The Final Girl Support Group

Starred review from April 26, 2021
Hendrix (The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires) delivers a wildly entertaining romp through the conventions of horror’s slasher film subgenre. The novel’s title refers to a Los Angeles–based therapeutic support group for six “final girls”—survivors of mass-murderer rampages whose experiences inspired the splatter-film franchises that saturated horror cinema in the 1980s and ’90s, earning them minor celebrity. When one of the six is murdered decades after she escaped her assailant, and others come under violent assault, Lynnette Tarkington—herself a survivor of the Silent Night Slayings of 1988—realizes that someone is trying to orchestrate an extravagant final girl finale. But is the killer a garden-variety homicidal maniac, an unhinged slasher-film superfan, or someone more intimately familiar with their group? Hendrix masterfully evokes the paranoid existences of his diverse cast in the aftermath of their traumatic ordeals, and he so explicitly details the massacres and fictional film sagas that grew out of them that readers may believe them to be real. The result is a wonderfully suspenseful and darkly comic novel that cleverly subverts popular culture. Horror fans will be wowed. Agent: Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary.

May 15, 2021
Serial killer survivors are forced to cooperate when they're dragged screaming back into jeopardy. You have to give it to Hendrix, author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires (2020), for tapping into his deep knowledge of horror films and fiction to find a new angle on the tropes of terror with every outing. In the same way Edgar Cantero lampooned Scooby Doo in Meddling Kids (2017), this scary unraveling aims straight for the sheer terrors the best slasher films create. Here, Hendrix has zeroed in on the so-called "final girl," the sole survivor of a horrific massacre--you're already thinking of Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween movies or Sigourney Weaver in Alien. This book is even more skin-crawling, as deeply paranoid Lynnette Tarkington (impaled on an antler trophy during her first unfortunate encounter years ago) reluctantly participates in group therapy sessions with Dr. Carol Elliot along with fellow survivors Marilyn Torres, who has buried her emotions in wealth; Dani Shipman, who might have killed the wrong person; Julia Campbell, whose encounter left her in a wheelchair; and Heather DeLuca, who is succumbing to addiction. Hendrix can be tongue-in-cheek (see Horrorst�r, 2014) but is deadly serious here while still warping the conventions of the genre, including the fact that some of the survivors have participated in graphic horror flicks depicting their very real traumas. The book is creepy enough on its face, but Hendrix's use of expedient narrative tools, including a laconic cowboy lawman, an overly eager journalist, and a host of archetypal serial killers, heightens the unease. After one member of this vigilant sisterhood is murdered and a series of oddly prescient attacks threaten the rest, Lynnette becomes increasingly suspicious that the attacks are originating way too close to their inner circle. "Does this ever end?" Lynnette asks. "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?" A bloody and grotesque but ultimately entertaining and inspiring take on horror movies, trauma, and self-determination.

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Starred review from June 1, 2021

Lynnette Tarkington is part of a small club of six young women who have survived terrible trauma. They are the real-life "final girls" whose friends and loved ones were killed by a maniac and who found the strength to fight back. Their lives have been immortalized in many of your favorite horror movies, but after the credits roll, the final girls live in constant fear. Told from Lynnette's paranoid point of view, Hendrix's (My Best Friend's Exorcism) latest features a group that begins to drift apart just as someone is trying to pick them off one by one. The story is fast-paced, well plotted, and full of twists, and Lynnette is the perfect imperfect final girl, a heroine readers want to root for despite her flaws. Hendrix's writing truly shines in the details, such as chapter titles phrased as sequels to the novel; none of these sequels is real, but their presence in the book allows its final girls to leap off the page and into the world. VERDICT Hendrix presents yet another thought-provoking, fun, and chilling winner with perfect timing, as the slasher novel seems to be trending. A great choice for fans of Night of the Mannequins, by Stephen Graham Jones, or Clown in a Cornfield, by Adam Cesare, but also for readers who loved the darkly humorous but intense psychological suspense of My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2021
In old-school slasher movies, there's always one traumatized, blood-drenched teen who survives the knife-wielding bad guy. Hendrix (The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, 2020) follows up with these so-called Final Girls in this entertaining, fast-paced, and darkly humorous novel that reads like a sequel to a spooky '80s horror flick. The title refers to a therapy group of women who survived mass murderers similar to Michael Myers in Halloween and Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th. When a string of attacks starts targeting fellow survivors, Lynnette Tarkington (antihero and survivor of the 1988 Silent Night Slayings), wonders if it's all part of a big scheme for a gory, grand finale. Who is behind this twisted nightmare--and why now? This epic thrill ride reminiscent of R. L. Stine's teen slashers is perfect for Christopher Moore's fans and scream queen aficionados nostalgic for B-movie classics. Don't be fooled by the gore and adrenaline rush, though. Hendrix delivers the right amount of jumps and scares while highlighting imperfect and human characters who forge indestructible friendships against all odds.

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