Final Girls: A Novel

Published in 2017, Final Girls is a thriller novel written by American novelist Todd Ritter under the nom de plume Riley Sager. Inspired by John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 slasher film, Halloween, Sager sought to present a thoughtful story about a final girl’s life in the years after a massacre, exploring what would happen if a group of final girls were to meet and support one another. The novel won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hard Cover Novel in 2017.

Final Girls is the story of Quincy Carpenter, the lone survivor of the brutal Pine Cottage murders. The press quickly labels her a Final Girl, recalling two survivors of earlier killing sprees. Ten years later, Quincy is still trying to move on from the tragedy when she learns that the first Final Girl, Lisa Milner, has died. Quincy is soon visited by the only other surviving Final Girl, Samantha Boyd, who urges her to remember her repressed memories of Pine Cottage. Quincy must decide whether to trust Sam, who may be harboring a secret, sinister agenda. The novel explores the themes Navigating the Divide Between Public and Private Identities, Women Reclaiming Agency in the Wake of Violence, and Solidarity in Survivorship.

This study guide refers to the first paperback printing of the novel, published in 2018 by Dutton.

Content Warning: The source material for this study guide depicts or references death by suicide, drug addiction, and sexual abuse, and it includes descriptions of gore. There are also scenes depicting violence against unhoused people. Finally, the novel briefly hints at damaging stereotypes about mental illness and psychosis in order to ultimately subvert those stereotypes.

Plot Summary

The novel unfolds over two parallel narratives. The primary narrative, which is told by Quincy Carpenter in first-person voice, takes place 10 years after the Pine Cottage killings. The secondary narrative, which is told by a third-person close narrator, flashes back to the events leading up to and immediately following the Pine Cottage killings.

Ten years after escaping her death, Quincy Carpenter maintains a public identity as the lone survivor of the Pine Cottage killings. She began repressing her memories of Pine Cottage from the moment the killings occurred. In the present, she works as a baking blogger and lives in New York City with her boyfriend, public defender Jeff Richards. The only other member of her support system is Franklin “Coop” Cooper, the police officer who saved her from the killer, Joe Hannen, on the night of the murders. Quincy refuses to speak Hannen’s name aloud, only referring to him with the use of masculine pronouns.

Coop visits Quincy with news that Lisa Milner, an old acquaintance of Quincy’s, has died by suicide. Lisa was the first Final Girl, having survived a similar killing spree when Quincy was still a child. Soon after Pine Cottage, Lisa reached out to Quincy to teach her how to live with her new public identity. The news of Lisa’s death makes Quincy antsy, especially after Quincy learns that Lisa attempted to contact her an hour before she died. While avoiding the press, Quincy is suddenly approached by a woman who introduces herself as Samantha Boyd (Sam), the second Final Girl.

Sam is visiting to check in on Quincy in the wake of Lisa’s death. Sam was previously reclusive, but now feels guilty thinking that she could have prevented Lisa’s death by being part of her support system. Quincy and Sam bond over baking and cooking. Though Sam gets into trouble with both Jeff and the police, Quincy vouches for her, knowing Sam has no one else to rely on.

Sam tries to get Quincy to remember her repressed memories of the Pine Cottage killings. She also stokes Quincy’s anger, encouraging her to take it out on the world by shoplifting and defending women from assault. Things take a turn for the worse when the investigation into Lisa’s death reveals that she didn’t die by suicide, but by murder. In her fear and anger, Quincy loses control while provoking an unhoused man named Rocky Ruiz to assault her. She nearly beats him to death.

Sam remains calm, but Quincy panics when the police connect them to Ruiz’s assault. Quincy’s trust in Sam wanes when she learns that Sam had been with Lisa in the days leading up to her death. Sam also antagonizes Quincy, threatening to expose her role in the assault while challenging her to acknowledge her memories of the killer.

Frustrated with Sam, Quincy travels with Jeff to Chicago, using her free time to visit Lisa’s house in Indiana. She finds folders on each of the Final Girls, allowing her to discover that Lisa had attempted to reach out to Coop and Lisa’s mother, Sheila, to talk about Pine Cottage. When Quincy confronts her mother, Sheila admits that she had attempted to force a sense of normalcy on Quincy. Quincy soon realizes that Sam had posed as Lisa to gather information on Pine Cottage.

Returning home, Quincy finds Sam and Coop in the midst of an intimate encounter, which upsets her. Sam criticizes Quincy for judging her when Quincy has used her emotional needs to keep Coop around for so long. When Coop tries to explain that he has always been in love with Quincy, they have sex.

Quincy meets with Jonah Thompson, a journalist who has been investigating Sam. Looking into the name “Tina Stone,” which Sam claimed to have legally adopted after she became a Final Girl, Jonah reveals that Sam and Tina are two different people. Quincy confirms that Tina has stolen Sam’s identity when she returns to her apartment. Tina drugs Quincy by spiking her beverage with Xanax.

It is revealed that Tina was a patient at Blackthorn Psychiatric Hospital at the same time as Joe Hannen. Unable to believe that Joe was the killer, Tina spent the next 10 years frustrated by his portrayal in mass media. She takes her vindictive anger out once on a former orderly who had been abusive to female patients at Blackthorn. When a stranger mistook Tina for Sam, Tina became inspired to seek the truth about Joe by pretending to be Sam.

Tina takes Quincy back to Pine Cottage, forcing her to remember the killings. The second storyline reveals that Quincy’s last visit to the cottage was occasioned by the birthday of her best friend, Janelle. Janelle invites Joe to her party when he appears, claiming his car has broken down. During the party, Quincy expects to lose her virginity to a friend named Craig. However, Craig’s behavior around sex disappoints her. She later finds Janelle and Craig having sex, which angers her. Quincy instead has sex with Joe, and Joe encourages her to let go of her anger when she takes a knife to scare Janelle and Craig. Soon after leaving the knife in the woods, Quincy hears Janelle and Craig screaming. She assumes that Joe had taken the knife and killed her friends himself. However, her return to Pine Cottage in the present storyline reveals that Joe had returned to the cabin later on, mistakenly believing that Quincy had been the one to commit the murders. Quincy’s unlocked memories allow her to realize that Coop was the real killer.

Responding to Quincy’s distress message, Coop arrives at Pine Cottage and shoots Tina down. Using the last of her strength, Tina passes Rocky’s stolen pocket knife to Quincy. After Coop explains his penchant for murder and his admiration for Quincy, Quincy stabs him to death, acknowledging her identity as a Final Girl. Tina survives but is sentenced to prison, taking the blame for Rocky’s assault. She maintains her friendship with Quincy, who decides to break up with Jeff after admitting what she had done. Quincy also reconciles with her mother. The novel ends when Quincy learns that another girl named Hayley Pace has survived a new killing spree. She visits Hayley to support her as a Final Girl.