Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Final Girls by Riley Sager

10 reviews

kyriannaj's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Alcohol, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Violence, Blood, Cursing, and Grief

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Confinement, Eating disorder, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Stalking, Suicide, Mental illness, and Sexual harassment

texas_reznikoff's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

i would’ve given the a five star rating if it hadn’t been for the painfully slow beginning and the unbelievably perfect ending. i think it was just how mundane the first half of the book was, but when the plot actually picked up, everything happened so fast. the ending was also just really perfect. everything, and i mean everything, gets resolved. i also found it really weird how after quincy gets her memory back, we don’t get anything else about her mourning her friends? you’d think after having to relive watching her friends be slaughtered in front of her, there’d at least be something about her accepting what happened to everyone. i just found it kinda disappointing how quickly quincy moves on from everyone’s deaths, how there’s nothing else about the friend group. i wish we got to see more of the friend group, more about rodney, amy and betz. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Drug use, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Cursing, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Violence, Suicide, and Toxic friendship

mnc84's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Physical abuse, Cursing, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Rape

percys_panda_pillow_pet's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

At this point in time, Riley Sager is a popular thriller author online, having published several successful thrillers in the past few years. Final Girls is his first thriller, published in 2017. I picked up this book partially because of the author's name and partially because a friend of mine who is into 80's slasher really got me into horror and the concept of a final girl, the one who survives all the horrors of a single terrible night.

Sager's Final Girls isn't unique in wanting to explore the idea of the final girl further, of what it's like after everything. Previously, there was The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones in 2012 and later, in 2021, Grady Hendrix's The Final Girl Support Group. All of these books follow a similar storyline: there are these "final girls" who each survive what is by all accounts a massacre and then they are seemingly being killed off until the main character is left. This leaves the main character a "true" survivor, I suppose.

My problem with Sager's Final Girls isn't that there are other books like it, there are many ways to tell the same story after all. More so, I could tell Sager was still inexperienced at writing when it was published. While I appreciated the thematic nature of the past being told in the third person point of view and the present told in first person point of view, since the main character and narrator, Quincy, is unreliable due to her amnesia of the horrible night all her friends were killed; in the end, I found the switch in POV jarring to go between. 

As well, I could tell Sager was inexperienced in writing women specifically. Quincy herself was very annoying, and constantly got in her own way. But there was not only a strange love triangle between her, her boyfriend Jeff, and Coop, the cop who saved her life, there were also strange homoerotic tones between Quincy and her female friends/acquaintances. I felt like the was supposed to be a commentary on sexuality perhaps, especially when it comes to final girls (Check out Dead Meat Podcast Episode 15: Final Girl on YouTube for more information about that), but so much of it flopped and came off as cringey. 

I liked that Quincy was unreliable and I was intrigued by the complexity of several of the characters. However, they were often too unlikable for me to really invest in them fully, and I constantly found myself hating each and every one of them at different points in the book. 

Overall, I personally think that maybe the concept of finals girls should be left to the movies, or perhaps women authors who may be able to understand the deeper fears that persist in today's society of violence against women. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Vomit, Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Drug abuse, Blood, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Suicide, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Classism, Cursing, Toxic friendship, Alcoholism, Self harm, Eating disorder, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Police brutality, Sexism, Ableism, Cancer, Misogyny, Racism, and Death

As for the ending,

Spoiler

I was shocked by the twist with "Sam"/Tina, but I called Coop from the start a creep and I am glad it was the cop. Real good ACAB message lol

Spoiler

directorpurry's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, and Gun violence

Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual content, Alcohol, Suicide, and Drug use

Minor: Confinement, Medical content, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

boundforinfinity's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A genuinely impressive book that surprised and excited me. 

Quincy's Final Girls are comprised of three, majorly smart victims. No not victims. Survivors. Quincy Carpenter, Lisa Milner and Samantha Boyd are standout, independent, strong female characters that thrill the reader.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Gore, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Suicide, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Gun violence, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, Death, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Grief, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

knightreads's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse

Moderate: Mental illness, Murder, Violence, and Suicide

Minor: Sexual harassment, Sexual content, and Vomit

jenrenby's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It started off pretty slow and took a while to get to the good parts. I found certain aspects of it to be predictable, but others kept me guessing. None of the characters were likable, so it wasn't as fun as if I had liked any of them. Overall, a decent thriller.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Drug abuse, Addiction, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Blood

Minor: Suicide

seawarrior's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

While definitely a page turner, Final Girls was somewhat of a letdown for me. It probably doesn't help that I read Home Before Dark recently before this, where Sager's writing is much stronger in my opinion.

The main merit of this book is how easily it held my interest. I checked it out from the library planning to read it over several days, and ended up finishing it in a matter of hours. Unfortunately I felt that the twists in the plot were somewhat predictable, and I don't say that lightly, as I actively try not to predict the answer to mysteries as I'm reading them. This led to an anticlimatic end in my experience, made all the more unsatisfying by my mild investment in the characters. As much as I wanted to love these stubborn, surviving women, they felt a little too much like flat, paperdoll people to spark my investment or pathos. 

Though I have more harsh notes on this book than positive ones, I don't feel that it's altogether terrible and I don't regret reading it. The writing isn't excellent, but it's entertaining nonetheless and I would still recommend it to others looking for an engaging thriller to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Suicide attempt and Sexual harassment

Minor: Rape, Incest, Pedophilia, Police brutality, and Terminal illness

bookishgoob's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

“I’m the moth that got careless with the flame. Now i’m engulfed” slow paced and utterly uninteresting in the first half, you follow a girl with no memory of what happened to her after being the only survivor of a massacre that left all of her friends dead. she was the only survivor. she was a “final girl” a term used when talking about horror movies most of the time to describe the girl at the end of a movie that is the only survivor of what happened. the first 50% of this book left me with the feeling of wanting to just not finish at all but I don’t like to DNF books unless it’s so terrible or uninteresting so i pushed through and finished it. the twists and turns were surprising, but only to an extent. i called a few of them from a mile away, a few of them though were not so easy to spot. switching from the final girls perspective to a 3rd person account of what happened to her 10 years early was an interesting choice, just not very well executed in my opinion. not getting much on either end of the story made it dull and it felt slightly repetitive. all in all, i’m glad i finished it but i would not read it again and i don’t think i would really recommend it. unless you like slow paced stories that really feel like they have no direction in the beginning. i give this read a 2/5. it was an okay spooky season read. but if you have a choice between this title, or another thriller, i would vote that you get the other one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, and Torture