Living Dead Girl [Paperback]

Elizabeth Scott (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 8, 2009

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Fans of Scott's YA romances Perfect You or Bloom may be unprepared for the unrelieved terror within this chilling novel, about a 15-year-old girl who has spent the last five years being abused by a kidnapper named Ray and is kept powerless by Ray's promise to harm her family if she makes one false move. The narrator knows she is the second of the girls Ray has abducted and renamed Alice; Ray killed the first when she outgrew her childlike body at 15, and now Alice half-hopes her own demise is approaching (I think of the knife in the kitchen, of the bridges I've seen from the bus... but the thing about hearts is that they always want to keep beating). Ray, however, has an even more sinister plan: he orders Alice to find a new girl, then train her to Ray's tastes. Scott's prose is spare and damning, relying on suggestive details and their impact on Alice to convey the unimaginable violence she repeatedly experiences. Disturbing but fascinating, the book exerts an inescapable grip on readers—like Alice, they have virtually no choice but to continue until the conclusion sets them free. Ages 16–up. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—The numb voice of a teen who has been devastated by five years of captivity and compliance, a girl who has been named "Alice" by her abductor, relates her grim story. At 15, she still believes the threat by which Ray controlled her when she was almost 10 and he walked her away from a school field trip: he's made it clear that if she bolts he will kill her family. The trauma of multiple rapes on a child is portrayed, as is Ray's ongoing need to control her and his daily, multiple demands for sexual submission. Now that she's a teen, Alice is being starved; his disordered logic tells him that this will keep her a little girl. His control over her is so absolute that, although she can leave his apartment during the day and goes on her own to have a wax job, her only rebellion is to steal small amounts of food. When Ray decides it is time for a new little girl, Alice complies by locating a likely next victim. In the process she meets a needy teen boy and a police officer, both of whom suspect she is in trouble and want to help her, but all does not end happily. This story lacks the vivid characters and psychological insights of Norma Fox Mazer's chilling The Missing Girl (HarperCollins, 2008). For an ultimately hopeful, but still realistic portrayal of a damaged survivor of abduction and sexual imprisonment, see Catherine Atkins's When Jeff Comes Home (Putnam, 1999)—Carolyn Lehman, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse; Reprint edition (September 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416960600
• ISBN-13: 978-1416960607
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (182 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #50,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hey there, I'm Elizabeth. I write young adult novels. I've had a bunch of jobs over the years--I've sold pantyhose, hardware, and once spent three days burning cds during the dot.com boom (worst. job. ever.)--but hands down, writing is the best! You can read lots more about my books at my website, http://www.elizabethwrites.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 68 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrifying account that every parent should read. October 7, 2008

By The Well-Read Child

Format:Hardcover

Terrifying. Devastating. Tragic.

Those are the three words that come to mind when I think of Elizabeth Scott's Living Dead Girl. After finishing it in one sitting late last night, I'm still trying to catch my breath and desperately trying to get rid of the weight that seems to have settled on my chest. But I think it will be a long time before this happens because what has happened to "Alice" in the book can happen to a child in real life...probably has happened.

The book is told from the point of view of "Alice" a fifteen-year old girl who was kidnapped on an elementary school field trip when she was 10. Her captor, Ray, has sexually and physically abused her every day since he kidnapped her. He starves her because he doesn't want her to physically mature, he terrorizes her and tells her that he'll kill her parents and burn their house down if she tries to escape. I'm putting "Alice" in parentheses because that is not her real name. It's the name Ray gave her, the same name he gave the girl he kidnapped and killed before he kidnapped the second Alice.

Alice calls herself a "living dead girl." She's numb inside, she's hungry, she's been tortured so much that she wishes for death. She's waiting for it, hoping for it, expecting it any day; but Ray has something different in mind that is even more terrifying to the reader, and he needs Alice's help.

