Psychological thriller set in New York (three final girls)

6th November 2017

Final Girls by Riley Sager, psychological thriller set in New York.

It was the cover that did it. So eye-catching! How often do you see a jacket with black and pink and my answer would be virtually never! So of course it stands and of course I wanted to read it! Even the edges of the pages are black which makes it classy and mournful!

Three young women – Quincy, Sam and Lisa are all massacre survivors and have been given the moniker ‘Final Girls‘, they live beyond their ordeal in other words. Quincy is settled in a Manhattan apartment with Jeff, a solicitor. She has started a baking blog and spends a lot of time in the kitchen with her recipes, preparing posts for her blog. In other words, she has chosen a comfortable existence whilst trying to expunge memories of the traumatic evens at Pine Cottage.

Quincy, whose story is at the heart of this thriller has a very supportive police officer, Coop, who makes himself avaialble to her at the drop of a hat. He was in fact the very person who found her fleeing from Pine Cottage, covered in so much blood that he described her as wearing a red dress when in fact it was white and blood-soaked. Jeff, too, is supportive in his own way.  Coop shares with her the news that Lisa has just been found dead. Sam, the other final girl descends on Quincy and is welcomed with open arms. but her motives for touching base are truly questionable.

When anyone suffers a traumatic event, balanced control over one’s life is one of the first things to suffer. And Sam gradually begins to exert control over Quincy, encouraging her to act out warped power moves on others. Quincy allows herself to be manipulated, thrilled by the new sense of empowerment and freedom, gaining relief at trying to come to terms more with her traumatic experience. Learning to shoplift is merely the tip of the iceberg of increasingly deranged behaviour.

The writing is gripping. It is a very interesting premise and works quite well. It is a streamlined story, going back to the events at Pine Cottage, then fleshing out the here and now. As the book comes to its end, it begins to feel a little convoluted and slightly unbelievable; the clarity that thus far makes the story so crispy readable disappears in the mêlée and collision of the multiple strands, working towards the conclusion. Overall, however, I enjoyed the read and didn’t want to put the book down.

New York and Central Park are particularly well portrayed and you can imagine the characters in their setting.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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