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.
October 1, 2021
Hendrix (My Best Friend's Exorcism) covers the slasher movie genre in his latest horror satire, which asks how the "Final Girl"--the one who survives a dramatic serial killer rampage--manages to go on living with the survivor label hanging over her head. Middle-aged Final Girl Lynette lives a paranoid existence, with a support group of fellow Final Girls as her lone source of socialization. Lynette realizes something's wrong when the police find the severed head of another Final Girl who didn't show up for a group therapy session. The resulting chase sends up classic slasher franchises, including Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scream, punctuated by the in-universe newspaper articles that are a hallmark of Hendrix's work. This dark humor hits the sweet spot where solidarity meets resilience. Hendrix knows his craft, but he walks a thin line between exploring a single idea thoroughly and exhausting it. Narrator Adrienne King provides the perfect voice for Lynette, quiet but determined, and neutral enough for deadpan gags and tense moments alike. VERDICT The audio format is a good choice for libraries, especially since this book relies less on visual gags than older Hendrix titles.--Aaron Heil, State Lib. of Kansas
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