Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Final Girls by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Final Girls by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Final Girls was published in 2017, written by Riley Sager (pen name of Todd Ritter). Although this was the first book written under the author's pen name, it's one of the last I'm reading of his. It fits into a niche genre that includes psychological suspense thrillers characterized almost routinely by unreliable narrators, unexpected plot twists, and complex and usually immoral characters. Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, S.J. Watson, and Sager himself are the forerunners in this category. 

As you can imagine, this "slasher film" trope is based on the last character left alive to tell the tale. The premise of Final Girls stemmed from the author wondering what it would be like for girls who are the last to survive horrific events in which everyone else around them was murdered. He wondered if they thought about it every day, whether it was possible for them to forget such a thing, and if they can ever trust again. 

The heroine, Quincy Carpenter, was involved in such an event. Ten years ago, her and her college friends were on vacation at Pinewood Cottage. Everyone was massacred by a psychotic escapee from a nearby mental hospital. Quinn remembers little about this, and what she does remember is recalled in scenes interspersed with the current story. After the incident, Quinn involuntarily becomes part of an unofficial club of "Final Girls", so named by journalists and social media websites. Lisa Milner and Samantha Boyd also survived harrowing, similar situations. For the most part, Quinn has shunned not only the press but the other "group members". She's getting on with her life, blogging as a baker and committed to a boyfriend lawyer, her hang-ups from the past locked up in a drawer in her kitchen. Lisa commits suicide and, a few days later, Quincy finds a text from her, begging her to make contact. Not long after that, Lisa's death is rule a homicide, and the other Final Girl Sam shows up on Quincy's doorstep. What happens next is a whole lot of disjointed weirdness, doubts about everyone and everything in her life, and the endless red herrings that complicate (and sometimes overwhelm) stories like these. 

Unlike a lot of Sager's other novels that I've read (and reviewed previously on this blog), he didn't include anything vaguely supernatural in this particular one. While I love stories that blend a thriller with the paranormal, I didn't miss it too much in this story, which I thought was one of his best. While, yes, it's true that I'm going to complain like I always do about his books that this one was at least 150 pages longer than it really needed to be, it was an edge-of-the-seat story and I got so caught up in it, I forgot the cardinal rule of not taking anything the writer says at face value. While I was trying to figure out what devious twist he'd try to pull out of his hat at the last minute, Sager sneaked in the back door with something I should have been looking out for from the first. Clever. I love that he out-thought me. Very few fellow writers have that ability so I can give nothing but kudos to him for achieving it with this story. 

In the author's note in the back, he mentioned that his editor's enthusiasm for the book aided him in setting a personal best in speed writing. Stephen King gave Final Girls a mostly positive review but found it "hampered only by bad writing and lack of literary merit". Honestly, I didn't notice anything but an overinflated word count. The book won the International Thriller Writers Awards for best Hard Cover Novel in 2018, so it can't be too bad. Fans of the genre will no doubt find this one worthy. Talk of a movie based on the book was announced in November 2017 but I don't think anything ever happened with it. Incidentally, there were two 2015-released movies (one called Final Girl with Abigail Breslin and another called The Final Girls), neither written by Sager, as well as a 2021 novel, The Final Girl Support Group (by Grady Hendrix), with a similar premise. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Actors' Looks and Suspension of Disbelief

THE MUSIC MAN (1962) is one of my favorite musical films. (I just ignore the unlikelihood of a happily-ever-after for Harold Hill and Marian. Accustomed to a roving lifestyle, with no skills other than truth-bending salesmanship, will Harold contentedly settle as a domesticated married man in small-town River City?) A made-for-TV version in 2003 starred Matthew Broderick. The plot and songs closely followed the original; the main point of the remake, as I recall, was to feature younger actors. Much as I enjoy Robert Preston in the classic 1962 version, it's true he's slightly too old for the role as a suitable mate for Marian. Not to mention the chronological difficulty that he believably, albeit falsely, claims to have graduated from Gary Conservatory in 1905, and the story takes place in 1912. So he'd logically be in his late twenties at most. Viewers have to use a bit of imagination to accept Preston as that young. Furthermore, both Marian's mother and Mayor Shinn's wife in the original movie definitely look too old to have children the ages of Winthrop and the Shinns' youngest daughter.

