Book Review: Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Photo taken from Barnes & Noble

Book Info

   

Title:  Living Dead Girl

Author:  Elizabeth Scott
Publisher:  Simon Pulse

Language: English

Format:  Paperback

Pages:  176 pages
ISBN - 10:  1416960600

ISBN - 13:  978-1416960607

Source:  Purchased, National Book Store

Buy this book on Amazon 

Summary

From Goodreads: 

"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."

Review

Call me sick/insane/crazy, but I loved this book.  I've read some of the other reviews and they were unanimous in saying that this book was very disturbing and should not be marketed as a young adult book.  I agree.  This book should have been up there along the likes of Room by Emma Donoghue, or Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.  It's that good, and it's that adult.  This is no teen's book.  If younger readers get hold of this, they better be prepared.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott is short, brisk, and detached, but very thought-provoking, poignant - and in a way - frightening.  Frightening because this is a story that has happened, is happening, will happen, and something that we never, ever want to happen to us.

"Alice" has been living with Ray for five years.  She was kidnapped when she was only ten years old.  Now that she is fifteen, she is half-hoping that she will finally be released or killed - she did not care which - as she knows that Ray will have no use for her anymore.  But Ray has one more task for her, a far more cruel demand than the daily abuse she suffers - to find another young girl to take to Ray and train according to his tastes.

Told through Alice's point of view, the voice was very much that of a living dead girl.  It sounded detached, numb, and flat, but the thought between the lines hung in the air as she related her story in terse, stilted tones.  After all, who needed an emotional tone when vivid descriptions of the abuse was written for everyone to read and imagine?  It was like witnessing first-hand the daily suffering of this traumatized-beyond-hope victim, even the most objective and apathetic reader would be moved.

Alice herself sounded frightening as her morbidly hopeless demeanor showed itself throughout the pages of this book. She was no more like a normal girl, let alone a normal person.  She was so heavily manipulated by Ray that she would not even think of escaping during her solitary trips for her wax jobs, could not even lie to him, and the worst she has ever done to rebel was to steal small amounts of food.  A marionette with invisible strings, with the body of a real girl.

This is a very strong book that will overpower any reader with fear and a strange compulsion to see what happens next until the book ends.  Scary, scary, scary.  No need to even keep the lights on.  This story will linger on in your mind for days, even weeks, in a none too pleasant way.

So you ask me:  If this book was so frightening, why do I love it?  It's for the pure and simple reason that the writing was so effective that it was able to achieve the exact amount of emotion and fear in order to relay its message across.  No need for extra descriptions, no need for added footnotes, everything was flung into the pages in the simplest, briefest way possible, and we all know simplicity is easier to understand and absorb.

The only downside?  When I just got this from the store, as was my custom, I unwrapped it and took a peek at the back page - not to read the ending, mind you - but to read those additional information about other books written by the author, a sneak peek at a new book, etcetera.  But what greeted me when I opened the back page was not a book teaser/author information, but the ending itself.  And it was so glaringly out there you could not ignore it.  The printer could have added a few flyleaves to guard from possible spoiler episodes.  It did not ruin the ending for me, although it would have been better if I did not get to read the ending first.

Read Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott at your own risk.  Prepare to be scared, traumatized, and blown away.

Rating

If you have any questions on this particular rating, please refer to my ratings system here.

Notice

All opinions expressed in this book review are my own and not influenced by any party in any way.

Please contact me for questions, comments, and suggestions.  

Book Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

Photo taken from Goodreads

 Book Info

Title:  Room 

Author:  Emma Donoghue
Publisher:  Little, Brown and Company 

Language: English

Format:  Mass Market Paperback 

Pages:  496 pages

ISBN-10:  031612057X

ISBN-13:  978-0316120579

Source:  Gift

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Summary

From Goodreads:

"To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another."

Review

Ever wondered what goes on inside a child's head?  In this book by really awesome author Emma Donoghue, she takes us on a journey inside young Jack's mind as he and Ma goes through their lives inside Room:  Jack was born inside Room.  The only people he's ever known are Ma and Old Nick - whom his Ma dislikes and who only visits them at night, when he is safely tucked away inside Wardrobe to sleep.

Just reading the blurb at the back of this book would probably arouse the curiosity in every person, with this question possibly asked a million more times than others:  How did they get in Room in the first place, and would they ever get out?  I am not going to answer that - you have to find out for yourself - but what strikes me most is the way Jack acts, thinks, and evolves in the story.  It is unusual to read such graphic depiction of the way a child thinks, speaks, and feels.  Donoghue has certainly done her homework in bringing to life a very believable young main character/narrator.  From his point of view, you get to know about Ma, Old Nick, and his life inside Room that is described very vividly through disjointed childish language and innocent wonder.  His storytelling will remind readers of their young nieces or nephews who tell stories of mundane happenings that sound like fantastic adventures.  I would have expected a more traumatized Jack to appear within the pages, but what I saw was a Jack who grew up in a very isolated environment with his mother and has come to accept that Room is the whole world.

I also had to hand it over to Ma, who managed to raise Jack in such fearful and lonely circumstances creatively, even able to teach Jack to read and write and do Math with such ease as an older child.

That this book received such attention from the whole book world is not really a surprise because of the way this book was written, and how the characters were created.  It's so realistic and  frightening, but it was presented in such a childish way that the shock of Jack's and Ma's experience is not fully absorbed until the whole story unravels and even at some levels, becomes so fascinating and surreal.  It's funny, amazing, and scary at the same time. 

And the book cover?  AMAZING.  The scribble in a child's hand really gives this distinct feel like it's really Jack who wrote this book and not Donoghue.  Just looking at the book cover already sets the mood for some intense no-putting-down-this-book reading session.

I would like to pronounce this book a must-read for every human being who breathes air and knows how to read.  This should be up there with the likes of To Kill A Mockingbird, The Catcher In the Rye, among others.

Rating

If you have any questions on this particular rating, please refer to my ratings system here.

Notice 

All opinions expressed in this book review are my own and not influenced by any party in any way. 

Please contact me for questions, comments, and suggestions.