Monday, August 7, 2017

Final Girls; Marked for Death

Being a horror movie fan, I was excited when I heard about Riley Sager's (a pseudonym for...someone? not sure who) "Final Girls", and it didn't disappoint. If you don't know what a Final Girl is, she's the last one standing at the end of a slasher movie. Think Heather Langenkamp from the Nightmare on Elm Street series. She has to watch all her friends die and be the only survivor. That's Quincy's life. Ten years earlier, her friends were all butchered at Pine Cottage, and Quincy was the only one who made it out alive. Lisa, another final girl who reached out to Quincy over the years, is found dead from an apparent suicide and Quincy's not sure what to think. She's spent years not talking about what happened to her, drinking too much wine and taking too many Xanax, working hard to maintain a "normal" facade. Then Sam shows up. Sam is a final girl, too, she went into hiding years earlier, but now she wants to talk to Quincy about what happened to Lisa. I tried so hard to guess the twist at the end but I failed miserably, which is a good thing, I enjoyed the suspense. You really didn't know who to trust.

After reading "Road to Jonestown" a few weeks ago, I wanted to hear what Jim Jones' personal attorney and right hand man for many years, Tim Stoen, had to say. He didn't really touch too much on what drew him to Jones in the first place, mostly concentrating on what happened when he decided to leave the Peoples Temple. He was marked for death from that moment on, harassed and bullied, in fear for his life. But he was more afraid for his son, John Victor Stoen. He had signed a document proclaiming Jones to be John's biological father, but he says in this book that he was actually John's natural father. He and his estranged wife, Grace, were unable to get John back from Jones before the mass murder/suicide in 1978, John was one of the over 900 victims. You could tell Tim has experienced a lot of guilt and pain over this. It was heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time.

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