The remake of SOUTH PACIFIC, a 2001 made-for-TV movie, poses a similar problem, differing in that way from the classic 1958 film. In the newer version, Glenn Close plays Ensign Nellie Forbush. For me, it takes severe suspension of disbelief to accept her as an ensign, a rank for a very young officer. More importantly, a major point in the relationship between Nellie and the French planter Emile focuses on the difference between their ages. Pairing an actor who plays Emile with a Nellie played by an actress who's close to his own age undercuts a vital element of the story. Their "Twin Soliloquies" duet highlights the incongruity with its theme of a romance between "older, sophisticated man" and "young, naive woman." Consider, too, GONE WITH THE WIND. From a perspective of cool realism Leslie Howard, in his mid-forties, was far too old to portray twenty-something Ashley Wilkes.

On the other hand, generations of audiences have accepted mature actresses in the role of teenage Juliet. In Shakespeare's day, of course, she and all female characters were performed by boys. Laurence Olivier played Othello in blackface. When SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION came out, I was taken aback to learn Morgan Freeman had the part of the narrator, Red, a redheaded Irishman in the novella. Minutes after the movie began, though, I was captivated by his performance and decided he was perfect in the role. After getting over the initial shock of the change in ethnicity (as for the nickname, the script justifies it as a shortening of his last name), I realized Red's race and physical appearance have no substantial impact on the story. (That is, provided one overlooks the anachronism of Black and white prisoners freely mingling during the era of the novella's setting.) Making Othello white, though, WOULD crucially change Shakespeare's plot.

So in my viewpoint making some characters' looks faithful to the source material does matter. In SUPERMAN adaptations, for instance, sooner or later Lex Luthor has to go bald. And everybody knows Lana Lang is a redhead. Even though it's a rather minor detail, the fact that she's played by dark-haired women in two TV series, SMALLVILLE and SUPERMAN AND LOIS, nags at me as just plain wrong. The actresses couldn't have dyed their hair or worn wigs?

Granted, the skill of the performer outweighs the ideal of absolute realism in physical appearance. Still, my personal feeling is that in the naturalistic mode of contemporary filmmaking, some serious attempt should be made to have characters, especially major ones, look "right." It's jarring when one deviates too far from her or his established and expected appearance.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Rumors and Ripple Effects

Last week, my blog post was suppressed, which is not unusual. I poke the AI bear like a short-sighted proctologist from time to time. The ripples from that-- an examination of the enduring brilliance of a British essayist--were minimal.

Angela Hoy blogged this week about terminal AI errors for authors who self-published on Amazon, and who were cancelled and lost their earned-to-date royalties on ebook sales for no reason and with no recourse (because their complaints went to a bot).

I should not have repined, if it had not seemed relevant as an introduction to an important post about the risks of sharing someone else's gossip, from the law firm Venable LLP, which firm I have not cited for some time.

https://www.closeupsblog.com/2025/06/when-gossip-becomes-defamation-liability-for-rumors-and-their-ripple-effects/#page=1

Legal bloggers Lee S. Brenner. Darya Kaboli Nejat, Sam Poursafar, and summer associate Paul S. Bernstein share excellent warnings and advice about second hand defamation in the highly digestible form of Q and A.

Informed by a decision in the case of Holzgraf v Lozier (brought in central Illinois), they conclude:

"The main point is that you do not need to be the original source of the rumor to be held responsible for its impact."

One can be liable for defamation if one tells another person in confidence, but should have foreseen that that other person would not keep a juicy story secret.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Karen S. Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci by Barrington Barber

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci by Barrington Barber

by Karen S. Wiesner

Leonardo Da Vinci has long been a fascination for me. An Italian polymath of the High Renaissance, his achievements as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect almost feel alien-like. In too many areas, he's just too far ahead of his time to have been relegated to the years of 1452 to 1519, where most of his radically advanced conceptions couldn't even be made in reality. But he and those who trusted him tried making many of them. I marvel that one person was given so many skills. Most theorists don't necessarily design their own projects even in blueprint, nor go on to actually building it. Either they don't have the skills, the materials, or the funding. But he did so much more than conceiving, designing, and construction. He also worked from the inside out, figuring out the inner workings of the human body, proving himself to be a revolutionary in medicine, science, art, and architecture.

How did one man come by all these incredible secrets? It's beyond believing or conceiving.

