Horror Book Spotlight: I Woke Up A Final Girl by John Durgin

 A masked killer, a girl who wakes up not knowing how she got into an unknown house. On top of it all, she has a heart condition and limited medicine. Can she make it out alive? 

No, this isn’t a slasher horror movie, but John Durgin’s latest horror novel, I WOKE UP A FINAL GIRL. 

Published in June 2026 by AETHON: Wicked House, the novel is climbing the charts in the Horror Suspense best-sellers chart. 

The book is marketed as a horror story that subverts all tropes. But does it really? 

Let’s find out. 

I WOKE UP A FINAL GIRL Plot

Sabrina Campbell wakes up in a pool of blood with no memory of how she got to the Henley House, a location known for its horrific past. 

As she tries to find her friends, she is also aware that she is running out of medication that keeps her heart beating. The doors and windows are locked, and a masked figure seems to be stalking her. 

Can Sabrina get out in time? 

I WOKE UP A FINAL GIRL First Impressions

Sabrina Campbell wakes up to the sound of her own pulse and a pool of blood underneath her. It takes her a few moments to realize the blood is hers from a wound in the back of her head. 

She then finds her backpack and her medicine, implying she has a heart condition and needs to have it near her at all times. She also finds her friend Lydia’s backpack but not her friend. 

While she doesn’t remember how she got here, probably because of her concussion, she does remember her friend and the phone she always carries in her back pocket. But it’s not there. 

So far, the horror tropes are evident. The first victim in every horror movie is the cell phone or a poor network signal. 

As she roams around the house looking for an exit, she does find kitchen windows, which, when she tries to break, she finds newly installed metal bars. 

Fragments of her memories come to her. She remembers her fight with Ross, Lydia laughing, the house on the hill…

So Henley House is on a hill, much like most haunted houses. 

As she tries to find light switches, she instead touches what feels like a wrinkled hand. 

The first chapter ends with Sabrina screaming as she hears footsteps sprint away from her. 

In the second chapter, Sabrina goes through the house and finds a phone belonging to Lydia’s boyfriend, Duncan. Except she can’t use the phone because she doesn’t know the password. 

When Sabrina hears a noise in the other room, she heads over there to use the phone light and…scream. Again. 

So far, Sabrina has been screaming a lot just like a Final Girl. 

Sabrina finds her friend Lydia terribly injured in the next chapter. Her friend can barely speak, and Sabrina decides to get her some help and promises to return, except Lydia manages to utter a few words: Do not trust...

But Lydia doesn’t get to finish before she loses consciousness. Sabrina wonders if Lydia is talking about Duncan, with whom she had been fighting a lot. 

Sabrina tries to process more memories and eventually finds the door to the basement, which brings back memories of the Halloween night. 

The sample ends here. 

READ OR SKIP?

The core theme of the novel is that the character is a final girl, and so it is imperative that she behaves exactly in such a way. Is she going to end up wearing a tank top in the end? 

There are plenty of horror tropes in the first few chapters, yet the book has been advertised as a story that subverts them. Does that mean all these situations and events are just a trick? Is there a twist coming up that is already hinted at in these chapters? 

Most importantly, when Sabrina finds Lydia in the room, why didn’t she ask for Duncan’s passcode to unlock the phone?

Whether the novel comes up with a clever twist or further leans into the horror tropes, one thing is for certain: it will leave you feeling frustrated and at the edge of your seat, yelling,"Why is the protagonist heading towards the basement of all the places? Doesn’t she know all creepy things happen in basements?"

I WOKE UP A FINAL GIRL is definitely a READ. 

If you love slasher horror movies, then you are bound to love this one too. 

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