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Adrienne King, the first Final Girl from the first Friday the 13th,
is the narrator of the audiobook!

final girl (n.)—the last and sole survivor of a horror movie

“His characters are funny and real, though at least one will definitely lose a limb at some point.”
- The New York Times

“a wonderfully suspenseful and darkly comic novel that cleverly subverts popular culture.”
- Publisher’s Weekly

"Hendrix’s cinematic knowledge is deployed with skill, and it’s not necessary to be a fan of slasher movies to enjoy this very clever, gleefully violent, self-aware deconstruction of the genre."
— The Guardian

"A must read for stalk ‘n’ slash fans and another hit from a horror writer at the top of his game."
— SFX

“A bloody and grotesque but ultimately entertaining and inspiring take on horror movies, trauma, and self-determination.”
— Kirkus

“This is a must-read for stalk 'n' slash fans and another hit from a horror writer at the top of his game.”
— SFX Magazine

“Hendrix presents yet another thought-provoking, fun, and chilling winner.”
— Library Journal, starred review

“The page-turning slasher of the summer.”
— AV Club

In a South Carolina movie theater in 1987 I saw Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. In the movie, Heather Langenkamp appears again as Nancy Thompson, the survivor of the events from the first NOES, running a group therapy session for a bunch of kids who are being terrorized (again) by Freddy. Lightning struck my brain. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The final girl of one horror movie doing therapy for people trapped inside another horror movie? It’s the best idea the genre ever had.

Cut to 2013. Every book I write is an attempt to answer some question that won’t let me go and that year I had a single, burning question: what the hell was wrong with me? I’d been watching horror movies all my life, which meant that I’d spent close to 40 years watching people getting murdered for my entertainment. It didn’t seem normal. I started writing The Final Girl Support Group as a way of answering that question: what had horror done to me? As I wrote, it turned into a much bigger book.

This is a book about a group of final girls, survivors of real-life events that have been turned into successful film franchises, but 20 years later the spotlight has moved on, society has found new monsters and victims, but these women still sit in a circle of chairs in a church basement trying to figure out how to live their lives. Some of them are in denial about what happened, others feel like they’re obsessing over something that happened when they were 16 and shouldn’t they move on by now, everyone else has? Some still live in terror, always looking over their shoulders, imprisoned by their own fears. But when someone starts to kill them one by one, they start to seem like the smart ones.

What does it mean when the worst thing that can possibly happen to you happens when you’re 16 years old? How do you live the rest of your life in its shadow? How do you pick up the pieces and move on? Is moving on even possible? Dying is easy, it turns out. Living is what’s hard.

I spent 7 years writing this book because it took me that long to get it right. It’s finished now, and I’m very nervous to let go of its hand and send it toddling out into the world on its own, but I’m also very excited for you to finally meet The Final Girl Support Group, a book that started all the way back in 1987. A book that’s about trying to be smart enough, fast enough, and tough enough to face down all the things that want us dead.


“The Final Girl Support Group sizzles with action, originality, and a gleaming concept sharp as a scalpel.”
— Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Pray for morning, wish for speed, and be as quiet as you can, it doesn’t matter — Grady Hendrix’s The Final Girl Support Group already knows where you live.”
— Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

“A crazy emotional roller coaster ride that took me right back to 1980, but it needs a warning label: may cause severe anxiety, suggest reading with CBD and a glass of wine.”
— Adrienne King, actress, Friday the 13th’s first Final Girl

“The Final Girl Support Group is a deft examination of how our culture's obsession with misogynistic violence destroys the lives of women and how those women are able to keep fighting and living after unthinkable trauma. The beating heart of this book is empathy and it's set into a lightning-paced, vicious thriller. Reading it was a catharsis. Absolutely unmissable.”
— Mallory O'Meara, bestselling author of The Lady From the Black Lagoon

“The Final Girl Support Group is perfect for anyone who loves old slasher movies and, oddly enough, anyone who hates them. Grady Hendrix has somehow crafted both an homage to B-horror schlock and a clever dissection of the genre, all delivered in the form of one long breathless chase punctuated by both unpredictable twists and thoughtful insight.”
— David Wong, New York Times bestselling author of John Dies at the End

“With The Final Girl Support Group Grady Hendrix transforms a horror trope into something bloody original. An incisive examination of society’s obsession with violence against women that simultaneously honors and roasts the slasher genre with equal prowess. Wildly entertaining and clever as hell.”
– Rachel Harrison, author of The Return

“Take slasher movie adoration, critique, and satire, mix with compelling, flawed characters and neck-breaking plot twists, and drop it all into an industrial blender with large blades. Voilà, you now have Grady’s maniacally clever and compulsively readable The Final Girl Support Group.”
– Paul Tremblay, national bestselling author of Survivor Song