Killing the Final Girl Trope: Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

 Going into this book, I had almost no expectations. It was recommended to me by a friend, based solely on the fact that I like getting creeped out, I like LGBT+ respresentation, and I like YA fiction. To anyone who also likes those things, I would read this book. Even if you're kind of iffy on those things, I'd read this book, because it's undeniably creepy and works as a horor/thriller, and does so while inverting a lot of the overdone, sexist tropes found in horror today.

Image Credit: Goodreads.com

Perspective switches between our three protagonists; awkward, shy Marion, who is still grieving the death of her father and trying desperately to hold her family together despite being the youngest of her family, feminist and social pariah Zoey, who, like Marion, is grieving her missing bestie and her recent ex she dumped because she realized she was asexual, but is angry and outspoken about it, and last but not least, Val, the pretty and popular but darkly twisted girl who's family employs Marion's mother after they relocate to Sawkill.

With how the characters are set up and the roles they're playing (I'm being vague as to not give much away, because you're going to need to read the damn book), it would've been so easy to pit Val against Marion and Zoey, plain and simple, and have Marion and Zoey defeat the evil lurking on the island, and Val can suck it. But, no. There's no girl vs. girl rivalry, save for Zoey's ire towards Val over her possible involvement in her friend's disappearance. Instead, there's a tentative friendship between Val and Marion that becomes a relationship, and when push comes to shove Zoey is, albeit hesitantly, able to set aside her beef with Val to save the day with her and Marion. It's not subtle, either, as the solution to the Big Bad in the book is that the girls need to fight each other, and the three just go, "Uh, no," and proceed to find their own, better way. Spoiler: It works.

The depth and dimension of the characters is spread equally, so much so that for once I can say I don't have a "favorite" of the main trio. They're all fleshed out, realistic characters, and I'd throw myself into the spooky-ass Sawkill woods for all of them. Each girl has her own dilemma and feelings to work through, Marion feeling emotionally abandoned by her mother and sister, Val struggling with duty to her mother over her own hopes and dreams, and Zoey with overcoming her insecurity about her asexuality, and the ways in which they feel about them and think about them and work through them all feel so incredibly authentic. None of the girls attack each other over the typical things YA authors seem to think girls focus on, i.e., "You're fat/ugly/lame/etc," and the one time there is a petty jab thrown, it isn't by Val the Mean Popular Girl, it's by Marion, who is promptly called out for it.

I feel like this book managed to do well from every angle. It had it's horror moments, with creepy imagery and gore-filled slayings, and it had it's contemporary moments, which were surprisingly "woke", but not in an unnatural, trying-too-hard way, and it had romance, done right and done well, if a little on the instalove side, but I'll let it slide for avoiding a hundred overdone tropes that most horror/YA books do. I would absolutely read this again, and recommend it to my friends.

Plot: 4/5
Writing Style: 5/5
Pacing: 3.5/5
Characters: 5/5
Overall: 4.3/5

Thanks for reading!
Davis