Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Gut Instinct Rating - 2

Story Line - 2

Writing Style - 2

Characters - 3

Excitement Factor - 2

Believability for type and topics - 3.5

Similarity to other books - 3

Dust Jacket Art - 4

Title Relevance - 3

Goodreads users gave this book a 3.80. I think it was more deserving of a 2.72.

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Published in 2008.

Pages: 170.

Number of books by author: 19.

Genre: YA Fiction.

Alice is abducted. And then is bred to kidnap Ray's next victim about 5 years later. Will the next victim keep her alive? Or will it get her killed?

You may like this book if you like the following sub-genres:

• Abduction

• Sexual Abuse

This book won't find a home on my shelf. I really didn't like this book, at all. If it wasn't as short as it was, it's pretty likely that I would've discarded it. But for $0.99, I felt I owed it to my bank account to read all 170 pages. And most of those pages were only half filled.

The writing style was very YA. It was simplistic, it wasn't challenging, it was just as if a high school student would've written it. And maybe that was the point the author was driving home (since I've not read any of her other work, I can't say for sure; but nothing on her Goodreads page reaches a 4-star average; most of them float around the 3.3-3.7 range). But if it wasn't, and I'm assuming it wasn't intentional, then this was a "failed" area, for me. The chapters were really annoying. Some chapters were a only two or three sentences long, and some were a few pages long. But, for the most part, each chapter wasn't more than a few paragraphs (and to be specific, on average- no more than 5-7 sentences). From the beginning, this was annoying... so annoying, in fact, that I aborted summary-by-chapter notes because there just wasn't anything to summarize.

Usually, I fill about an 8.5x11 page per 100 pages. For this book, I only filled a quarter of a page. Which is why the story line only scored a 2, as well. This book just didn't have anything happening. It was like, "Ray abducted me. Ray knows everything. I have to have sex with Ray." Over. And over. And over. It wasn't until the very end of the book that anything started happening. (So, yes, this is why the excitement factor was only a 2... and it, too, was only saved by the end of the book.) The believability was mostly fine. I mean, I could see this happening. But the ending wasn't really that believable.

The character's were bland. I mean, it was apparent that Ray had a personality, and Alice, and Jake, and Lucy. They all had personalities... and the cop, too. But no one showed any growth. Everyone was just stagnant, and boring. It was framed that Ray was a pedophile and his victims were young female women ranging from 10-15. But most pedophiles like their victims pre-puberty. So, it was slightly strange that he was able to get a prescription for some drug that would prevent acne, breast growth, and periods - and then need to use it. Most girls hit puberty 10-12 years old (breast growth, hair growth, etc.) and start their periods around 12-13... so this aspect wasn't necessarily accurate. I mean, who knows, maybe this pedophile liked his victims at the onset of puberty and throughtout the beginning stages of puberty... but he continuously emphasizes that he wants a little girl. So the character-accuracy wasn't quite there.

The book isn't that unique... I've read at least 3-abduction cases in the past 3 months, and they've all ended the same. They've all been pretty similar in story lines. So on top of the already crappy everything-else, this book just failed all around.

The title was a bit interesting. (Keep in mind, when I put a book on my TBR, it's about another 4-6 weeks before I usually order it, and maybe an additional 1-2 weeks before I start reading it..., so I'm not reading the back of the book first. I read the books in the order they come in the mail, or if I purchase them at a book store, in the order in which they land in my hands.) So, I assumed that this was going to a little bit of a fantasy read, which was clearly incorrect. However, the title did make sense. IF we had gotten more information about the previous Alice. But we didn't. (This isn't a spoiler, by the way.) Alice was a back-story to [this] Alice's life. I'm no profiler, but I would assume that this Alice is replacing an Alice that Ray once had and loved. Maybe a daughter, a sister. Maybe he's just a pedophile with a hard-on for the name Alice. Either way, the title needed more explanation for me to really buy into it. The cover art was fine. There was mention of this white-fluffy dress. Although, I'm not sure what the jeans represent... I don't remember there being a large discussion about jeans that Alice wore except that hers no longer fit. The leaves potentially represent the time of year (since at 6PM it was getting dark, it's possible it could be October, early November).

This whole book just brought up a lot of complaints from me. I had originally scored this, and then I started to jot down notes for my review and I was like, no... this score is too high. It was originally a 3.33 and a 2.98 (without art/title). But that re-analysis of the book brought it down to 2.72 and 2.5 (without art/title). This book will be headed to my discard pile.

#discarded