Living Dead Girl

Originally posted here: http://www.goodbooksandgoodwine.com/2011/06/retro-friday-review-living-dead-girl...

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott is an emotional read detailing ‘Alice’s’ torment at the hands of her captor, Ray. This was one of the books challenged during the whole Bitch Media 100 YA Books For The Feminist list kerfluffle. As I recall there was a comment on there alleging that Living Dead Girl is ‘torture porn.’ I don’t even know if I read the same book as the commentor. I saw this as an incredibly heartbreaking portrayal of the evil lurking below the surface of some people.

‘Alice’, not her real name, is abducted at a young age by Ray, a pedo who likes little girls. She’s 15 and we read about her show more terrifying day to day existence – where she is starved to maintain a little girl-esque body and sent to get brazillian waxes by professionals to keep up the facade. However, time is running short for ‘Alice’ as she looks more and more older by day and Ray is out to find a new ‘Alice’.

I think Elizabeth Scott does an excellent job of capturing the fear felt by victims of sexual assault. Although Alice’s situation is not common, 73% of rapes are perpetrated by someone the victim knows, Living Dead Girl shows the psychological effect sexual assault has. ‘Alice’ has the opportunity to walk to the grocery store alone and pick up groceries. She could run away, but she doesn’t. I know you may question ‘why doesn’t she run away’ which is ultimately victim blaming. However, she has been groomed by Ray, this means that he has molded her to what he wants. He assures her that if she tells, he will kill her family. This is a very real fear. Especially when you have been told this from a very young age.

Further, I’ve seen reviews on goodreads where people stated they did not like this because ‘Alice’ was not relatable or likeable. My opinion, sexual assault victims are people. We don’t always like every single person we meet. Scott doesn’t make ‘Alice’ into a martyr or a saint, but a real person with faults. I wonder if maybe we have this default victim mode in our minds where we expect people who have been through ordeals to be Christlike, instead of allowing them to be human. And really, I think the real tragedy in Living Dead Girl isn’t how unlikeable ‘Alice’ is.

I think the true tragedy is how unwilling the bystanders in Living Dead Girl were to do anything. Just because you aren’t a mandated reporter doesn’t mean it’s okay to just standby without a word. For example, the ladies who gave ‘Alice’ her weekly Brazilian wax. Wouldn’t that set off alarm bells to you, a young girl getting a Brazilian? And yet, they just took the money and stood by, never once giving the police a call. Or the grocery store clerk who sees Alice come by to buy food for Ray. Or the neighbors who instead of helping Alice just want their children to stay away from her. That bothers me. You don’t have to fight off the offender to step in. You can delegate and call the police with an anonymous tip. That frustrates me to no end. And, I think Scott did a great job inciting righteous indignation on my end.

Now, as far as this book being triggering, I think that it could be. However, I also believe in the power of bibliotherapy, and I think because this book does humanize a sexual assault victim, it can be therapeutic because it doesn’t show ‘Alice’ as perfect. I believe triggering is not something to be downplayed and that it is very real, however, I also believe that people have their own internal barometers. If something really bothers me, I set it down or stop watching it. I think most people are willing to do the same. show less

A first-person account of a young girl being sexually abused, Living Dead Girl is a difficult read to say the least.

The writing is fantastic. This isn't your typical pathos-driven abuse story. The pain and terror and hopelessness aren't bursting off the pages in effusive language; instead it is the very absence of emotion that is so evocative. The sentences, the emotion in the structure is flat, revealing a psyche tortured to the point of apathy. Alice's voice lacks the typical qualities of teenage girls, lacks rhythm and metaphor and instead is simplistic, practical, and without beauty. She is numb.

The very structure of the novel adds to this with short, to-the-point chapters that range from one sentence to a few pages in length. The show more language is so brutal, simultaneously painful to read and wonderfully authentic. The lack of a multi-layered plot, the simplicity of the language, kept this a bare-bones, full-frontal assault. It also made it a quite fast read, about an hour and a half.

The contradiction between my enjoyment of the craft and horror at the content makes this a very difficult book to review. show less

UGH. I never had any intention of reading this book until Bitch Magazine posted a list of Feminist YA books on their website this weekend and, much to my surprise, this was on it. I questioned its place on the list, a staffer said they'd look into it, and I second guessed myself. Turns out I was right the first time: this isn't feminist at all. What's more, I'd say that this is the literary equivalent of torture porn, except worse than anything you'll actually ever see on the big screen; this book has no redeeming social value whatsoever.

(Edited a week later to add some thoughts I've better developed since discussing with librarian buddies who both love and hate this book.)

I can't deny that this book will appeal to horror-hungry teens, show more and as a librarian I have to give it credit for that. But frankly, it is ONLY as a genre horror novel that I can give it credit. Same way I don't want to watch Hostel, I don't want to read books like this. Clearly some people do, so however much I personally might have hated the experience of reading it, I can accept that this is a different strokes kind of thing. But I have a real problem with this book being marketed as anything other than horror. It SHOCKS me that anyone could call this a feminist work.

