This was a hard book for me to read. I feel sad just writing about it. Alice is a teenage girl who was kidnapped by Ray when she was about 10 years old. He snatched her from a school trip and kept her as a play thing for the next five years.
Alice is growing up though, beginning to look like a young lady instead of a little girl, despite her restricted diet and the pills Ray gives her to keep her from menstruating. He wants a new victim and he wants Alice to find and train her. Alice wants out even if that means sacrificing another child. She begins spending time at a near by playground, looking for her replacement.What follows is gripping, gut wrenching, and utterly surprising.
This is a hard book for me to recommend. I don’t know who will like it. It’s not really a book you like, frankly. It’s a book that comes from a very dark place, and when you read it you go there too. This book may help readers who have suffered abuse, but it is so raw and visceral that it may also serve as a trigger.
That said, I still think it’s valuable. This book can be used to open a discussion on any of the following topics: kidnapping, abuse, sex, and rape. Talking with your readers and allowing them to ask questions and experience, through this book, Alice’s fear, may protect them in the future or help heal the past.
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Stay uncomfortable, keep reading.
Shortish and Bookish 