📖 Not Your Final Girl
✍️ Author: Mikayla Randolph
🎙️ Narrator: P. J. Morgan
🎁 Provided by: NetGalley & Tantor Media
📅 Release: 11/24/26
🏁 Finished: 11/12/26
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I’m all about reunions, isolated settings, and final girls, so this book should have been right up my alley! Unfortunately, it never quite hit the way I hoped it would. That said, the second half is where I really started enjoying myself. Basically, when the bodies started dropping. 😂🔪

And before I even pressed play, I had a pretty good idea of where the story was headed. Given the multiple perspectives and the character descriptions in the book blurb, the twist felt obvious to guess. Of course, I had a 50/50 chance of being right, and I was wondering if the author wrote it that way to lead me down the wrong path, so maybe I shouldn’t give myself too much credit. Still, the final battle was definitely one of the highlights of the book!

I’d describe this one as a mix of psychological horror and body horror, which are two things I tend to gravitate toward in my horror reads. And the thing is, the writing was actually really good! The story had all the right ingredients, but somehow there was still a disconnect. I can’t quite put my finger on what wasn’t working for me. Maybe it was the pacing? Maybe I just wasn’t connecting with the characters? Whatever it was, I wish the first half had pulled me in sooner.

Now, can we talk about the narration?! Because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVED P. J. Morgan! Her voice sounded SO familiar that I actually went looking through her previous work to figure out where I’d heard her before. Surprisingly, nothing jumped out at me! Regardless, her performance was fantastic, and she’s officially being added to my go-to list of narrators! But as much as I loved her narration, I can’t help wondering if this particular story might have worked better for me in print. Maybe being able to slow down, absorb the details, and sit with the different perspectives would have helped bridge that disconnect.

Overall, “Not Your Final Girl” had all the ingredients for a horror story I’d love, and I can absolutely appreciate the quality of the writing. Unfortunately, something just didn’t click for me until the second half. The final showdown, the body horror, and that phenomenal narration definitely made it worth finishing!