I've always heard stories about people getting kidnapped and having many opportunities to escape, but they don't. This is Alice's case. There are multiple opportunities for her to tell someone, to run away, to ask for help, but Ray has instilled so much fear in her that she doesn't even think about it anymore.

She truly believes that he will kill her parents, and at one point she says, "I could run, but he would find me. He would take me back to 623 Daisy Lane and make everyone who lives there pay. He would make everyone there pay even if he didn't find me. I belong to him. I'm his little girl. All I have to do is be good" (p. 34).

What is most profound is that Ray has brainwashed her to the point of her believing that she's bad, she's selfish, and that it's all her fault. On the day of the kidnapping, she wouldn't share her lip gloss with her friends. They walked away from her, leaving her alone and exposed to a monster, but she blames herself, thinks if she wouldn't have been so selfish, her life would be different. It's truly heartbreaking.

But the worst part is that people look the other way. They know something's not right, but don't step in.

Scott's writing is gripping, captivating, and horrifying. She draws you in from the very beginning, and Alice immediately becomes real, someone you ache for, someone who you want to make it, someone you want to pluck out of this nightmare of a life. If you're wondering about the language and descriptions in the book, it is evident that Ray is sexually abusing Alice. It's evident that sexual acts are being performed, but the language itself is not graphic.

When discussing why she wrote Living Dead Girl, Elizabeth Scott says, " I wrote Living Dead Girl because it demanded to be told, and I hope it speaks to you as strongly as it did to me." (read more at Simon & Schuster's website).

Did I like the story? Honestly, no. I don't like stories about children being sexually abused. Was it well-written? Absolutely. Should every parent read it? Absolutely. Should teens read it? I want to say yes. I want to say that it could potentially save lives, but it's scary. All I want to do is scoop my daughter up and never let her go.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Bare Bones But Very Gripping July 28, 2008

By A. Marbach VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This book kept me engaged right from the beginning. I sat down and read it in one sitting. This is always a sign of a good book.

This story, told through the eyes of Alice (self proclaimed Living Dead Girl), is of a girl who was abducted five years ago on a school field trip just before her tenth birthday. It tells of what life is like with Ray the man who abducted her, the man who controls every aspect of her life including how much and what she can eat. Like her, the book is very bare bones- yet chocked full of raw emotion of being stuck living a life with no emotion. A life of being a girl that no one sees...no one will save. A girl who wants out of the misery she feels, yet sees no way out.

When I got it I was surprised that the book was seemingly so short- however I was unable to put this book down. I was equally horrified and yet left wanting to know what was going to happen next. I can only give this book four stars however, because I was disappointed in the way it ended. It was far too abrupt and left this reader wanting to know more about what happened after the end of the book. I don't want to go too much into detail and ruin the story- but it was far too abrupt.

A fair warning: This book does deal with strong subject matter and violence. Young or sensitive readers might want to select an alternate book or parents of such readers may want to read this book with their young adults.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Still holding my breath...... July 22, 2008

By Denise Crawford TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This book is small, short, sparse. Not a lot of pages or words but the imprint of what is written will linger long after you put the book down. I read a lot of thrillers and a lot of YA. I thought I'd probably have read this story before, wondered how this author would approach the topics of child abduction, molestation, rape, imprisonment. Suffice to say that Scott was master of the task. The life of Alice in Ray's prison was hell and terror, fright and pain. She was starved, abused, beaten and repeatedly forced to sexual surrender to a man who was himself abused by a sexual sadist (his mother). Alice no longer hopes for release or for any other life, that dream has been destroyed along with her girlhood. As she grows from a child of 10 to a teen of 15, Ray no longer is happy with her body or her attitude. He wants a new girl and has assigned Alice to help him acquire her. Alice is powerless to resist, beaten down by 5 years of submission and only longs for the substitute to release her from this bond. She can't say NO. The new girl has been chosen and then what will happen to Alice? The last Alice was killed, and yet, that is a release of sorts. No one sees, no one hears, no one there to help.
Highly recommended.