Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com
I received my copy of LIVING DEAD GIRL right before it came out in September. I read it the same day, and promptly hid it in a huge stack of other books, hoping to forget about it. I didn't. I came across it last week, and sat down and read it again. This time, I knew that, just like before, I'd never forget it, but I finally decided I was ready to write a review on the story.
Alice has lived with Ray since she was ten. Now that she's fifteen, she knows her time with him is about to come to an end. The only question will be how it will happen - whether Ray will kill her, or whether she'll kill herself.
You see, Alice wasn't always Alice. She was once a girl with a mom and dad who loved her, until the day Ray abducted her during a school field trip. Although they don't live far from her childhood home, Alice has only once made an attempt to escape, and that was right after she was abducted. Ever since then, she's become the emotional/physical/sexual slave that Ray has turned her into, and she does what she's told, when she's told.
When Ray sets his sights on Lucy, a replacement girl, Alice couldn't be more thrilled. Her time with Ray is finally, finally coming to an end, and all she can do is experience immense relief. She may have a moment's doubt about setting up a small, young girl to go through the same torture and torment she has endured, but basically, that overwhelming sense of relief is all she can bring herself to feel.
Events unfold quickly, and the ending of the story is not a resolution so much as a beginning to an entire new set of complications.
I hated LIVING DEAD GIRL, in a way that made me love it. With a storyline that could have been ripped from today's newspapers, the feelings and emotions that it will invoke within you are myriad - horror, sympathy, outrage, disbelief. When I heard a similar story in the news about a year ago, my first thought was how a child who had been abducted could so willingly stay with their captor. What I learned through the pages of this book is that fear - the kind of fear many of us have never known, and will hopefully never have to know - is a huge motivator.
Alice lives by fear. Fear of eating something she's been told not to eat. Fear of talking to someone she's been told not to talk to. Fear of bathing when she's not been told to bathe. Fear of saying something, anything, in the wrong way, or at the wrong time, or with the wrong tone of voice. Fear, plain and simple, can cause people to do all sorts of things.
Elizabeth Scott is to be thanked for writing a story that brings the issue of child abduction to light. As Alice says, there are three life lessons: No one will see you. No one will say anything. No one will save you. Unfortunately, she's all too often right. I hope that after reading LIVING DEAD GIRL everyone will see, everyone will speak, everyone will be compelled to save.
Hope for Alice may be gone, but there are many Alice's out in the world, and thanks to this story, they don't always have to live in fear that no one will save them.
I received my copy of LIVING DEAD GIRL right before it came out in September. I read it the same day, and promptly hid it in a huge stack of other books, hoping to forget about it. I didn't. I came across it last week, and sat down and read it again. This time, I knew that, just like before, I'd never forget it, but I finally decided I was ready to write a review on the story.
Alice has lived with Ray since she was ten. Now that she's fifteen, she knows her time with him is about to come to an end. The only question will be how it will happen - whether Ray will kill her, or whether she'll kill herself.
You see, Alice wasn't always Alice. She was once a girl with a mom and dad who loved her, until the day Ray abducted her during a school field trip. Although they don't live far from her childhood home, Alice has only once made an attempt to escape, and that was right after she was abducted. Ever since then, she's become the emotional/physical/sexual slave that Ray has turned her into, and she does what she's told, when she's told.
When Ray sets his sights on Lucy, a replacement girl, Alice couldn't be more thrilled. Her time with Ray is finally, finally coming to an end, and all she can do is experience immense relief. She may have a moment's doubt about setting up a small, young girl to go through the same torture and torment she has endured, but basically, that overwhelming sense of relief is all she can bring herself to feel.
Events unfold quickly, and the ending of the story is not a resolution so much as a beginning to an entire new set of complications.
I hated LIVING DEAD GIRL, in a way that made me love it. With a storyline that could have been ripped from today's newspapers, the feelings and emotions that it will invoke within you are myriad - horror, sympathy, outrage, disbelief. When I heard a similar story in the news about a year ago, my first thought was how a child who had been abducted could so willingly stay with their captor. What I learned through the pages of this book is that fear - the kind of fear many of us have never known, and will hopefully never have to know - is a huge motivator.
Alice lives by fear. Fear of eating something she's been told not to eat. Fear of talking to someone she's been told not to talk to. Fear of bathing when she's not been told to bathe. Fear of saying something, anything, in the wrong way, or at the wrong time, or with the wrong tone of voice. Fear, plain and simple, can cause people to do all sorts of things.
Elizabeth Scott is to be thanked for writing a story that brings the issue of child abduction to light. As Alice says, there are three life lessons: No one will see you. No one will say anything. No one will save you. Unfortunately, she's all too often right. I hope that after reading LIVING DEAD GIRL everyone will see, everyone will speak, everyone will be compelled to save.
Hope for Alice may be gone, but there are many Alice's out in the world, and thanks to this story, they don't always have to live in fear that no one will save them.
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