keeps readers guessing with twisty plot turns and nostalgic horror references.
Fans of horror and feminist thrillers will find this an engaging, bloody ride.
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