Barrington Barber gives us glimpses of the genius. I read this beautiful, gold-embossed, clothbound boxed set with reproductions of Da Vinci's work called The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci. The three volumes delve into his art, life, and work. I enjoyed the overview, marveled at his range and just how much the world owes to his advancements and innovations in such diverse areas. Who can compare to him in any of those disciplines? Even if anyone has gone beyond since, no one else can claim the discoveries he did in the mere 67 years he spent on this Earth…well, that we know of. 😁

My only complaint is one that goes for all biographies. The very last thing I ever want to know about anyone, especially those I admire, are details about their private lives. I learned far too much, things I really didn’t want to know about the man. In this one area, at least, Da Vinci was indeed mortal, fallible, and depressingly common. Sigh.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Variations on Peter Pan

The Disney animated PETER PAN, to nobody's surprise I'm sure, softens and lightens the source material. Generations of children who've never read or viewed J. M. Barrie's book or play may have grown up imagining Neverland as a carefree realm of adventure offering sometimes scary thrills but no danger of permanent harm, where Peter will help you get home to your family in the end. The animated sequel does include a hint of one uncanny feature of Peter's character, his "out of sight, out of mind" tendency to forget people and events. Only a hint, though, which doesn't last long, when he -- like Captain Hook -- intially mistakes Wendy's daughter for Wendy herself. In the novel, he forgets enemies after killing them, and he doesn't remember Tinker Bell. Fairies have such short lives, after all, and there are so many of them.

In the live-action film HOOK, Peter Pan has become a man in our world and forgotten his past in Neverland. The movie focuses on recapturing the alleged magical joys of childhood. Barrie, however, describes children as "innocent and heartless." Peter Pan is innocent, not in the sense of being good, but of being oblivious to good and evil. People die in his Neverland. Not only does Peter blithely slay pirates, when Lost Boys start to grow up (which is forbidden) he "thins them out." I've always considered the concept of not wanting to grow up rather creepy, anyway. Have you ever met a real-life child who wasn't eager for adulthood?

What I think of as the fanfic impulse inspires writers to deconstruct and re-imagine works of fiction in order to answer questions left hanging, explore the viewpoints of characters not fully developed in the original, compose scenes and side stories that might have occurred offstage, speculate on what happened after "The End," or flip the script altogether for a fresh perspective. If we're fascinated by a story and its characters, we want more of them. If the author doesn't satisfy that desire, we sometimes try to do it for ourselves. I've just read THE ADVENTURES OF MARY DARLING, by Pat Murphy. As the title implies, it considers what Mary, mother of Wendy, John, and Michael, does after they vanish through the open window. Not sit around waiting and fretting! To rescue her children, she embarks on an Edwardian-era adventure from London to the other side of the world, returning to the island of Neverland where she, too, was taken as a child. Murphy's version of the tale envisions Peter Pan as, not a runaway child, but some sort of ancient nature spirit wearing the body and personality of a self-absorbed little boy. If a Lost Boy dies or leaves, Peter forgets and replaces him, giving new children the names of previous ones. Hence the island hosts a succession of multiple Curlys, Tootleses, Twins, etc. The Lost Boys are ragged, dirty, and more often than not hungry. (Peter, in keeping with his changeless existence, doesn't need to eat.) The author's afterword quotes several passages from Barrie's novel to illustrate the underlying grimness of Neverland.

A few of the many other revisits to Neverland: WENDY, DARLING, by A. C. Wise -- as an adult, Wendy returns to Neverland to rescue her daughter, Jane, who has been lured away by Peter Pan. In Wise's sequel, HOOKED, the pirate captain, who has "died a thousand times," repeatedly resurrected by Peter's magic, ends up in London and allies with Wendy. Christina Henry's LOST BOY portrays Captain Hook as a former friend of Peter, his very first Lost Boy, in fact, and traces their evolution from friends to enemies. Jody Lynn Anderson's TIGER LILY views Peter through the eyes of the title character, in love with him and threatened by the arrival of Wendy. THE CHILD THIEF, a dark novel by Brom (both a fantasy writer and an artist), reveals Peter's ulterior motive for offering lost or abused children a refuge in his faerie realm. PETER DARLING, by Austin Chant, especially captivated me; in this novel, Peter is Wendy, or vice versa. When Wendy outs herself as a boy named Peter, her parents naturally think he/she is deranged; the magic of Neverland allows him to live as his true self. The island, though, is far from a paradise, and here, too, Peter and Hook have a complicated relationship.

