So I picked up Final Girls because the very name itself made me think of some of my favorite horror movies and their central trope: The one girl who survives a massacre and a night of horrors and comes out on the other end as a “final girl”.

I’ll say this: I never wanted to put the book down. Were there some redundant portions and slow moving sections through the first half of this novel? Yes, definitely. The pace of the story was frustrating at times, as was the lack of real character development, but I think the saving grace for me came in the form of the flashbacks. The flashbacks kept me interested in discovering the truth of the events in that night, which in turn kept me interested in finishing the book.

All of the characters felt flat and their interactions with one another did too. The secrets some of the characters held onto kept me in the head-space of trying to figure out exactly what the hell was going on, which I appreciated. I also appreciated that even though I thought I had it figured out more than once, by the end I realized that I really didn’t see the end coming. Maybe that was my naïveté or maybe i really just didn’t pay attention, but I was surprised by the end results and it made the read worth it.

I’m not saying this was the best read and I can definitely see how people didn’t enjoy it, but I think it was worth the read.