The Last Girls Standing

Thank you Penguin Teen and Bookish First for this ARC, these opinions are my own. All I can say is dang! This book is a thrill ride! Sloan and her girlfriend Cherry are the only two survivors of a massacre that occurred at the summer camp they were going to be counselors at. Now the two of them are all they have that makes each other feel safe. The only problem is that Sloan has missing memories from that night and not knowing what happened is heavily weighing on her. When the find out the killers are part of a cult Sloan decides to dig to find out more. But will she like what she finds? And what if Cherry knows more then she’s let on? How deep is Sloan willing to go for answers? Intense is the word I would use to describe this book! Jennifer Dugan draws you in and has you needing to know more! The need to know why the cult targeted them, Sloan’s missing memories, and the questions surrounding Cherry will have readers unable to put the book down! And the ending will have you shook! I can’t wait to read this one again!

Unreliable narrator at her worst and truly what could make her worse? Toxic codependent relationship, self alienation from family who's trying but also terrible at it? (Who could blame em tho? Who knows how to deal with this?), hypnosis instead of actual therapy. All the ingredients for a, well let's not spoil it. This truly is a nail biter. I ripped through it. Sloan getting the worst help in the worst ways and stumbling further and further down the rabbit hole the entire ride. The mysteries and misdirections were great, just wow, what a book. Did I love the ending? No, but that's a me thing, it was a great ending. Perfect culmination of the whole ride. Give it a read, totally worth it.

You might think you're familiar with the "final girl" storyline, but this is a fresh take that goes into a lot more depth than just the superficial survivor guilt that often marks the main characters in other books with similar plots. The relationship between Cherry and Sloan is complicated, and although the suspense in the book centers around the unknown facts of what really happened at the camp, the complexities of the dynamic between them could stand alone as an entirely separate story. This is a book about what happened next, and it's a reminder that the survivors are more than just the event that left them with the "final" designation. They have personalities, baggage, and life experiences beyond just the one that captures everyone's interest. I loved the way that this book looks at the characters as whole people and explores their relationship all the while unraveling the question of what really happened.

"The Last Girls Standing" is a creepy good thriller. Sloan and Cherry met as counselors at summer camp and quickly formed a romantic connection. However, shortly after developing this connection, they would develop another bond they could never escape. They were the only survivors of a massacre that cost the lives of the camp director and other staff members, a total of eight people who were viciously murdered by individuals wearing animal masks. One of the murderers (the Fox) was captured, but the others killed themselves (suicide pact).

Sloan and Cherry are both struggling to cope with events that their family and friends cannot possibly understand. Their romantic connection has grown since the tragedy, and they now live in the same town, allowing them to see each other daily, much to the dismay of Sloan's mother, who believes that Cherry's presence is holding Sloan back from properly processing her trauma and moving on with her life. The challenge of coping with what happened to them is much harder for Sloan, who has blocked out the memories of the attack, and is relying on others, mostly Cherry, to fill in the blanks. Sloan's inability to remember what happened is particularly bothersome to her because she also suffered unknown trauma as a young child which resulted in her being placed in foster care and adopted, with no knowledge of the identity of her birth parents and only a few "tokens" of that former life. Not knowing her past but knowing that information is out there (especially as she found a redacted copy of her birth certificate) makes it difficult for Sloan to handle uncertainty and the perception that people are keeping secrets are from her.

The author does a great job of portraying Sloan's descent into paranoia as she learns new information about the attackers and their motives; discovers that her adoptive mother and Cherry have been keeping information from her; and finds things and/or overhears conversations, as well as "remembering" snippets of information from the night of the attack, that cause her to question whether Cherry or her family were somehow involved in the attack and whether Sloan's biological parents were somehow connected to the group. Sloan does not know who or what to trust, and this will have fatal ramifications.

