Review: Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Title: Living Dead Girl
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: September 8, 2009
Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Source: Won

The thing is, you can get used to anything. You think you can't, you want to die, but you don't. You won't. You just are.

This is Alice.
She was taken by Ray five years ago.
She thought she knew how her story would end.
She was wrong.

Man, this book is so sad and infuriating and heartbreaking and soul wrenching. Before reading this, I couldn't imagine ever being put into a situation which would cause me to want to freaking shoot myself. This book showed me that.

Alice is not a likable character. She's an incredibly affected character. She really is a living dead girl. Her horrifying experiences have turned her into something both vulnerable and demented, numb and cold. I wanted to cry for her. I wanted to slap her. I wanted to vomit. To see what she lives through and to imagine her living through it every day for five years, since she was a child. It's not something that I've ever considered trying to imagine before. And witnessing it come alive on the pages of this book frightened me speechless. This review is so hard to write because I just don't know what the hell to say aside from strings of random expletives.

Elizabeth Scott does an amazing job at capturing the hopelessness of an existence such as Alice's. The writing style is perfectly suited to a narrator who is detached, twisted, broken. It is both beautiful and horrible. It is chilling to the core. It begs to be noticed and paid attention. The book is short (170 pages) and reads quickly, which is a good thing because if it were any longer then it would be too much to bear and would likely also lose its effectiveness. As it is, it is just enough to effectively show Alice to the reader.

I will never forget this book. Ever.