Does it make sense to say that the bleakness of this book makes it pointless? I just wonder, what does a teen reader, or any reader, have to hold onto at the end? Kyla is already apparently damaged beyond repair when the book begins, completely broken and tragic, but well on her way to monstrous, too: using her own sexuality to control others who she perceives as being weak; viciously mean when she has the opportunity to be; positively gleeful over the thought of freeing herself at the cost of another girl's freedom. It seems to me that with the ending she gives us, Scott lazily skirts around the possibility of recovery, of any possible empowerment or justice. And I'm not someone who thinks every book should have a happy (or even optimistic) ending, I just think that THIS book becomes pointless without one. There's no story here -- this is a completely bleak and voyeuristic snapshot of horrific abuse and NOTHING ELSE, merely something you tell little girls to scare them into submission. I think, in the end, a reader has nothing to gain from this book except for a good scare (which it certainly delivers), and I think that does discredit it, pretty much entirely, as a piece of serious literary fiction.

I will say that I thought Scott's writing was much, much better here than in the very boring and awkward Perfect You (except for the dialog, which this author cannot write at all).

But all in all I was happier person before I read this, and the world was probably a better place before it was written. Yuck. A million yucks. I want a shower.

For a better, smarter captor/captive book, try Room. For a better, smarter abuse book, try Push. show less

It is amazing how raw and brutal the narrative reads, and with that in mind, I feel the novel is inappropriate for anyone under the age of 16. I mean, I'm a lot older than 16, and I found many of the scenes to be disturbing. It's not that the scenes are explicit, but the bare, gritty details of those things Alice chooses to share are darkly intimate and painful. In Alice we hear the voice of an empty, soulless body only available for Ray, her abductor. Her mental state has been warped to the point that she will do anything to have someone else take her place. The only splinter of light in this novel is the end, although it is ambiguous and any hope taken from it will be on the part of the reader. I commend Scott for writing something so show more compelling and original. Full review at http://athenasbooks.blogspot.com show less

“I have been smashed and put back together so many times nothing works right. Nothing is where it should be, heavy thumping in my shoulder where my heart now beats.”

I had heard Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott described as disturbing but I really didn’t think it would bother me but, people, believe me when I say this book is very disturbing. A stark look at a young girl’s life after she has been abducted by a pedophile. She lives a life of terror and abuse that is very hard to read about. I think the author deserves kudos for delivering such a honest look at this brutal subject but the fact that this book is published as a YA is astonishing. I am not convinced that this is a YA book, at the very least I believe that a young show more girl would need a fair amount of discussion to understand what is going on here. I would definitely say this this is a book for the upper reaches of the YA audience.

The author pulls no punches as she tells Alice’s story in a unique style that is both riveting and effective. We are drawn into the mind of this young girl who has suffered not only physical and sexual abuse, but also has been physically forced to maintain a child’s body. Alice knows that there was a previous girl before her, and she knows that when that girl got too old she was murdered. Instead of scaring her, Alice longs for her time of release. When her abductor comes up with a plan for the two of them to kidnap another child, she is willing to go along with it in order to see the end of her suffering. It is chilling to read of how she helps to set up a young girl that she meets playing in a park, but at the same time, one can understand how she has been conditioned to help this monster.

I did not find that the author crossed any boundaries of taste, this is a difficult subject but one that we all know does happen. This is a short book but Living Dead Girl will be a book that I will not easily forget, and as a mother and grandmother I can only say that we can’t be vigilant enough with our young. show less

This book is haunting, chilling, and heartbreaking. The writing is brilliant, pulling the reader in from the very first sentence. Many will doubt it's power because of it's length - around 120 pages - but please, trust me when I say that the author made those 120 pages feel like hundreds. Reading about 'Alice' and the things she goes through every day chilled me to the bone. I could not put this book down for a moment, and I didn't stop until I'd read it all in one sitting. It was as if there was no way I could stop without knowing how it ended and finding out what happened to Alice. Your heart will break every time you read about her struggles and what 'Ray' forces her to do. This was, without a doubt, the most haunting book I've ever show more read. Props to the author for the amazing job she did writing this novel - I have no idea how she managed to write such a raw, lost narrative, but she definitely pulled it off.

I give this book 5 / 5 stars (more if it was possible!). I would definitely recommend this to mature YA readers and people who tend to go for darker comtemporary literature and isn't afraid to venture out of their comfort zone. show less

What a difficult book to read--it's heartbreaking and so disturbing!

A ten-year old girl, renamed Alice, goes with a man while on a field trip to find her class but ends up kidnapped. The novel takes place five years later. In those five years, "Alice" has been sexually, physically, and mentally abused. There are not details, but an older reader will know what happened and is happening to her. It's not graphic, but it is tragic. The reason for the story taking place at this moment is that she no longer looks like a little girl. He won't feed her and insists she squeeze into little girl clothes. He needs a new little girl. "Alice" finds a girl at a park who has a brother. She gets to know the girl's brother and gives him confidence with show more girls by treating him as she treats her captor, sexually pleasing him. Once again, you know what's going on, but there are not details. She desperately wants to get another girl in hopes that she can escape. She learned with one attempted escape that her family will be murdered if she leaves; after all, he's done it before. The new little girl can take the abuse; "Alice" has suffered enough.

I do not like true crime novels. I would never read a fiction novel like this, wondering if it belonged in a high school library. I feel it has a lot of triggers. With that said, this is a book a non-reader will read. It's short; it's tragic; it's "real life." We want students to read. This novel would have a niche audience, meaning it would serve more people who are older. show less