📚BOOK REVIEW📚

The Last Girls Standing by Jennifer Dugan

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 Spice level: 0/3 Genres: YA, psychological thriller Tropes: unreliable narrator, sanity slippage, toxic friendships, cults, LQBTQ+ representation

Sloan and Cherry met only a few days before masked men with machetes attacked the summer camp where they worked. The rest of the camp staff did not survive the attack, and the traumatic experience fast tracked the budding relationship between Sloan and Cherry, making them basically inseparable.

Sloan struggles with the aftermath of the attack and feeling hopeless. There are not any good answers for why this happened to the camp, and even fewer on why they (and no one else) survived. It doesn’t help that Sloan has no memories of the night, and has to rely on Cherry’s account.

As new evidence comes to light and Sloan learns more about the motives behind the attack, she begins to suspect that Cherry might be more than just a survivor (she may have actually been part of it). Is Sloan confused, or is she seeing things clearly for the first time?

I really enjoyed this book. It has quite a few of the thriller tropes that are my favorites, like the unreliable narrator and sanity slippage. This story was definitely a bit more tame in the gore/creepy department, which makes sense because it is marketed as YA. I didn’t mind this though, as it still had the kind of suspense and thrill you would expect from a psychological thriller.

The dynamic of Cherry and Sloan was super fascinating; at first, I definitely thought she was being super gas-lighty but as the book went on I began to question it… was she just trying to protect Sloan? They were so codependent that even when Sloan was being more paranoid about Cherry, she was still the person she reached for to comfort her.

The ending was intriguing as well. There are definitely still things that haven’t been fully answered, but it feels intentional in a way that makes the reader question the events the same way Sloan was.

My only issues were that the method being used to help Sloan recover her memories felt a bit lazy, and the codependent/toxic relationship between Cherry and Sloan felt almost too cringe to read about at times (although I understand some level of this dynamic was necessary for the plot).

Overall, I really did enjoy this book. Definitely enough to make me want to check out the author’s other books as well. If you like psychological thrillers, especially if you’re newer to the genre or have a lower tolerance for gore/disturbing content, definitely give this book a read.

Thank you to Storygram Tours and Penguin Teen for a copy of this to read

Sloan and Cherry meet each other as summer camp counselors and immediately become fast friends that quickly evolves into deeper feelings. The girls enjoy getting the camp ready for the kids to arrive the following week and they also like and get along with the other counselors and are having fun while also getting paid for their time. One night their camp is attacked by a man wearing a carved wooden rabbit's mask and swinging a hatchet while killing every person that night except two survivors, Sloan and Cherry (The Last Girls Standing).

A few months later the two girls are inseparable where Sloan has alienated herself from all her former friends since she is just an empty shell living each day in unfathomable fear of the unknown. Their need and love for one another is built on the foundation of two girls surviving a horrific massacre which tore their lives apart while trying to find a so called normal way of thinking and living again. Cherry is the strong one in the relationship while Sloan suffers severe PTSD including daily nightmares where she wakes up screaming night after night. If Cherry is suffering the same way she certainly hides it well. The main reason Sloan depends on Cherry so much is she has no conscious memory of the events that took place that night except for a few, tiny bits and pieces so that everything she knows about the massacre comes from what Cherry has told her since she literally saved Sloan's life when Sloan appeared to have entered a catatonic state of frozen fear and couldn't move a muscle to save herself.

Sloan is trying hypnotherapy hoping to gain her memories back from that night which upsets Cherry since she feels the horrific visions could destroy Sloan even further. Sloan is struggling and wants her memories back so much that she's starting to think some of Cherry's stories aren't adding up and maybe Cherry has lied to her about some things especially when she innocently comes across a couple of odd and inappropriate items at Cherry's house that seem so wrong that Sloan thinks there is so much more that happened that night with her blind spots and maybe Cherry has been lying and possibly involved with the killers in some way. Now, Sloan makes it her mission to discover the truth at all costs especially if her life is on the line once again!

