Once upon a time, there was a girl who was just a few days away from her tenth birthday. She was on a class trip, but her friends got angry with her when she wouldn't share her lip gloss. They refused to let her walk with them anymore, so she ended up on her own. Once upon a time, she was happy, had a family and her own name. Then she was taken. Now, she's Alice, just like the girl before her, and she's broken, battered, and ruined. It's been five years since that far away time and that girl who seems more an imagining than a memory. When the last Alice turned fifteen, she was "set free" and replaced by this new one who is hoping for the same kind of release. As the days go by, and the hunt for a new little girl gets more insistent, Alice feels no remorse for what she knows will happen. She is fine with the prospect of teaching a new child that resistance is futile and dangerous to oneself and the family left behind. If it means the end for her own pain, Alice will do anything. After all, it can't get any worse . . . can it?
I was browsing through the young adult shelves at the library and came across Elizabeth Scott's books. I had never read her before, and every one sounded as equally intriguing as the next. I finally chose Living Dead Girl and one other based on their less than 200 page length. I am now determined to read them all.
Scott knows how to write it real, and she can do so without being graphic. It's one thing to impress upon this age group the horrors of reality, but it's not necessary to share the gruesome details as well. Rather than writing simply for shock factor, the author chooses to keep things at a believable level. A child who was stolen at such a young age, and forced to remain in little girls' clothing until far passed the time she's outgrown them, would, understandably, not have progressed emotionally to the point of knowing how to express what was done to her. Instead, she speaks generically. The most ever spoken of was when she awoke, covered in bruises and with blood on her thighs, from the first "episode" just after having been stolen.
The reader, being at the age of "it'll never happen to me" or "if that was me, I'd just...." will, initially, wonder why Alice roams freely to the park, the store, or to get her privates waxed without trying to escape. That will be answered sufficiently. Intense fear for others is a decidedly moving argument.
I have an appreciation for fiction books that provide nothing but a source of entertainment for young adults, but I greatly admire a writer that can successfully write reality fiction for this age group. Elizabeth Scott, you have found a new fan in me.