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Living Dead Girl
Living Dead Girl
Living Dead Girl
Ebook141 pages1 hour

Living Dead Girl

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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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.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 8, 2009
ISBN9781416996682
Author

Elizabeth Scott

Elizabeth Scott grew up in a town so small it didn't even have a post office, though it did boast an impressive cattle population. She's sold hardware and panty hose and had a memorable three-day stint in the dot-com industry, where she learned that she really didn't want a career burning CDs. She lives just outside Washington, DC, with her husband; firmly believes you can never own too many books; and would love it if you visited her website, www.elizabethwrites.com.

Read more from Elizabeth Scott

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Reviews for Living Dead Girl

Rating: 3.914723985766871 out of 5 stars
4/5

815 ratings126 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book lacks complexity, but speaks about a raw, often hushed topic.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I simply have no words this is worth the read just amazing. Eloquently written thank you Elizabeth
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I did not stop reading until I was finished!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very disturbing, brilliant, and unputdow nable. Recommend highly if you like dark and disturbing!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    i read this from beggining to end all at once it was soo good. its sad and def made me feel soo much for the main character..but is a great read. its only 140 pages, but it is worth it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book may be too intense for some, not intense enough for others, and just right for some like me. I think this book was great at showing the main character's disassociation -- and the way proof of living breaks through that barrier in the form of disabling agony or, occasionally, a disordered and broken joy. There was such a refreshing depth of brokenness in this book. Some would consider the descriptions of abuse graphic, but I would say the descriptions are more darkly poetic than physically literal -- which makes sense if the main character is disassociating (numb) from an overwhelming reality.

    As for the ending (which I won't spoil), I will say that I can be quite picky in general about endings. If an ending is going to be happy, then I want it to be really, really well written. Otherwise, I prefer Mixed Bag endings or (occasionally) Total Misery endings. This book was awesome at keeping me on my toes while still giving me confidence that I would be actually satisfied with whichever type of ending it offered.

    This book may be triggering for some, but it might also be soothing for others -- not because abuse is soothing, but because some readers might finally feel seen. The topics covered in this book are all too often tackled by people who are unfamiliar with the brokenness of the mind that results from abuse. Fortunately, this isn't one of those books. I can't see anyone younger than 12 reading this, and there are a great many adults who couldn't read this either. However, I have no qualms about the YA rating; I think it's often under-estimated how many young people connect with this kind of content in some way. If you can handle partially graphic content and relentlessly dark content, then I highly recommend this book. If you can't... this book would certainly be a tough read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Disturbing difficult read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Wow. Just wow. That is all I really have to say about this.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fast read but it did leave me sad and heart broken
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Excellent book, felt real, but also rushed and would have liked to read more into it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Horrible. Like driving by an accident where there’s blood and body parts. You don’t want to look but you can’t look away. This story, once started, you can’t stop reading. Will forever make me look at every child I see on the streets and the malls in a different light, always wondering if I could help, only if I knew.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    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 compelling and original.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Re-read July 2013. A dark, interesting concept. "Alice" was kidnapped by Ray when she was ten years old. She's now nearing her fifteenth birthday. Despite Ray trying to keep Alice a child for many years, she's starting to develop - and fifteen is when Ray got rid of the previous Alice. Now it's her turn to pick the next girl for Ray. It's fascinating to get inside Alice's mind and see how she is so ruined by what ended her childhood, how she thinks she is evil just because she's been corrupted by him, how she's willing to ruin someone else's life just for a chance at freedom.

    Originally read January 2011. This book is apparently very controversial since it's a young adult book, though it's recommended for ages 16 and up. "Alice" is a fifteen-year-old girl who has been living with her kidnapper for five years. I could tell more of what it's about without giving it away, but I won't. What was most compelling about this book for me was how those five years can make or break someone, how crucial that period is for development. The way it's written really pulls you in, and by the end you're thinking about every man with a little girl you've ever seen, wondering if she was really his daughter, wondering if you should have done something. Amazing book, highly recommended, one I'll definitely re-read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the most darkly disturbing things I've ever read. It is written brilliantly, but is graphic & should not be read easily. A gut wrenching story, told in 1st person barrative, about a 15 yr old girl, who was kidnapped at 10, & the abuses she has suffered.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The ending surprised me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    it was really creepy really detailed too ... but I had problem with some of the things and stories not connecting and sounding right it was hard to follow at certain parts and took me a little while to comprehended especially the parts where its a clip of her past
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I can't keep this book on my library shelf. the kids love it--except for the ending, then they come in and yell at me. :) We discuss--it's great!