Well,.this was an unexpected type of horror book! I had prepared myself for a gruesome, gory sort of entertainment but this was more of a psychological thriller in my opinion. This certainly wasn't a silly, bloody slasher story but a heavy post traumatic look at one girl's experience with trying to recover from an insurmountable type of tragedy and trauma and making puzzle pieces fit where they don't belong and pushing away all the people who truly care about her because she doesn't want to burden them and also thinks they couldn't possibly understand what she's going through so it's best to stay only with the only person in the world who understands her and is also the only other person in the world except the killer who knows what really happened that night.

The book took a different turn where I was surprised at the depth of emotion which played out. I expected to be horrified with bloody terror but instead I felt such sadness for these girls especially Sloan. I wish more had been explained about what Cherry was going through since it seemed hard to believe that both girls experienced the same brutal tragic night. I wanted to know more of Cherry's story and heartache if any! I felt disconnected to Cherry's trauma since it really wasn't addressed and that was somewhat disappointing for me.

This was an intelligent and unique YA horror but geared for anyone seventeen and up (not younger). All.in all I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to any reader who likes mystery/thriller stories revolving around teenagers and their angst. There were also many funny and cute moments within all the drama so this book was definitely entertaining and a worthwhile read.

I want to thank the publisher "Penguin Group Penguin Young Readers Group" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I have given a rating of 3 1/2 UNEXPECTED SLASHING 🌟🌟🌟 🌠 STARS!!

I wanted to love this book so much, I preordered it and couldn’t wait to read. Look I’m all for weird crazy twist but there so many people in this book I didn’t like the only character I liked was her best friend. I didn’t care for either MC - Sloan or cherry. This book could have been 100 pages shorter. Most of the book was suspicions on top of suspicions and no clear resolution. And sometimes that works but with this book it didn’t work for me. 2 stars honestly but the ending made it at least a 3 for me, I also read this within a day so there’s that but I wouldn’t read this again.

I feel like this is the best review I can give without spoiling anything.

"Sixteen stitches holding her together when she could not do so herself."

The Last Girls Standing is a story of love, loss and trauma. It's also about murder, cults and a prophecy.

This book is not exactly what I thought it would be. It was so much better.

Sloan was almost murdered, being saved by Cherry, who became her girlfriend. We saw Sloan struggle with therapy, her family and just being alive. We saw her break down, spiral, be happy and, well...we saw her do the unthinkable. Something I definitely wasn't expecting, but I won't spoil it for you.

I was very much shocked at how this book ended. It was a bit of an open ending; a chance for the reader to decide where Sloan went and what would happen to her, to her family.

She felt it in her blood.

"If she was going to be murdered, if this was going to be her last night on this dying earth, she at least deserved a a quality, talented, clever killer."

This book is extremely problematic in its depiction of trauma, which is abundantly clear in the grand finale. Do we truly not care about the harm we do to those struggling with mental illness? Is an ending like that actually jaw dropping? I thought it was ridiculous, even without considering the implications it made surrounding PTSD. But as someone with C-PTSD, I found it immensely insensitive, as well.

Before I reached the end, I felt the story was stuffed with so much filler that it was splitting at its seams. I soldiered on because I wanted the truth just as much as Sloan did. I do believe this probably could have been a novella. I’d be less sour over my wasted time if it had been.

I didn’t feel the author had a firm grasp on what trauma and tragedy looks like. She tried, but there was very little depth to this. It was more of a superficial attempt to bring emotion into the narrative through a textbook comprehension of those emotions. I do not mean to imply that the author couldn’t have experienced her own tragedy or trauma, but it did not feel like she drew deep from the well of knowledge here. The girls’ codependency was well developed, although annoying at times, but my praise stops there. Everything else was flimsy and frustrating.

Don’t get me wrong. Going into this, I expected it to be more of a fun thriller, rather than a profound one, but if you’re going to take so long to build something, at least bring me out of those chilly shallow waters. This was more of an angsty love story revolving around a shared trauma than an actual thrill ride. I suppose I could have lived with that if I hadn’t hated the ending so much.

I am immensely grateful to Putnam Books, Penguin Teen, and BookishFirst for my copy. All opinions are my own.