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A review by bobsacoolword
Girl A by Abigail Dean
3.0
If you go through the reviews, you’ll see that this book was absolutely not everyone’s taste. The way the story is told jumps between characters and their past or present. It’s not easy to follow along and it took me several “parts” for it to feel easy for me to understand without rereading the page a few times. I would recommend reading this book in one go—I can’t imagine trying to jump back into the story after any amount of time has passed. In fact, I tried and failed. I bought this book on its release and abandoned it almost every time I picked it up.
In the end, it was a bit disappointing. Partially because I thought the psychologist and adoptive parents weren’t written into the storyline well. Partially because so much of the present day focused on how horrific their lives had been before they escaped, but the flashbacks focus on times before it got too bad (and the bad felt like it would only make the front page if it was a slow news day). It read like the author was aware of how people can fetishize fictional child abuse and while I’m grateful for that, I wish there had been an editor that had pushed the author to not downplay their story.
The book is broken into parts and each part shines some insight into the main character’s relationship with a sibling and their experience in the house. The present day feels rushed, but the flashbacks move incredibly slow—at one point, I didn’t believe it would ever get as bad as the author hinted it would. The writing teetered back and forth between too descriptive and not enough—I begged for more conciseness in paragraphs that dragged on and then felt there was a lack of description towards the parts of the story that needed to hold more weight.
There are two revelations at the end and here is my spoiler-free review of them (in the order that they occur):
-Revelation 1: I wasn’t expecting it at all, and yet it felt expected. Honestly I don’t think this part was written well—it felt sloppy thrown in at the end.
-Revelation 2- This could have been such a beautiful twist to the story and I felt like it was executed so poorly. The foreshadowing was blindingly obvious but they had such a light touch that they did not make an impact. Instead of thinking “ah yes, this is a beautiful commentary on how bad people will always exist,” I think “well yes of course that happened because the author has no subtlety.”
In the end, it was a bit disappointing. Partially because I thought the psychologist and adoptive parents weren’t written into the storyline well. Partially because so much of the present day focused on how horrific their lives had been before they escaped, but the flashbacks focus on times before it got too bad (and the bad felt like it would only make the front page if it was a slow news day). It read like the author was aware of how people can fetishize fictional child abuse and while I’m grateful for that, I wish there had been an editor that had pushed the author to not downplay their story.
The book is broken into parts and each part shines some insight into the main character’s relationship with a sibling and their experience in the house. The present day feels rushed, but the flashbacks move incredibly slow—at one point, I didn’t believe it would ever get as bad as the author hinted it would. The writing teetered back and forth between too descriptive and not enough—I begged for more conciseness in paragraphs that dragged on and then felt there was a lack of description towards the parts of the story that needed to hold more weight.
There are two revelations at the end and here is my spoiler-free review of them (in the order that they occur):
-Revelation 1: I wasn’t expecting it at all, and yet it felt expected. Honestly I don’t think this part was written well—it felt sloppy thrown in at the end.
-Revelation 2- This could have been such a beautiful twist to the story and I felt like it was executed so poorly. The foreshadowing was blindingly obvious but they had such a light touch that they did not make an impact. Instead of thinking “ah yes, this is a beautiful commentary on how bad people will always exist,” I think “well yes of course that happened because the author has no subtlety.”