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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
DNF—too close to stuff like the Turpin case, I don't like things like this that "borrow" from real life.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book wasn’t bad- but it left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. I just wasn’t totally gripped by the characters and the ending was very underwhelming for me. Additionally the timeline consistently switching was a bit hard to follow. I did the the true crime feel of story line, but I guess I just wanted a bit more.
‘Girl A' by Abigail Dean is an intriguing and sometimes terrifying fictional read about a family which survives a parent's descent into insanity. The book's blurb does not indicate it is based on a true story, but I believe it is. I vaguely remembered seeing newspaper articles about crimes which played out with some of the plot particulars in this novel. So I looked up and read in Wikipedia about two real-life families whose stories seem to have been the source material for ‘Girl A'.
Below is the book's cover blurb. I have copied it because it is accurate:
Lex Gracie doesn't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents--her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings - and with the childhood they shared.
This is Wikipedia info about the real-life case I remembered:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin_case
The author does not linger on Lex's sufferings, or describe what her siblings endured except for what Lex saw happening. However, one does not need graphic descriptions to understand how awful it was. For the older children, until their father completely lost his mind, the family had normal contacts with schools and friends, although somewhat proscribed by the poverty and religious environment of their home life. The author wanted more to explore what happens, fictionalized, when children survive such parents after they become adults. It is this aspect of the novel for which I have rated the book four stars.
‘Girl A' by Abigail Dean is a good novel, but it would have been better if the architecture of the chapters and flashbacks had been organized to suit readers expectations. There are seemingly a hundred flashbacks which, because of organization and maybe also the typesetting and layout, serve to work as confusing digressions. I continuously experienced momentary confusion as to the Timeline whenever I started a new paragraph that jumped back in time. Plus, the chapters are labeled Lex (Girl A), Ethan (Boy A), Delilah (Girl B), Gabriel (Boy B), Noah (Boy D), Evie (Girl C) which, to experienced readers, signals a point of view change, but you would be confounded because instead the chapters are still in Lex's (Alexandria's) point of view. The flashbacks happen within chapters, sometimes several flashbacks, without any typesetting or punctuation to mark a transition in time is happening. I was able to keep up once I figured out how the book’s architecture was set up.
The other real-life family is in England, the same location of the novel. I think this family is extremely horrific but the author took a personality element or two of one of the perpetrators. However, their story will cause PTSD sufferers possible triggering, so don’t click if you feel you can’t tolerate graphic torture:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_West
Below is the book's cover blurb. I have copied it because it is accurate:
Lex Gracie doesn't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents--her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings - and with the childhood they shared.
This is Wikipedia info about the real-life case I remembered:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin_case
The author does not linger on Lex's sufferings, or describe what her siblings endured except for what Lex saw happening. However, one does not need graphic descriptions to understand how awful it was. For the older children, until their father completely lost his mind, the family had normal contacts with schools and friends, although somewhat proscribed by the poverty and religious environment of their home life. The author wanted more to explore what happens, fictionalized, when children survive such parents after they become adults. It is this aspect of the novel for which I have rated the book four stars.
‘Girl A' by Abigail Dean is a good novel, but it would have been better if the architecture of the chapters and flashbacks had been organized to suit readers expectations. There are seemingly a hundred flashbacks which, because of organization and maybe also the typesetting and layout, serve to work as confusing digressions. I continuously experienced momentary confusion as to the Timeline whenever I started a new paragraph that jumped back in time. Plus, the chapters are labeled Lex (Girl A), Ethan (Boy A), Delilah (Girl B), Gabriel (Boy B), Noah (Boy D), Evie (Girl C) which, to experienced readers, signals a point of view change, but you would be confounded because instead the chapters are still in Lex's (Alexandria's) point of view. The flashbacks happen within chapters, sometimes several flashbacks, without any typesetting or punctuation to mark a transition in time is happening. I was able to keep up once I figured out how the book’s architecture was set up.
The other real-life family is in England, the same location of the novel. I think this family is extremely horrific but the author took a personality element or two of one of the perpetrators. However, their story will cause PTSD sufferers possible triggering, so don’t click if you feel you can’t tolerate graphic torture:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_West
Girl A was such a dark and twisted book. The story follows Lex who escaped from a “house of horrors” when she was a teenager. Her parents were religious fanatics with some extremely warped views. I wasn’t crazy about the format of how the story kept jumping around, and I wanted more background and less of the present day, but I still enjoyed it. Trigger warning for child abuse.
'The biggest mystery thriller since Gone Girl'? I don't think so. It wasn't thrilling in the slightest and as for mystery, I can't say it did that well either. This story is a girl who escaped captivity from abusive parents, and what her and her siblings' lives are like as adults.
I can deal with an unreliable and unlikable narrator, but at no point did I even really care about her. It featured too many characters with no real introductions. The timeline jumped around a lot but it wasn't even clear it had happened until half way through a paragraph. So many things that were vaguely mentioned or alluded to for seemingly no reason.
A lot of criticisms about a book that should have been gripping but instead was mostly just disappointing.
I can deal with an unreliable and unlikable narrator, but at no point did I even really care about her. It featured too many characters with no real introductions. The timeline jumped around a lot but it wasn't even clear it had happened until half way through a paragraph. So many things that were vaguely mentioned or alluded to for seemingly no reason.
A lot of criticisms about a book that should have been gripping but instead was mostly just disappointing.
I really didn’t enjoy this book. The flashbacks within flashbacks from different points of view, the lack of detail or depth on any actual event, the confusing nature of the viewpoints, it just felt like a mess.
A mess I didn’t enjoy. At all.
A mess I didn’t enjoy. At all.
I think this was too confusing too intelligent and too boring for me
From pretty early on this wasn't a grasping read for me. I was quite happy to put it down and take a break etc. The story was OK but slow and undetailed at times. Ending slightly unclear to me but I know this appeals to some as you can interpret as you wish!