Girl A Book Review

Girl A by Abigail Dean is psychological thriller book about six siblings who have been abused by their mother and father. Lex Gracie is Girl A, the girl who escaped. She has finally run away from the trauma and pain her family has caused, or so she thinks. This book follows Lex and her life as she tries to find some peace after escaping. After escaping, the siblings were split up. Only some of them kept in touch or were old enough to keep in touch with the others. The readers see Lex as she is still coping with her past once it is brought up again because her mother, who was in jail, has recently passed away. It’s a wild, horrible story with a lot of potential, however, it fell short. There were so many interesting ideas that Dean had, but in my opinion, they did not reach their full potential.

This book is classified as a crime thriller/psychological thriller but this is not an ordinary crime novel. There are a lot of pieces that are in play. Six kids have been abused by their parents for years mentally, psychically, emotionally, and spiritually. They are starved, chained up, tied up, etc. They are not allowed to attend regular school because they are eventually homeschooled, and their father teaches them about Jesus and the Bible and what his ideas are of how the world should be. They also can’t even go outside the house. As soon as Lex escapes, the father kills himself and the mother is sent to prison. The kids are split up, and they even have different therapists.

The story is told from Lex’s point of view. There are flashbacks to her childhood and what she and her siblings had to endure. I find it important to note that not all the siblings had it as bad as others. They were not on an equal playing ground. For example, Lex’s older brother, Ethan, was allowed special privileges like eating at the dining room table or going outside because he said or did something his father liked. The father would reward behavior that he approved of/behavior that he was proud of seeing and punish the siblings when they disobeyed or disappointed.

One of the things that bothered me about this book was that with Lex being the main character she wasn’t very relatable. I didn’t find anything I had in common with her, and she never showed any type of emotion. Not even at the very end of the book when more of her character is supposed to be developed. She wasn’t witty or funny or dramatic. She was just so plain and boring and honestly, I never connected with her. Granted she did go through a horrible trauma in her life, but again I just never found a connection or really any reason to like her.

Another thing I didn’t like was how it was really hard to get into this book. The flashbacks were interesting so that’s really what kept pushing me to read. Well, and because I felt like there was going to be some big revelation at the end of the book (there was), and I wanted to make it to that. I wanted to see if getting to that revelation would make the book worth it. It kind of did. The revelation was good, but I wouldn’t read this book again.

I think the premise of this book and the plot is good. Like I’ve been saying there was so much potential. It was a really interesting idea, but unfortunately it just didn’t do it for me. I feel like the storyline wasn’t executed properly. However, one thing I did like was the writing style. The descriptions were original and refreshing; it wasn’t some modified cliché, or a comparison you would’ve heard a thousand times before. This is also her first book though, so she could still be figuring out her style and structure. She does have another book on goodreads but there isn’t any information besides the title, The Conspiracies. I’m kind of interested to see what that’s about. Will I read it? I don’t know. I’m 50/50.

As far as a rating, I would give Girl A a 2.5/5. It wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever read, but it also wasn’t the worst. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to others, but I’m still glad I was able to finish it. I hate not finishing a book.

Anyways, that’s all for today folks! If you’ve read this far, yay! Thank you! See you next week with another post!