Title: Living Dead Girl
Author: Elizabeth ScottPublisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: September 2nd, 2008
Page Count: 170
Genre: contemporary fiction/issues book (abuse)/horror
Audience: young adult
Source: library
Rating: 3.5 I would friend this book on Facebook and offer to help get it some counseling
Goodreads Summary:
Once upon a time, I was a little girl who disappeared. Once upon a time, my name was not Alice. Once upon a time, I didn't know how lucky I was.
When Alice was ten, Ray took her away from her family, her friends her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure all pain. She waited for the nightmare to be over. Now Alice is fifteen and Ray still has her, but he speaks more and more of her death. He does not know it is what she longs for. She does not know he has something more terrifying than death in mind for her. This is Alice's story. It is one you have never heard, and one you will never, ever forget.
My thoughts: This book is not the kind of horror that Becky means when she says horror. However, this book is HORRORifying. It’s about abduction and abuse, from psychological to physical to sexual. It is all kinds of effed up. And for that reason, it’s difficult to say much about it. I’ll try my best to give you an idea of whether or not it’s something you would want to read. It’s certainly not the kind of book you enjoy reading, but I think the mindset of an individual who has suffered unimaginable trauma is, while certainly not pleasant in any way, an important one to see; it opens your eyes to what is happening out in the wider world, and yet…could be right around the corner. It’s a perspective changer, and if you can handle the horror that is this book, I recommend it to you for that reason.
This book has a unique format, is well-written, and is
absolutely horrifying. “Alice” is one of those characters you can’t help but
pity and want to save, even when terrible thoughts cross her mind. You
understand how she can contemplate the unthinkable. Ray, Alice’s captor is
completely irredeemable, as one would expect, and as the story goes on, he
becomes less and less human.
I still haven’t fully come to terms with the ending. It’s
heart-wrenching and almost surreal after the time you’ve spent with Alice. But
despite the surrealist quality, it also seems realistic in context – one of
those “well, how else could it possibly end?” kind of things. Definitely not for the faint of heart.
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