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.

I felt that this novel was okay. After reading the novel’s synopsis, I expected more emotions and more energy to occur within its pages but after reading it, I felt that the novel had more of an even tone and I have mixed feeling about this. I understand how the main character felt after being held all those years being locked in her current condition but things were changing, I thought that would change her too.  

The novel is told through the eyes of Alice who had been abducted when she was ten. Now five years later, Alice realizes that things are changing. Ray wants something else in his life and he expects Alice to help him achieve it.   I felt that Alice was numb as she told her story. She was living with Ray and people in their neighborhood kept to themselves so no one questioned her existence. When Ray tells Alice what he needs, I was shocked and then I wondered how she would respond. As the novel progressed, the lack of energy within it created a hardship for me. I wanted to know the ending but I also wanted to abandon the book. I liked how the novel finished out; I just wished it would have ended with some gusto.

...Yowza. This book is heavy and, despite what the blurb on the back says, pretty damn hopeless. It's the story of a girl kidnapped and held captive by a pedophile for five years. That should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. It's graphic and hard to read. It's quite short, less than 200 sparse pages, but I had to put it down several times, just because it's so emotionally wracking. 

I actually read this once before, years ago for an Young Adult lit class. I picked it up again after seeing someone talking about it online. I was surprised that I had completely misremembered the ending. In my mind, I had rewritten a much more hopeful outcome, and maybe because of that, I felt myself more deeply affected by the story this time around.

Top 5 Wednesday was created by gingerreadslainey. Check out heryoutube channel! Basically, every Wednesday there is a chosen topic to which you list your top 5. If you want to join, have a look at the goodreads page!

This week's topic is really interesting to me since I am a fantasy reader who only occasionally picks up other books. Looking at my list it's obviously those other books that make me think. 

5. Schachnovelle ("The Royal Game" or "Chess Story") by Stefan Zweig

What stayed with me the longest after I read this book was how boredom can be used as torture. Being stuck in a room with absolute nothing to occupy your mind with can make one crazy. I always imagined torture as something physical but the simplest things can be used as torture. 

4. Hiob ("Job") by Joseph Roth

Hiob stood out to me because of its sad story. I cried so much while reading this book. The errors of the father, the hardship of immigration, and the way fate turned out had my heart aching.

3. Der Vorleser ("The Reader") by Bernhard Schlink

For me, Hanna was a very interesting character. I love how Schlink wrote about this very difficult topic. I was mortified how Hanna's simple mind worked during and after Nazi-Germany. But at the same time I felt for her. We are always judging so quickly about the people in Nazi Germany but tend to forget that very smart people were fooled by this propaganda. How do we expect the more simple-minded people to not fall for it?

2. 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I absolutely loved this book. Jodi Picoult is my go-to author when it comes to difficult topics. She does not hold back when she writes about a school massacre and what led to it. We all know how students can be during High School and for once an author wrote about the not always oh so innocent victims.

1. Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

This book left me with goosebumbs. What made me think the most though, was how this girl left the apartment while she was hold captive. Her captivity was more psychological. People saw her in these little-girl-outftits and saw her bruises but nobody did question it. It left me wondering how many abused childen I might see during my daily life and not realising it. After I finished this book I promised myself that I would be more attentive in the future.

Have you read any of these? What books made you think?

tl;dr |✭✭✭✭✩| This book is disturbing. It most definitely will trigger someone, and its very hard to read. But it was written well, and I think the story is an important one.

Description: Alice was taken by Ray when she was 10. But Alice isn't her real name, it was given to her. And it was the name of the girl that came before her. Now that Alice is getting older, and no longer looks like the child she was when she was abducted by Ray, she knows her time is short lived. So when Ray asks her to help him find a new girl, Alice knows she has to do everything just right or he'll kill her

This book. Oh man. I started this book on my commute to work and got a little over half way through the story. I cant lie, I was really glad when I had to stop reading to get off the bus and go into work.

Don't get me wrong. This story is engaging. Its well written. But it is brutal. It is real, and it is absolutely terrifying. The important thing this story brings to attention, and even addresses through Alice (her thoughts), is the problem of victim shaming. It happens far too often, particularly to women, but really it happens to anyone who becomes a victim. People who don't understand how someone could "let themselves" be threatened, beat, and raped. People don't understand why its so hard to stand up and fight back, and to escape such a horrific setting and treatment. Even Alice addresses this at one point. She talks about how she used to think it was as easy as just leaving, but she learned through Ray that it wasn't as easy as that.

This story isn't full on graphic in the depiction of what happens to Alice, what Ray does to her. But it most definitely does not "fade to black" either. You very clearly, as the reader, know what she is going through without it being written in an overly explicit or eroticized way. It makes it way more horrific, and far more real. And I think thats where the power in this story lies. Its horrible to have to picture what happens, but when an author glosses over it... you can kind of forget. Or you can kind of, pretend its not as bad as it is. But in this story, you're forced to see what Alice is put through. You don't get to look away unless you stop reading the book.

This book definitely isn't for everyone. Its disturbing and will stay with you for a long time. But I think its important to read, so you can understand the life of the victim. How they survive what they go through day to day, and why they aren't able to simply fight back and leave. It will also be a huge trigger for some people. And for those people, I would give extreme caution before heading forward with this book.