Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix

8 reviews

laguerrelewis's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad 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

4.0

Final Girl Support Group works on many levels. It’s a feminist reframing of horror tropes. It’s a love letter to every Final Girl. It’s a protest to a culture of violence and dehumanization. It’s also a very good thriller. The only reasons it’s not rated higher is because it could’ve been improved by a more diverse lens of womanhood (all of our protagonists are white) and beyond our POV character, the others were hard to get a full read on until the end. The ending though is Top Notch. If the premise is at all appealing, this is worth the read!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Police brutality, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/injury detail, Suicide attempt, Child death, Death, Abandonment, Cursing, Gore, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Stalking, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Medical content, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, and Racism

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

This book is about a group of women who all have been victimized by violent men & have watched others die in front of them. It uses the slasher film as a model for the stories of each woman and the tie that binds them to one another. It was a fun read but not terribly scary. I didn’t care for any of the characters and I felt that the different things like excerpts from articles and emails and such took away from the story instead of adding to it - they were distracting to me and broke up the story in a way I didn’t like. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Sexism, Ableism, Blood, Emotional abuse, Stalking, Murder, Grief, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Gun violence, Gaslighting, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Violence, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/injury detail, and Gore

itsheyfay's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Violence, Body horror, Cancer, Car accident, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/injury detail, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, and Misogyny

Moderate: Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Sexual harassment, and Abandonment

Minor: Mass/school shootings, Ableism, and Racism

apestforwrens's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Slow start but worth it. Our heroine takes a little time to warm up to, but do not let that discourage you. This is coming from someone who does not like horror: I loved this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Injury/injury detail, Violence, Blood, Physical abuse, Medical content, Misogyny, Death, Gun violence, Murder, Mental illness, and Grief

Moderate: Chronic illness, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Medical content, Police brutality, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Animal death, Cancer, Confinement, Gaslighting, Panic attacks/disorders, Car accident, Child abuse, Cursing, Mental illness, and Abandonment

Its a slasher, there is genre typical content. Because it takes place from within the heroine's head, there is some derealization.

leahrosiee's review against another edition

challenging tense fast-paced

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

2.0

This was … wild. The author does a great job of making you feel just as crazy as the MC in the beginning. I just don’t think a male author could accurately write about the fears of women who have been preyed upon their entire lives. I felt the whole time it would be better as a movie. There wasn’t much “horror” at all, though there were so many twists and turns it became hard to keep track of who the target was.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Torture, Injury/injury detail, Murder, Toxic friendship, Death, Gun violence, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Gore, Blood, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Sexism, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Stalking, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

Minor: Child death, Death of parent, Cancer, and Excrement

sheaisaliterarywreck's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I wanted to love this book. I did. I did. I did.

I did not.

Trigger warnings: depictions of violence, gore, gun violence, emotional and psychological abuse, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, discussion and implication of sexual trauma and assault, instances of negative/derogatory language about mental health issues.

Trope-y Summary: Unreliable Narrator sees a major danger coming, but no one believes her—the girl who cried wolf and all that. Now UN must embark on a dangerous quest to both save her friends and convince them they need to save themselves.

Hendrix's writing is fast-paced and easy-to-read. I actually quite liked the odd glimpses of reddit threads and newspaper clippings that were interspersed between chapters, as well. My good things to say about the book might end there.

I'm a sucker for an unreliable narrator, but I'm not certain I've ever encountered one quite as unreliable as Lynne. I found her distorted reality actually quite difficult to try to co-exist in with her (I found reading from her perspective quite anxiety-inducing—as was the point, I'm sure). I think Lynne is supposed to have OCD—(view spoiler)—, but the portrayal was lacklustre. Granted, as someone who has OCD, I am overly bored of OCD only being depicted through pushed-to-the-brink recluses and what I like to call one-hit-wonders (characters who miraculously have their OCD show up in only one "theme" or tiny area of their life that never evolves as their values shift like the chronic ego-dystonic illness actually does). Lynne is somehow both of these tropes I dislike.

Also, MAJOR ENDING SPOILER:

Spoiler

I did not like how the book tied together slasher films and mass shootings in its ending. The nearly school-aged children using automatic rifles for glory...

It made a point, but not an insightful one IMO

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Gore, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Injury/injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Murder, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Sexual violence, Abandonment, Cancer, Terminal illness, Body horror, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Sexual assault and Suicidal thoughts

kelly617's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Death, Gore, Grief, Injury/injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence

Minor: Ableism, Alcohol, Child death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, and Cancer

mallory10100's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

wow this was a wild ride!! it was more brutal/gruesome/gory/disturbing than i expected! it’s my first horror read and i had a blast! if you like classic slasher movies you’d definitely enjoy this one! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/injury detail, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexual content, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Violence, Vomit, and Police brutality

Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Vomit, and Police brutality