The Final Girl Support Group

As the title no doubt suggests to any slasher fan, Grady Hendrix’s The Final Girl Support Group is the tale of Final Girls – those women who survive a slasher film, who turn out to be able to overpower the killer, who have what it takes to survive. But what happens afterward – when the trauma sets in (to say nothing of the inevitable sequel)? And how do they fit in to a world that seems increasingly to have moved away from some of what brought about the slasher genre in the first place?Trust Grady Hendrix to do these questions right. I’ve read any number of meta-slasher books in recent years (Stephen Graham Jones’s My Heart is a Chainsaw is a solid one; Riley Sager’s Final Girls was decent enough but pales in comparison to Chainsaw and Support Group), but Hendrix’s takes it all a step further, both in conceit (the base concept here is that the slasher franchises we know were all based on real events and crimes; while the franchises still evolved into absurdity, each of them – and the book gives us thinly disguised versions of all of the usual suspects, complete with a slew of easter eggs that will delight horror fans – arose from a true story and a victim who turned her story into a film) and in complexity. Hendrix peppers his book with interstitial notes that provide analysis of the genre, both by horror aficionados and feminist film critics, interrogating the ideas and concepts of the genre, all while simultaneously tapping into what made it so appealing in the first place – and how its changes (and decline) reflect societal changes as a whole. (There’s a midbook document discussing slashers in the age of school shootings that genuinely gave me pause and left me reeling a bit.)But if all of this sounds super heady and intellectual, it shouldn’t, because in the end, The Final Girl Support Group is, of course, a slasher of its own kind. Narrated by one of the members of the eponymous girl, one whose trauma has left her life a series of defense mechanisms and paranoid episodes, Hendrix stomps on the gas relatively early and never lets off, bringing his cast of final girls to life quickly and efficiently (and in doing so, giving us a nice range of trauma responses and personalities) but also throwing us into a nightmare as it feels like someone is once again revving things up for a new volume of slasher kills. What’s most notable about his story, though, is the way that it’s hard to pin down for so much of its running time; every time you think you have a sense of where the story is heading, Hendrix has a way of throwing a new wrinkle our way, changing the perpetrator, or the method, or the motive – and does it all by immersing us in the head of a narrator whose reactions leave her a most unreliable storyteller indeed.My only small grumble with Support Group is that the ending doesn’t feel as rich and as engaging as the rest of the book; Hendrix does such a great job of mixing subtext and text for the entire story that it’s a little disappointing that the finale isn’t a bit more memorable, and feels a little more of a letdown than I wish it did. But even then, it’s not enough to detract from the book too much; Support Group does what Riley Sager attempted to do in Final Girls but does it far better, embracing and questioning the genre, and finding a way to turn it into something really satisfying. Pair this with My Heart is a Chainsaw and you have a pair of slasher novels for the ages, really, and a treat for horror fans in general.

I honestly thought I would put this down and not finish it at one point and then it just grabbed me and pulled me in to a wild, unpredictable ride. I’m very glad I have this book a chance.

