Girl A

In somewhat of a rare occurrence, the writing was a bit of struggle here. While the story (despite it being dark and disturbing) had a decent enough premise, the telling felt disjointed, choppy, and a bit all over the place- sometimes taking paragraphs to realize you've jumped time lines or characters. Interestingly, there was very little exploration of ‘the why' behind these events and that could've made for the most intriguing part, as the event that set the story in motion was used as nothing more than a storytelling device to fill in only some of the backstory.

You can endure an awful lot when you know that you'll be fed at the end of it.

Every now and again there will a story in the news, a truly horrific tale of neglect and abuse, it will make you despair for humanity and you will ask yourself how, in a modern society, something like that could happen. This book is one of those stories.

The story flips between then and now as we find out what happened to Girl A (Lex) and her siblings and how they've coped since escaping that horrible house on the moors. There are some shocking moments/revelations, especially towards the end, but don't expect something like Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door, this book isn't like that and it doesn't try to be.

I really enjoyed this, the prose is excellent and despite the grim subject, it has a kind of innocence about it which made the ending kind of lovely, sad but lovely.

I would have given this book a full 4 stars if not for the very hard to follow back and forth of time perspectives in the writing. It would jump between timelines frequently and without warning (no headers, etc.). Other than that I enjoyed it, but that part was so distracting.

Very interesting premise, and it works for much of the time. I found myself alternating between being gripped for a section, then bored to tears for a section. Ultimately, I would say it was a noble but failed experiment, not quite able to sustain interest, despite constantly changing timeframe and focus. But I'll watch out for Abigail Dean's next effort.

Oh god. It's been a while since I've ugly sobbed through the end a book but here we are.

An excellent thriller, but a difficult read. This book is genuinely disturbing, and because of that I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.