Book Review: Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Pages :  170

Read on : Kindle

Goodreads Rating : 3.84/5

Review: Most of my book recommendations come from Booktubers and bibliophile bloggers and this was stacked somewhere in my To Be Read pile without much thought given.

So when my TBR jar spits out 'Living Dead Girl', I anticipate a horror or dark comedy. Something morbid but funny and I get into it blindly.

It felt like I was hit by a bus.

Unputdownable is a mild way of saying it, but I don't think I have ever come across something as horrific as the Living Dead Girl. The story is about 10 year old 'Alice'  held captive by a man named Ray who refers to himself as her father. Alice is a name Ray prefers to call his victims while he sexually and mentally abuses them and also physically tortures them. 'Alice' has been in captivity for 5 years with the fear that if she ever manages to escape, bad things will happen to her parents as it happened to the 'Alice' before her. The neighborhood is such that no one seems to notice anything unusual happening nor do they seem to care. In order to escape Ray, 'Alice' needs to look for a new girl who will take her place as 'Annabelle' and the terror never seems to end.

Oh boy. For people who might be wanting to read this, please be warned this book will scar you for sure; Till a point where you just might have nightmares and wouldn't want to let your kids out of your sight even for a minute. Elizabeth Scott is one gutsy lady who has not spared a single detail to our imagination. The graphic description will assault any idea of innocence that you may hold as it's more of a running yet passive narrative of a child facing abuse from the age of 10 to 15. What pained me the most in the book was that she thought one day she would reach out for the knife and plunge it into her own chest - her only route to 'freedom'. Ray doesn't even feed her adequately, the point being that Alice remain small and as child-likeas possible. The perfect ruthless Pedophile profile was created in the form of Ray.  Even now as I write this review and think about that book I fight back tears and the fear in my heart. How many innocent children might have been taken from their families and subject to a kind of tortured that will disturb even the most strong-willed. Are children really that safe?

There's no bright-side to the book. Yes, you will know of the dangers lurking outside for the young ones and what possible can happen to them. Knowing that is vital, however if you are a mom, you just might have a hard time to fathom the concept and still look at your children the way you always did. I have no clue as to why 'Living Dead Girl' is deemed as YA. The recommendation doesn't even extend to teenagers or sensitive adults. Everything in the book was so wrong, it manages to rip your heart out. You'll end up feeling sore and tender. The sense of helplessness will takeover your mind and body. I didn't know whether to cry or scream or do both.

This is one of those situations where the book is absolutely terrible at the same time manages to be highly rated.

Final Rating : 5/5

خُدا حافِظ