Living Dead Girl

Living Dead Girl


By: Elizabeth Scott
Reviewed by: gothiclolitamaiden, 15
Rating: It was amazing!


“Meet Alice. She may be 15, but she doesn't look like it. Ray wants her to look like a little girl, so he won't let her eat and he dresses her in little-girl clothes. He beats her when he thinks she's done something wrong, then abuses her in a different way when...well, whenever he wants. He owns Alice. But it wasn't always this way. Ray abducted Alice when she was just ten years old, and has convinced her that if she ever tries to runaway or tell the police, he'll kill her family. But Alice is growing up, and Ray likes little girls. It may be time for a new, younger girl to terrorize. But here's the catch: Alice must find the new girl and help to kidnap her.”

This is probably the creepiest and most disturbing book I’ve ever read. I wanted to put it down and forget about it, but I couldn’t. I kept reading and finished it in a couple of hours. Needless to say, I loved it, even if it planted some unsettling images and thoughts in my mind. This book will make you cry or gasp in horror and disgust, or both. Living Dead Girl hooks you, and if you do happen to put it down, even for a couple of minutes, it continues to haunt you. As I read, I found myself rooting for Alice, hoping that she would have a happy ending, even though Alice was slowly becoming as evil as her tormentor.

Alice isn’t perfect, not at all. Her suffering hasn’t made her a saint, like similar characters in other novels. Adversity doesn’t make Alice a better, stronger person like in many stories, it has made her into something twisted and sick. Her suffering, her pain, has made her into a person similar to her own tormentor, who also took similar abuse in his childhood. It has made her into a shell of a human, and she is willing to sink to any depths to escape Ray, even if it means that another girl will have to bear her pain in her place. And that is why the novel is so riveting. You empathize with Alice, you put herself in her place and wonder if you would become that twisted shell that once was a soul, that living dead girl. You hope that she will prevail, yet you can’t help but loathe what she has become in her five years with Ray.

This book is one of those books that will disgust you, but make you pause and think next time you see an abuse victim on TV or in the newspaper. As Alice points out, people tend to blame the abuse on the victim. Why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you escape? Why didn’t you get help? I won’t be forgetting this book anytime soon, and I’m not quite sure that’s a good thing.


Recommended to: Non-squeamish people. Older teens and adults.