I was really excited to read this after reading all of Hendrix's other books (minus we sold our souls). He hasn't quite captured the magic of My Best Friend's Exorcism again, but he came close with Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. The Final Girl Support Group has such a great premise, but unravels fairly quickly after the first 10 chapters, then picks back up in the final 5 or so.As a black person that reads some white horror authors, I'm really over them always killing us off. Or, we exist to make white characters feel better about themselves or "champion" them. *Spoilers Ahead* What sparks the whole plot of the book is the (only) black final girl being murdered. She is described as having lived a successful life, was kind, strong, and built a retreat/camp for other survivors. Buuuuut....she's the one who easily dies, when there's an unstable woman battling drug addiction in the group? Oh okay. There's also an extremely racist description of her when the protagonist is explaining how killers are particular about what they like, using a starbucks analogy: "Black nonfat camp counselor with a high threshold for pain and an extra shot". Black people having a high threshold for pain/feeling less pain than others is a racist idea that's STILL believed that started from chattel slavery. It affects us in various ways, and even causes our death in medical settings to this day. It was an excuse used to enslave, beat, and experiment on us. Now, if Hendrix meant this as commentary aka making the monsters more monstery by way of their racism, then he did a HORRIFIC job of alluding to it. Not to mention in the next sentence he stereotyped the lesbian character as masculine/butchy and spunky. I won't speak for the LGBT community on that front, but it seemed that she was just a copy of what the media tells us lesbians are like: Home Depot obsessed homesteading cowgirl types. The black character is imagined in ghost form to help the protagonist push forward towards the end, and I almost slapped the book closed.Speaking of the protagonist, I liked that she was difficult to like and root for. It was a very different approach, and it felt like she had a real, multifaceted persona. I wish we got to know the other women in the group a bit more, and they disappear for far too long when the middle of the book begins; they were VERY underutilized. He crafted distinct personalities for each of them, and I feel it was wasted.This book could've been about 60-80 pages shorter than what it was. If a character is going to an apartment, we get every little step on the way to said apartment written out in the book. Opening the door, walking down the driveway, getting in the car, driving down the road, the conversation on the way, how many stoplights there are, when they pull up to the curb of the apartment etc. It would've been nice to have a chapter just end and bam the next chapter starts off with the characters where they need to be.As always, I enjoyed the "extras" in the book. Case files, newspaper articles, and other thoughtful things that made you think. I came away from this book thinking a lot about violence in our society and how obsessed we are with it, i.e. collecting murder memorabilia, and the strange new phenomenon of women on youtube doing their make up while talking about how a family was butchered. We love violence against women in particular, and we couldn't get enough of slasher flicks at one point.The twist was very good, and I didn't see it coming. It's a slog to get to that twist, though. I found myself skipping a page or two here and there, and this is the first time one of his books has suffered a sagging middle (in my opinion). At times it's disjointed, and so many unnecessary things happen that don't add much to the story. I loved the way he created this world of what it'd really be like to be the final girl from these movies, all grown up. He pulls heavily from the slasher movies, and finds ways to inject some new humor into the stories. All in all, it is a decent book. Not his best, but I would place it above Horrorstor and below Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires.

I really enjoyed this book! It was a great concept and I could actually see it being turned into a movie. Every Final Girl had a story that was reminiscent of old horror movies (Friday the 13th, Carrie, etc.) and to have them all come together in a support group was a great idea. The book was action packed, tense and just a fun read! I've read a few Grady Hendrix books now and he's now in the lead for my favorite author.

esse livro realmente vale a pena!!! É uma leitura ótima para fãs de terror 👻

This book is a gem. Grady Hendrix is a fantastic writer of women. This book passes the Bechdel Test! Hurray! Highly recommend

Un libro hecho para fans del género slasher. Encontrarán arquetipos de los personajes ya icónicos del cine de horror en una historia entretenida, que rinde homenaje a nuestras amadas Final Girls.

Libro arrivato nei tempi ed in ottime condizioni (stranamente!).Cosa succede alle final girls dopo i titoli di coda dei loro film?Secondo Grady Hendrix si riuniscono in un gruppo di supporto per superare i traumi raccolti come trofei dalla sconfitta del loro mostro."Does this ever end? Will there always be someone out there turning little boys into monsters? Will we always be final girls? Will there always be monsters killing us? How do we stop the snake from eating its own tail?"Le final girls non sono vittime sopravvissute ad una tragedia, loro sono diverse, perché i loro mostri tornano sempre per loro.Grady Hendrix riunisce sei final girls in cui sono riconoscibilissime le protagoniste dei film slasher realmente esistenti, e si chiede come queste, dopo sedici anni dagli avvenimenti che le hanno rese famose, vivano la loro vita: si sono lasciate le proprie tragedie alle spalle o sono ancora delle vittime intrappolate in un incubo senza fine fatto di paranoia ed ombre nascoste nel buio? E se tutto dovesse ricominciare? E se tutto fosse solo frutto di un disturbo da stress post traumatico che non permette loro di vedere altro se non uomini neri pronti a prenderle?Il ritmo del libro funziona, è a tratti incalzante e riesce a trascinarti nella spirale di pensieri paranoici e di paura che queste donne si portano dietro, e ti sfida a risolvere il mistero mettendoti nei panni di un detective, proponendoti piste sempre nuove e sospettati sempre molto plausibili, ma senza risultare troppo banale nel momento in cui tutti i pezzi finiscono finalmente al loro posto.È sicuramente un libro azzeccato per chi ama le storie horror ed in particolare il filone slasher ("Non aprite quella porta", "Venerdì 13", "Halloween", ecc.).

This Grady book is awesome. Really enjoyed the characters and how it panned out. I Love Grady’s style of writing. I’ve become a rather big fan of his and spreading the word of this horror wonderfulness! If you are into slasher movies then this is for you if not look else where