3.5 stars for me.

I did enjoy this but didn't love it. Didn't really feel like a horror story, more suspenseful / thriller. There were so many (hidden) references to very well known horror movies, I wish I had a check list / bingo card every time I recognised one. Went at a good pace but found the ending rushed & was over too quickly. With all the build up wish had went on a little longer. Grady definitely knows how to write a compelling main character. Was taken on the range of emotions with Lynette & interesting to see into the mind of a final girl AFTER the fact.

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Took a moment

This is the first Grady Hendrix book that I had to stop and start again. I struggled to connect to the protagonist. On the second listen I realised that’s that’s the point. Least impactful of his stories but still an interesting genre read.

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An enjoyable story

It was fun listening to the back stories of the women and figuring out who they represented. I've read a lot of remarks about the narrator but I didn't have an issue with her. I think it added to the story that the narrator, Adrienne King, played Alice in the original Friday the 13th movies

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Fun, mild thrills

I mean, it was fine. But like, am I just convincing myself it was fine? It was a fun story with some cool twists and turns but felt a little all over the place sometimes. I went in expecting a slasher story and got something quite different, so I found myself wanting something a little more intense.

But more importantly, what in the truest fuck was the narrator doing? It was like she was given a copy of the text in brail and had only learned to read in brail a few days beforehand. Honestly, the most extraordinarily bizarre syntax I have ever heard in my life. This reading could have gone 4 hours shorter and I don’t think I’m exaggerating.

The story must have been good because despite the performance, I hung in there. Some pithy metaphors and an okay attempt at a feminist angle that ultimately felt steeped in a shallow male wokeness. But it was fun and thus, tolerable.

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Final Girls get the Final Say

I loved it! I’m a big fan of the slasher genre in movies but this book, whilst having a twisting, thrilling plot, also made me really think about how we consume women in horror!

I enjoyed the narration and felt it lent itself to the character! The concept and nods to horror classics was so fantastic. We love our final girls!

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Love the author and an interesting story

I don't think the narrator was the right choice for this novel though and I almost stopped listening at one point. I did enjoy the story and I always enjoy the author so I persevered.

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Narrator made book impossible to listen to

I had to return this book in order to get the physical copy, the narrator was so incorrectly cast for this text. Not only did she read very slowly but annunciated like a naive little girl rather than a jaded, middle-aged crime survivor. It was like a news reader announcing a mass shooting with a big smile on her face. Shame because I really want to finish this book!

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1 person found this helpful

The narration is stressful

The concept of this book is really cool and the story was paced well, with lots of slasher references and Hendrix’s classic 90’s vibe. However, the narrator is so overdone that the book reads as extremely stressful. She is too loud and too frantic and I could barely get through it. I would have loved this book if I read it myself.

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Speachless

What can I say. This book is just amazing,Being a film geek and a horror fan, this book is just a breathe of fresh air for genre storytelling. It has so many important things to say about not only violence against women, but violence in general in popular entertainment, and the effects of PTSD on a survivor's mind. This book is one I will recommend to others.

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Genre-exploding meta-horror for the modern woman

Extraordinary horror fiction that interrogates the sexism in the genre with thrilling results. Ever wondered what happens to the final girls? You know, the ones that survive the bloody massacre, evade the monsters, avoid being eaten by the cannibals? Most horror movie & horror fiction ignore them, or worse, punishing them for surviving by knocking them off in the sequel. But let's get real - where do they go when the filming stops? Therapy, of course! Wouldn't you?

Hendrix's ladies have all survived the kind of violence on John Carpenter, Wes Craven or Quentin Tarrantino, to name a few, could dream up. But they didn't go down without a fight. Narrated by Lynette, a woman who survived a massacre that took her entire family and boyfriend on Christmas Eve and now lives in a sparsely furnished apartment with a cage set-up around her front door to keep out intruders, we are quickly thrown into the action as the women learn that one of their most successful survivor sisters has been murdered. The horror brings back trauma for all of the women but only Lynette sees what's really happening - someone is targeting all of them and the only real question is which one of them will be next?

Packed with sly film & pop culture references that any serious horror buff will get, Hendrix takes all the stereotypes and genre staples and turns them on their head to serve a new narrative that asks us to think much more critically about how the genre tortures, traumatises, and discards women for cheap entertainment and why we don't look for something more sophisticated to get our scares. Touching on the topics of violence against women, stalking, chauvinism in film, horror and true crime, the rise of the incel and the high school shooter, Hendrix reclaims the Final Girls' humanity while still giving us the jump scares and shivers we love.
A wee bit long around the last third of the book, but I can definitely forgive that given the overall excellence of the book as a whole.

PS for bonus points, check out the audiobook narrator's own personal history - could this book get any more meta?!

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