The Last Final Girl

By: Stephen Graham Jones

Narrated by: Eric G. Dove

Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

"The Last Final Girl is like Quentin Tarantino's take on The Cabin in the Woods. Bloody, absurd, and smart. Plus, there's a killer in a Michael Jackson mask." (Carlton Mellick III, author of Apeshit)

Life in a slasher film is easy. You just have to know when to die.

Aerial View: A suburban town in Texas. Everyone's got an automatic garage door opener. All the kids jump off a perilous cliff into a shallow river as a rite of passage. The sheriff is a local celebrity. You know this town. You're from this town.

Zoom In: Homecoming princess, Lindsay. She's just barely escaped death at the hands of a brutal, sadistic murderer in a Michael Jackson mask. Up on the cliff, she was rescued by a horse and bravely defeated the killer, alone, bra-less. Her story is already a legend. She's this town's heroic final girl, their virgin angel.

Monster Vision: Halloween masks floating down that same river the kids jump into. But just as one slaughter is not enough for Billie Jean, our masked killer, one victory is not enough for Lindsay. Her high school is full of final girls, and she's not the only one who knows the rules of the game.

When Lindsay chooses a host of virgins, misfits, and former final girls to replace the slaughtered members of her original homecoming court, it's not just a fight for survival - it's a fight to become The Last Final Girl.

©2012 Stephen Graham Jones (P)2018 Journalstone Publishing

Great idea, Pretentious execution.

the author had a great concept. the story itself was solid. athe script like writing style leaves a lot to be desired. I want to like it but got bogged down and distracted by all of the POV direction and flashbacks in for of "cutaway to" jargon.

I want to love this story...

The story was great, and I tried so hard to enjoy it without struggle. on top of that there are probably 2 of the most gruesome slasher kills in here that take the cake, but it was a struggle. The format, like it's a movie script, was not enjoyable, personally. Chainsaw and Reaper were fantastic, but this fell short for me, but not in story.

Not his best!

This story had a lot of potential, and I truly like the Author.
Unfortunately as I stated above, this is not his best book.
Every few sentences the term “POV” is thrown in, and a couple of times would’ve been ok. But after the fiftieth time, it becomes rather annoying! Eventually it reaches distracting level, and by the end of the book I was just trying to tolerate the story.
I cannot recommend this book.

Author was great, narrator not so much

With a primarily female cast the male narrators performance is lacking. His voice rings false with each additional character. The females he portrays are all breathy and whiny and the males are bland and repetitive. The most irritating part is his base announcer voice that is used throughout. Almost as if the narrators lines are supposed to sound like car commercial or an overly excited color commentator. The experience could’ve been much greater with a decent female voice leading this performance.
Definitely pick up a copy of the book just about this audio version.

Not sure if a non slasher fan would enjoy

I’m both a slasher and satire fan and I thoroughly enjoyed the story and references. Highly recommend to any slasher fan!

Solid all around

There are, at this time, six reviews immediately below this one that all either miss something, or are drivel in themselves. The story is really good. There are some things you pick up on/know/expect from the beginning. That’s how slashers work. I’d always that the film genre just wouldn’t work on the page/audiobook, but SGJ and Grady Hendrix have both proven me wrong. The narrator is fine. His characterization of the voices hits the stock-character nature of the genre pretty well. I did wonder at times whether it was the narrator or the script, though, when Izzy became Lizzy and Lindsay did the same. Those were tiny instances, though. If you appreciate a writer aware of his genre, writing a story that’s _supposed_ to be aware of itself, and a fun story to boot, give it a listen.

interesting idea, poor execution

the concept was interesting but the execution wasn't great. hard to follow and disappointing

Love the author, loathe the narrator

Stephen Graham Jones is one of my favorite authors. He’s witty, sardonic, smart, and has a great read on culture, whether that’s pop culture, Blackfeet culture, or middle American mainstream culture. I’ve been looking forward to this book, and it makes a great double bill with Grady Hendrix’ “The Final Girl Support Group.”

Unfortunately, they chose the worst narrator possible for this project. Eric G. Dove always sounds like he’s mocking Dan Rather. His accent is so broadly middle America that he sounds like a parody of himself half the time. His women are too high pitched, and in this project he sounds like he’s contemptuous of all the female characters, and many of the male ones. He over acts.

The characterization is carried by the fine writing. I don’t need Dove acting it out like a high school theater production.

I’m going to try to go a little bit further with this, but I’m afraid I’ll just have to return the audiobook and get a print copy, before Dove ruins the novel for me.

Meh

A meta-slasher story somewhat in the style of Scream sounds like something I would have loved, but this one missed the mark for me. I appreciate what the author was trying to do here, but the writing just felt all over the place and messy. I had trouble staying interested in what was happening.

The gimmick grows old fast.

If I wanted to read a movie script, I would read a movie script. I wanted to read a book with prose and internal analysis. Writing the whole book like a script is an interesting idea but it gets old fast and it leads to several weaknesses in the writing. The author is seemingly obsessed with overly sexualizing high school girls. The narration, adult men -including one girl’s father- and the girls themselves all obsessively talk about their breasts. The story could work if told in a better way. If you must read this book do not choose the audiobook format. The narration is poor, the narrator is a bad match and he cannot do voices -especially female voices. All and all don’t waste your credit on this audiobook. I really wish I hadn’t.