Rating: 4/5
Review:
This was my third Riley Sager novel and it did not disappoint! This story follows Quincy Carpenter who, ten years ago, was the sole-survivor of a brutal massacre during a trip with friends. In the middle of the woods, at Pine Cottage, all of Quincy’s best friends were brutally murdered and somehow she escaped. This horrible incident made her part of a group called “The Final Girls”, whether she wanted to be part of it or not. Two other women had lived after similar massacres. The three of them made headlines across the country. Quincy has tried her best to move on with her life, to not let Pine Cottage define her. In fact, she can’t remember most of that night. She thinks she has done a pretty good job moving forward. She has a baking blog, a serious boyfriend, a great apartment, and help from a Xanax prescription. She’s moving on with her life. That is until the first of the Final Girls, Lisa, ends up dying by suicide and the second Final Girl, Sam, shows up at Quincy’s doorstep. As soon as Sam enters her life, things become much more complicated and nothing is quite as it seems. Did Lisa take her own life or was someone else involved? What is Sam up to? And why can’t Quincy remember the events of that horrific night?
This story takes many twists and turns and kept me guessing until the very end. It is very much a “slasher film” type story and unlike many thrillers I’ve read before.
Synopsis:
“Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout’s knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media’s attempts, they never meet.
Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.
That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy’s doorstep. Blowing through Quincy’s life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa’s death come to light, Quincy’s life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam’s truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.”
goodreads.com
