A Book A Week

"After a while, you start to realize that your life isn't the thing that happens between the monsters, your life is the monsters."

How do you get out of a reading slump? For the last couple of weeks, I've been really struggling to read anything. While I shelves and piles of books just waiting to be read, I couldn't land on something that I just had to read. Whenever I find myself in this situation, I try to go back to my roots and read a genre or author that never lets me down. Oddly enough, horror has quickly become one of my go-to genres. After days of starting and stopping several other novels, Grady Hendrix's latest The Final Girl Support Group finally captured my attention. This clever page-turner based upon classic slasher tropes was just what I needed to kickstart my reading back into high gear. 

Even if you aren't a fan of horror movies, you're probably at least tangentially aware of some of the more famous slasher films of the '70s and '80s. Inspiration from movies like Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Nightmare on Elm Street are all present here. At the end of each movie, the main character is left as the "final girl", the one remaining who survived that story's horrors. In this book, Hendrix imagines a world where the horrors of those fictional films occurred in real life. What happens to the final girl after the credits roll? 

For Lynette, the horrors she faced twenty years ago have informed how she has lived every moment of her life after.  She narrowly escaped the brutal murdering of her boyfriend and family, and the fear, paranoia, and guilt of that trauma permeate her every thought. Lynette is certain that a final girl like herself can never move on to have a normal life. She takes some comfort in the weekly gathering of other women who have faced similar tragedies, a final girl support group. Some of the women actually have been able to get on with their lives, but they still come together to support those like Lynette who are unable to surmount their demons. 

The group is puzzled one day when one of its members fails to show up. No one can get a hold of her, and Lynette quickly begins to fear the worst. If you've ever seen a sequel to any of those classic horror movies, you'll know that the bad guy never stays down. In fact, they usually make it their mission to get revenge against the final girl from the previous film. Lynette's suspicion is tragically confirmed when the absent final girl is found murdered. Worse than that, whoever killed her knows about the support group and is methodically working to kill every last member. 

I first became aware of Grady Hendrix when everyone I knew seemed to be reading his The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. I jumped at the offer from his publisher to read The Final Girl Support Group and was happy to find the perfect balance of thriller elements with plenty of callbacks to classic horror lore. Hendrix doesn't shy away from the graphic violence of the genre. If you're even the slightest bit squeamish, this novel probably isn't for you. If you, like me, have a soft spot for these kinds of stories, there's plenty to love in this book. The main character works to battle her internal demons while fighting to keep herself and those she cares about alive. The internal and external battles mirror each other, giving the story a depth of character and reality that balances against the sometimes campy and implausible elements. The ending doesn't quite live up to the build-up that precedes it, but it doesn't detract from the story by any means. In the end, The Final Girl Support Group is a page-turning thrill ride that helped me break free from my reading slump.

For more information visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2021, 26)