Final Girl

From Nancy Thompson to Sidney Prescott, horror movies have used the "final girl" trope to tell survival stories that center the violent tendencies of men. But in Lauren Milici's debut chapbook, Final Girl upends the narrative devices associated with the formulaic archetype and subverts them: the speakers wield their vulnerability as armor (I can't/be trusted to kiss without biting") & modes of survival against sexual assault, trauma, and body dysmorphia. These scathing poems build upon the tenants of confessional and synthesize them with modern horror metaphor, inventing a new feminist paradigm for our time. The result is a cutting collection that is as much a triumph as it is a terror: "I have always crawled home with split lips & skin. I have bled more than this."