PETER PAN has never been one of my top favorites, because of the absurdity (as it seems to me) of the "not wanting to grow up" premise. I've always been attracted by its uncanny, dark aspects, though, as well as the strangeness of PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. Therefore, I'm intrigued by published "fanfic" that expands on various hints in the original and explores its world from different perspectives.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Shooting An Elephant

"Shooting An Elephant" by George Orwell is a powerful essay that was originally published in the compilation "Inside The Whale and Other Essays". It is a tale of ugliness, misunderstanding, alienation, enforced cruelty, and social (if not peer) pressure. 

It is well worth reading on many levels, and is probably relevant even today.

One aspect of peer pressure (in this account) is the effect on a policeman in a hostile environment of the expectations of a hostile populace on the decisions he makes. Either he submits to their expectations or he does not submit.
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/shooting-an-elephant/summary

After re-reading Orwell's essay, it seems to this author that--if a trial in the USA is only a fair trial if the jury is a jury of the defendant's peers-- then any trial of a policeman or policewoman, National Guard officer, Border Patrol officer, or ICE officer is only a fair trial by their peers if the jury consists of other law enforcement personnel... just as there is a separate legal system for the military.

George Orwell makes it clear that he did not want to shoot the elephant, did not consider shooting the elephant to be justified (but it was excusable because the elephant had stomped and skinned a coolie and thereby killed the unfortunate coolie).

The elephant's rage was apparently temporary. 

According to one internet commentator, elephants are deeply afraid of causing harm and possess a noble nature. Allegedly scientists have studied the elephant’s brain and discovered spindle cells—rare neurons also found in humans-- which are said to be associated with self-awareness, empathy, and complex social perception.

Spindle cells are also found in other primates to greater or lesser degrees, particularly Bonobo. Spindle cells are also associated with cancer.

Leonardo da Vinci is credited with the opinion that, “The elephant embodies righteousness, reason, and temperance.”

Before starting a new enterprise, some Hindus are said to pray to Ganesha, the Elephant-headed god of Beginnings, Prosperity, and Wisdom. Ganesha is the patron of intellectuals, authors, bankers, and scribes.

For more on elephants: https://www.britannica.com/animal/elephant-mammal/Reproduction-and-life-cycle

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™

https://www.spacesnark.com/  

https://www.rowenacherry.com

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: "The Oblivion Bride" by Caitlin Starling by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: "The Oblivion Bride" by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

"The Oblivion Bride", a romantic fantasy novella by Caitlyn Starling, was published January 21, 2025 by Neon Hemlock Press, the same publisher that released Starling's 2020 "Yellow Jessamine" novella. This new tale has a lot in common with that one, though I liked this one slightly better. Taking place in a made up city-state called Volun, wild magic surrounds the walls, forcing all to stay inside a warded area for safety's sake. The main character Lorelei has lost almost everyone in her family under suspicious circumstances, including, most recently, her beloved mother. The cause is almost certainly magical in origin, possibly a curse. Her remaining kin, an uncle, is determined to figure out the cause of this and so agrees to marry Lorelei off to the top war alchemist Nephele, who applies herself to investigate while the marriage is being arranged and Lorelei is magically impregnated in a way that also includes Nephele's genes. 

Lorelei is, not surprisingly, a mess, grieving the loss of her mother and never expecting to develop feelings for her betrothed. Nephele has a similar reaction, given that this was an arranged marriage and she's an older woman who's been almost totally consumed by her career up to this point. 

While I enjoyed the dystopian quality of the setting and otherworldly mood of the events, as a whole, the story felt as disjointed and underdeveloped as "Yellow Jessamine" did to me when I read it (which is why I didn't review it). My main issue here was that the past really wasn't dug into deeply in this particular tale. We learned very little about Lorelei and Nephele's histories nor about the circumstances surrounding the state of the world beyond what was told us as statements of facts (i.e., whatever might have been written on a character/plot sheet in advance of writing--no more, no less). That crucial dimension of development forced 2D renderings and never achieved full-fledged lifelike status for me. I also have to comment on the fact that the reader can't help but feel Lorelei was projecting on older-woman Nephele her loss and devastation over her mother--desperately needing maternal comfort. It's difficult not to get an icky feeling about their romantic/sexual relationship because of that. 