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The story is sad, all tales of abuse are. Yes, for many this is the stuff of nightmares, but from a literary standpoint this is a good read. It focuses on a topic not often approached, and it packs a hefty punch.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tonight I read Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott from cover to cover. It is a slim little volume that packs a hammer punch. Anyone who has ever said they can't understand how someone can remain captive, how a person can take power over another's life, needs to read this book. It is a hard, harrowing read but well worth the time.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I picked this book up on an impulse, not knowing what it was about, but the title interested me. It is written very uniquely, told from the view of a young girl who was never allowed to grow up. It's a story about Alice, not her real name, who is abducted when she was on a school field trip. Her abductor changes her name, and doesn't allow her to eat, wanting her to stay "his little girl" forever. Some of the details are very graphic and shocking, but unfortunately very true to what goes on in any long term abduction. She learns to live with her abductor, even doing errands for him outside of the house. But when Ray wants her to find another girl for him to "love", she realizes she may not have much time left. I thought this was a good book, because the author was able to go inside the mind of the abductee and sort've give us an insight to what they go through, and why they become attached to their abductor.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Too short. No real character development.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Every free moment was spent reading this book. I read it about a year ago but it has stuck with me because it is just one of those books.

    This title is definitely not for the faint of heart or those who do like to read about violence to children. If you can read it, it is incredibly gripping and will remain with you long after the story has ended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Haunting.

    This book is really dark but explores some very interesting themes when it comes to being the victim in abduction.

    I wouldn't want to read it again, it was very short and so didnt take me very long to finish.

    I would reccommend this if you want to be taken out of your comfort zone.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Had no clue what this was about at first. This book made me feel like I was reliving my SA trauma. All. Over. Again. But I still couldn't stop reading it. I was hoping for a better ending for the character. Definitely don't think this is for young readers.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Read this book when I was pregnant with my daughter. As a soon to be mother to a little girl no less, this book seriously traumatized me. It further instilled the fear and constant worry about all the horrible, very real things that could happen to your child. The thoughts that r aLways in the back of your head when you become a parent. Raw, Tragic, and Unfiltered. So sad that this really happens around the world
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I wouldn't recommend this book at all , it is disturbing although I had to finish it cause I needed to know that this little girl was gonna be alright....it's for mature readers

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Traumatising omg. I managed to finish this in two seatings. This was very hard to read. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone! If you do want to read this though, please please please look into it cause it can be really triggering to some people.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It’s a quick, but extremely brutal read. This may not be for everyone. You really do feel for ‘Alice’ throughout the novel and what she goes through. There’s a feeling of utter helplessness watching her suffer under the hands of Ray and his cruelty is hard to read. What’s worse is, as the novel progresses and Ray develops other plans to include Alice you feel horrible reading the book (almost like having a bad taste in the mouth).Alice’s behavior is also hard to read. She’s been conditioned because of Ray, and some of her actions are the cause of it. You almost cringe because you start doubting her and wonder if she really will listen to Ray or not. She’s had various chances to leave Ray but her fear for her family kept her staying. It’s understandable as Ray is a manipulator and managed to twist things around to get Alice to be compliant. There’s pieces here and there of Ray and his background. However at that point you don’t care anymore since he’s an awful scumbag and deserves any horrible thing coming at him. It’s a pretty straight forward plot, everything is done through Alice’s perspective, and it’s definitely the type of book that will stick with you for a long while. I’m not going to recommend this, it may be too much for some readers. Definitely pick up something with a much lighter theme after this one.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I think the description of this book was more entertaining than the book itself. Not thought provoking at all, although it was sad. The first few chapters were excellent in the way they set up the story, but there was no character growth after that. I'm thankful it wasn't a long book because it only took me two hours to read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It was good and well written. It was hard to read and kids shouldn’t read it. I wish the ending was different than what I wanted. SPOILER She dies (I’m pretty sure) and I would’ve liked her ending up living or at least get to see her parents. Or maybe just getting the perspective of one of the characters after for some closure.

Book preview

Living Dead Girl - Elizabeth Scott

1

THIS IS HOW THINGS LOOK:

Shady Pines Apartments, four shabby buildings tucked off the road near the highway. Across from a strip mall with nail places and a cash-loan store that advertises on TV all the time. There’s also a drugstore and tiny restaurants, every one opening and closing within months.

Shady Pines is nice enough, if it’s all you can afford. The stairs are chipped but solid, the washing machines always work, and management picks up the trash once a week.

A few mothers sit outside their buildings, resting in fraying lawn chairs and talking over each other while their children run around, playing. One dog lies sleeping in the sun, twitching its tail when a child comes over and pats the top of its head before running away, giggling.

That man in the far building, the car guy, is outside, a pile of parts scattered on the black ooze of the parking lot around him. Car guy has been here since you moved in, but you never see him except for sunny weekends, when he works on his car.

Not that he ever drives it.

He’s a strange one, that’s for sure, living alone, always with that car, not really ever talking to anyone, but every place has one weirdo, and at least car guy cleans up after himself. He’s almost obsessive about it.

Still, see how he sighs when that man, the one whose daughter is quiet and, sadly, a little slow, pulls into the space next to his? See how he watches the girl get out of the car? She’s a skinny little thing, always hunching over a bit, like she’s taller than she thinks she is. Homeschooled, of course, because of how she is, or so someone once told you when you were getting the mail, and there are no secrets around here, not with everyone living so close together.

