Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Living Dead Girl

by Elizabeth Scott 

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.

(summary from goodreads.com)

__________________________________________________ 

My darling brother, devoted reader of this blog, called me up a few weeks ago and asked which Elizabeth Scott book he should read. I told him I hadn't read any of the ones he mentioned and he was flabbergasted, dumbfounded, and disappointed. I guess at some point on this blog I said "I have recently discovered Elizabeth Scott and look forward to devouring everything she has written" and of course he remembered and I had LET HIM DOWN! Alas. Of course I had, and still have, the intention of reading more of Elizabeth Scott, but my to-read list is extensive and I simply hadn't gotten around to it yet. So next time I went to the library I picked up whatever Elizabeth Scott books my library had (all two of them) and here we go!

So. This book. First off, do you know how many books are called "Living Dead Girl" on goodreads? Seven! Doesn't that seem like a large number? That is a lot of books with the same title, and hopefully they all aren't as depressing as this book. Ugh. This book was hard to read, and I admittedly skimmed and skipped to the end because it was so draining. The subject matter is terrible and horrible and nightmarish and I'm honestly not interested in reading about it. Yes, I know horrible things happen to people, and sometimes it's important to read about it so that you can empathize and work toward a better world, but I have a difficult time using that rationalization with fiction books. I might force myself to read something that really happened to people (they lived it, the least I can do is read it) but I don't need to read about horrible things that happened to someone imaginary. I can't advise anyone to read this book - it's about a dark and perverse world that just happens to be the one we live in. And the ending totally sucked.

 

Mom note: As a mother of readers, I also want to make a note to myself (and others if they care) why I would or would not have my children read this book, because honestly, sometimes I forget. This is a YA book, so everything is within YA strictures. Violence, Profanity, Sex: YES, all of the above. A girl is abused in every way for years.