Additionally, the last few chapters kind of dissolved a bit with far too many instances of the f-word per page. I don't mind some well-placed swearing, but sometimes overuse gets so drastic that it's hard to know what the author meant a word to actually mean. If everything (noun, verb, adjective, you name it) becomes an acrobatic feat of grammar by twisting the same word to the form needed, the story becomes muddied by the appearance of the same word from one sentence or paragraph to the next. Not only that, but using a word like that absolutely does not in any way intensify the reader's sense of suspense, action, or emotional connection--you know, beyond annoyance that genuine portrayal of said suspense, action, and emotional connection is being reduced to childish cursing. Ergo, the reader is thrust out of the story by lazy writing, which is what happened to me toward the end. I really struggled to finish the last few chapters. 

That said, I nearly always enjoy Starling's offbeat and unusual storytelling, and this tale is no exception, despite the areas I was left wanting more and different things than were being presented. I read eagerly at first and my interest only waned slightly from start to finish. (I certainly would have preferred to be more excited about the novella near the end rather than earlier on.) 

As a little bonus, the exterior and interior of the paperback were very striking. The front cover had such a multifaceted and layered image, I found myself going back often for more, to discover something else that might have been hidden in the cleverly rendered artwork. The interior had compelling, black and white, free-form images before each chapter of a similar but always changing nature. Unfortunately, the text was left-aligned, not justified, and that made it hard for me to read. I just prefer text to be tidy and symmetrical to prevent it from distracting from the story. 

For those who like to view the world in an unconventional, even weird way through their reading, this story will more than satisfy. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Graduations

Earlier this week we attended the high-school graduation of one of our grandsons. (Summa cum laude!) Recently I read a joke somewhere to the effect that speakers at a graduation resemble the corpse at a wake -- they have to be there, but you don't expect them to do much. Actually, the talks at this ceremony were short, pithy, and uplifting. One student speaker applied Disney's TANGLED as a metaphor for the end of high school. School was like Rapunzel's tower sheltering them from the "big, scary outside world," and now they're ready to chase their dreams and "follow the lanterns." Brevity of speeches was probably encouraged because that venue hosts something like fourteen county school graduations in one week. As described in an article in our local paper, the staff apparently cycles the proceedings through with the speed and efficiency of June weddings at the Naval Academy chapel.

I was shocked to learn, upon first reading the Harry Potter series, that British secondary schools don't have graduation ceremonies. The students just finish their courses and leave. Academic qualifications are earned by performance on standardized tests administered externally, not by the schools -- the inspiration for OWLs and NEWTs in Rowling's series. As explained by British people posting online, the rationale for not holding a graduation is that their high-school-equivalents don't award diplomas/degrees. Degrees, and therefore graduation rituals, occur only at the university level.

Apparently different countries follow a wide range of customs. A Wikipedia page with examples:

Graduation by Country

Not too surprisingly, Japan seems to have even more elaborate ceremonies than the U.S.

Homeschooled students in the U.S. can join in group rituals or organize private celebrations as simple or elaborate as they choose.

I'm reminded of Isaac Asimov's classic story "The Fun They Had," set in a distant future when schools don't exist. In this society, students get individualized computer instruction from AI "teachers." Here Asimov anticipates not only distance learning but also e-books. The two children in the story find hard-copy books, as opposed to an electronic device that can hold hundreds of texts, as strange as the idea of human teachers. The kids envy children in the olden days for gathering with their friends instead of slogging alone at a computer terminal. Most comments I've read on this story seem to assume it's an unironic exercise in futuristic nostalgia. In fact, Asimov didn't enjoy public school and probably would have welcomed a system like the one in the tale. Anyway, we must assume students in this future world don't have graduation ceremonies at all, not even similar to those of contemporary homeschoolers, since they don't have even a vestigial concept of "school" as a group activity.

When we establish colonies on the Moon or other planets, or social groups on starships, how much will present-day academic rituals be preserved? Will the kids in those cultures participate in something analogous to school as we know it or study individually on computers? Will they "graduate" or simply earn certifications for each phase of what may become a continuous course of lifelong learning? I like to believe some kind of completion rites will still occur for important life transitions, including educational ones. Human beings need ritual.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.