She walks slowly across the lot, trailing behind her father, who waits patiently for her to get to the building door, holding it open even though he’s carrying all the bags. She doesn’t even say thank you, but what can you expect? Kids never know how good they have it.

2

THIS IS HOW THINGS ARE:

Cold, from the grocery store, from the dairy aisle you walked down to pick up the yogurt, from the frozen-food aisle, its cases filled deep with frozen pizzas and ice cream in large round containers.

Cold, getting out of the truck, foot clinking over something metallic, piece of a car lying on the ground.

Don’t stop to look.

Walk up the stairs, Ray’s footsteps behind you. Listen to him pause, smiling at the one open apartment door, the Indian family on the second floor, always children running in and out, sometimes their TV turned up so loud at night Ray has to go down there and knock on the door, say please turn it down? Thank you so much.

Was that guy in the parking lot looking at you? Ray says when you walk into the apartment, as soon as the door thunks closed and he’s turned the locks, one, two, three. Better safe than sorry, he always says.

Shake your head no, no. Even if he did look, it would never be at you.

No one ever really looks at you.

Ray puts the groceries away, yogurt in the fridge, his oatmeal in its individual packets in the cabinet above the sink. Five apples, one for each day when he comes home from work. Five TV dinners you’ll heat up at night for him to eat unless he brings something home.

He comes over to the sofa. Holds out a glass of water so cold the sides are frosty, ice cubes clinking inside. You’ve pulled your skirt up to your waist, arms resting by your sides, palms up and open. Waiting.

Good, he says, and lies on top of you. Heavy and pushing, always pushing. Good girl, Alice.

Afterward, he will give you the water and a container of yogurt. He will sit with one hand curled around your knee. You will watch TV together. He will tell you how lucky you are.

Yes, you will say. I know I am.

3

ONCE UPON A TIME, I DID NOT LIVE in Shady Pines.

Once upon a time, my name was not Alice. Once upon a time, I didn’t know how lucky I was.

4

I EAT FOURTEEN CHOCOLATE-HAZELNUT candies, round and wrapped in silver foil that crackles when I snap it open.

I also eat six cookies, long brittle tubes filled with chocolate; one puffy cheesy thing that tastes old, all grease and bitterness; and two mints before a woman in a sky blue shirt comes out and calls my name.

The women I’m sitting with, all older, all reading magazines that promise quick dinners and happier children, look relieved.

They’ve noticed the pile of wrappers around me, noticed how I sat and ate while they sipped diet sodas or water and gave each other cautious looks if they reached near the candy when grabbing another magazine.

They know I do not belong here, that there is something not quite right about me.

But they will do nothing about it. They will say nothing, ask no questions. No one does. No one has.

No one ever will.

Alice? the woman in the sky blue shirt asks again, and I stand up, swallowing a last bit of cookie. Flour and sugar, brittle sweet.

There is a plastic decoration on the wall across from me; clear rippled plastic resting against a blue wall. A reverse ocean, with no water for anyone to drown in.

I can see myself in the plastic and it waves me into a strange, distorted creature, the shadow of something or someone.

I look wrong.

I look dead.

I’m not, though. I’m only partway there, a living dead girl.

I have been for five years.

5

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A little girl. She lived in a town four hours away from here, in a house on a street named Daisy Lane. She had a mother and a father and her own room and a TV and sometimes could stay up late to watch movies on the weekend if she ate all her dinner.

She had a cat and three best friends and wanted to work with dolphins. She had posters of them on her walls, and her computer screen saver was one, a dolphin with warm eyes and a sweet grin gleaming out at you. All her stuffed animals, except for the stupid ones her grandparents gave her, were dolphins.

One day she went to the aquarium. She wore blue jeans, a white shirt (no logos, no designs), and sneakers (white, with white socks). She went with her fifth-grade class, and since it was three days before her tenth birthday, she thought her friends would let her sit by the window on the bus.

They didn’t, and when they got to the aquarium there weren’t any dolphins and her friends got mad because she wouldn’t loan them her lip gloss—it was new, it tasted like cream soda, and she didn’t want to share.

She was a selfish little girl.

She paid for it.

6

"DAY OFF FROM SCHOOL?" SOMEONE asks, and I realize the woman with the sky blue shirt is gone and I’ve been guided into a room where another woman stands, smiling and ready.

Skipping, I say, stripping off my clothes, down to one of Ray’s old T-shirts. Smell of him all around me, always.

I used to do that, the woman says, smiling more, like we share a secret. She has a mole on her face with two hairs growing out of it. You’d think she’d notice a thing like that.

Ready, I say, lying down, and the woman motions for me to spread my legs.

You want it all gone?

I nod.

She is supposed to ask how old I am, and maybe other things. Something. There is a sign out front that says minors must have a parent or guardian present to sign off on all services, and this isn’t a desperate, dying store that needs customers. This is a busy, bright place, where women wait and there is a girl whose only job is to ask you if you

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