THE LAST GIRLS STANDING By Jennifer Dugan

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Last Girls Standing by Jennifer Dugan
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers on 8/15/23
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, LGBT, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 315
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

Sloan and Cherry. Cherry and Sloan. They met only a few days before masked men with machetes attacked the summer camp where they worked, a massacre that left the rest of their fellow counselors dead. Now, months later, the two are inseparable, their traumatic experience bonding them in ways no one else can understand.

But as new evidence comes to light and Sloan learns more about the motives behind the ritual killing that brought them together, she begins to suspect that her girlfriend may be more than just a survivor—she may actually have been a part of it. Cherry tries to reassure her, but Sloan only becomes more distraught. Is this gaslighting or reality? Is Cherry a victim or a perpetrator? Is Sloan confused, or is she seeing things clearly for the very first time? Against all odds, Sloan survived that hot summer night. But will she survive what comes next?

Short and Sweet Review

Sloan and Cherry worked at a summer camp that was unfortunately attacked by a cult and Sloan and Cherry were the only two survivors. The two girls end up trauma bonding and are now in a relationship. When more news is released about the cult and what their motives may be , Sloan because paranoid and starts to think that Cherry was somehow involved.

I’m not going to lie or sugar coat it, but this book was one painful read. I pick up books based off the synopsis and this one sounded pretty good but I feel like I got hoodwinked, bamboozled, lead astray. We only get Sloans POV but this girl is so messed up it’s hard to root for her or even try to understand why she’s doing what she’s doing, if anything she’s the real villain. Sloan goes to therapy to try to recover her memories from that night and she thinks that Cherry is hiding things from her, but Sloan also tries to make nothing out of something more often than not in this book. Cherry also wasn’t doing herself any favors by hiding things from Sloan with the excuse that she’s trying to protect her. Sloan and Cherry were exhausting, I get that their circumstances brought them closer together but its like they couldn’t go without seeing each other, their relationship was suffocating. There was also a point in the book were Sloan meets up with an old friend which was nice because it was time away from Cherry, but then we never see him again so it was pointless. Also Sloan is determined to learn what happened that night at camp so she meets up with one of the cult members in prison. I think that Sloan was willing to believe anything to make Cherry the bad guy in this situation and nothing was going to change her mind. The ending… I don’t even know what to make of it, but I do know that it was awful but so was the rest of the book.

The Last Girls Standing, was a book that I regret purchasing and someone said it best when they described it as “two dysfunctional lesbians arguing for 75% of the book.” I’m hoping that the other books that I have by Jennifer Dugan are better because this book was not it.