Content Warning: The source material for this study guide depicts or references death by suicide, drug addiction, and sexual abuse, and it includes descriptions of gore. There are also scenes depicting violence against unhoused people. Finally, the novel briefly hints at damaging stereotypes about mental illness and psychosis in order to ultimately subvert those stereotypes.

People project themselves differently when they are alone and when they are with others. Closing this gap forces people to confront their most authentic selves, particularly when their thoughts and words are inconsistent with their actions and the way other people perceive them. In Final Girls, this divide is introduced in the context of fame and leads to an examination of how one might reach a clearer sense of self by narrowing this divide and accepting one’s true identity.

Quincy Carpenter rejects the Final Girl identity because she has been conditioned to desire normalcy by her mother. Nevertheless, she repeatedly brushes against the notion that she can ever be normal again—she privately knows that she has gone through something few people ever go through. The term “Final Girl” is traditionally associated with an individual who has gone through a traumatic experience and must live with this trauma.