A review by rrickman33
Girl A by Abigail Dean
4.0
Girl A is not a thriller, it's not even really a suspenseful psychological novel. It's a story about survival, family, sibling connection, child abuse, and not repeating the past. Do not go in expecting twists and turns and thriller-esque story lines you will be disappointed like the many reviews I read on this. People were upset it wasn't more scary... like did you want to read even more about child abuse than what was in here?? Are you ok?
CW: child abuse, justifying abuse using religion
With that said I did really enjoy this book. We follow Lex (Girl A- the one who escaped) after her mother dies in prison (serving time for child abuse). She has to go to each of her surviving siblings and get their approval for what to do with their family house. The "House of Horrors" where they grew up is tough to read about, they were found chained to their beds, starved, and filthy. Their father thought it was all God's will. This is not a light read but a powerful read.
One this I didn't enjoy about this book was how confused I was the entire time reading it. Each paragraph would skip timelines with no warning and it got old real quick. We moved between present day, right after the escape, and during the abuse piecing Lex's childhood and story of survival together. Things were also incredibly vague and I personally get frustrated when things aren't explained that should be.
Each chapter is about one of the siblings, kind of where they are now but it was still centered around Lex. I liked learning more about each sibling and seeing their journey through survival. I will warn you, there were a lot of info dumps in this- random characters got pages of stories and then they leave the book for good and I was left wondering why I read that.
While the story-telling and writing style may not be for everyone I still think this was a really good story that should be told. Maybe just a little more organized and less vague next time!
CW: child abuse, justifying abuse using religion
With that said I did really enjoy this book. We follow Lex (Girl A- the one who escaped) after her mother dies in prison (serving time for child abuse). She has to go to each of her surviving siblings and get their approval for what to do with their family house. The "House of Horrors" where they grew up is tough to read about, they were found chained to their beds, starved, and filthy. Their father thought it was all God's will. This is not a light read but a powerful read.
One this I didn't enjoy about this book was how confused I was the entire time reading it. Each paragraph would skip timelines with no warning and it got old real quick. We moved between present day, right after the escape, and during the abuse piecing Lex's childhood and story of survival together. Things were also incredibly vague and I personally get frustrated when things aren't explained that should be.
Each chapter is about one of the siblings, kind of where they are now but it was still centered around Lex. I liked learning more about each sibling and seeing their journey through survival. I will warn you, there were a lot of info dumps in this- random characters got pages of stories and then they leave the book for good and I was left wondering why I read that.
While the story-telling and writing style may not be for everyone I still think this was a really good story that should be told. Maybe just a little more organized and less vague next time!