Girl A: A Novel

by Abigail Dean

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
“Pitch-perfect... Dean tells this story with such nuance and humanity, you’re desperate to step into its pages." —The New York Times

“Heart-stopping psychological drama… A modern-day classic." —Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author

“A gripping story about family dynamics and the nature of human psychology.” —Good Housekeeping

She thought she had escaped her past. But there are some things you can’t outrun.

Lex Gracie doesn't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents--her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the home into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings--and with the childhood they shared.

What begins as a propulsive tale of escape and survival becomes a gripping psychological family story about the shifting alliances and betrayals of sibling relationships--about the secrets our siblings keep, from themselves and each other. Who have each of these siblings become? How do their memories defy or galvanize Lex's own? As Lex pins each sibling down to agree to her family's final act, she discovers how potent the spell of their shared family mythology is, and who among them remains in its thrall and who has truly broken free.

For readers of Room and Sharp Objects, an absorbing and psychologically immersive novel about a young girl who escapes captivity–but not the secrets that shadow the rest of her life.

• ISBN10: 0593295862
• ISBN13: 9780593295861
• Publish Date: 1 February 2022 (first published 16 July 2020)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780593295861

Reviews

[Kim Deister]

Girl A, if you are one to be interested in the true crime world, is reminiscent of the real-life Turpin family. Childhood neglect and abuse, starvation, and a self-contained, cultlike set of religious beliefs. The story is told primarily from the 1st-person perspective of Lex, otherwise known as Girl A. Other parts of the story are told through a 3rd-person narrative, primarily that of a few of her siblings. There is no question that their story is disturbing and uncomfortable, but it was in no way written gratuitously. It was heartwrenching at times, just trying to imagine the kind of life that each of these children would have been subjected to, even more so when one applies that to the actual Turpin family.

But there were things about the novel that bothered me, maybe in part because I was expecting more of a thriller. And Girl A is not that, not really, despite how it’s touted. However, it was more than that. There were just too many loose ends for me. There are times when the story seems to turn in a particular direction, a few steps are taken that way, and then the story shifts, leaving that direction totally unexplored and unresolved. There are intimations of sexual abuse in some of Lex’s behavior, but then… nothing. There are inferences that the children’s mother was also a victim, but that was never developed or explored. Ethan, her older brother, is often painted in a way that makes him seem less than an innocent victim, potentially culpable in the abuse of his siblings, but… nothing. That was incredibly frustrating because things like that felt vital to the story, but there were never any answers.The lack of a character arc for Lex also bothered me… until I took the time to really think about it. Lex wrestled with her memories and feelings about her upbringing throughout the novel. It was obvious from the first page that she wasn’t entirely healthy, mentally or emotionally. That didn’t change by the end of the book. At first, it felt like there was no growth, no revelation. And that seemed odd, as the book always felt like it was moving toward something incredibly momentous. But upon reflection, I don’t think that’s really true. I think there was character growth. Yes, she’s still a damaged person, but she’s realized things about herself that give her strength and a new outlook. That’s growth.

I wavered between a three and a four star rating for this, but in the end, I gave it a four. While yes, there were things that bothered me, it was still an engrossing read that I would recommend.

[pamela]

Girl A was a quick and easy read, but it wasn't what I was expecting - to its detriment. This novel was marketed as a thriller...it wasn't.

With a promising concept, Girl A tells the slightly reskinned story of the real-life Turpin case, where a teenage girl escaped her home to alert the authorities that she and her siblings were kept prisoner in their home in horrendous conditions. When I say slightly reskinned, I do mean slightly, as almost every single aspect of the case is replicated in Girl A, from family photographs down to the popular name for the case "House of Horrors." The only real difference was the number of children and the location.

Perhaps because Girl A is written to so closely resemble a real case, the novel's real failing was to be incredibly coy, for lack of a better word, about talking about any of the book's more sordid events. I didn't need voyeuristic detail, but a lot of Girl A's more horrific moments were simply "fade to black" which got frustrating after a while. There was a lot of allusion, vague handwaving in the general direction of a concept, and almost no clarity, which just made me frustrated as a kept reading.

Unlike a lot of other readers, I actually enjoyed the time jumps. I also liked that each chapter focused on one of the children individually. Because of this, however, I would have liked more detail. We only ever get the story from Lex's (Girl A) point of view, and for that reason there is never any real detail on what happened in the house when she wasn't present. For a character who spent a lot of time chained to a bed in a dark room, you can imagine how much narrative detail we miss. I would have preferred having the story told from those various characters' points of view so we could have learned about them, their motivations, and their experiences in the house. It would have helped with sympathising with various characters as well since Lex is actually pretty emotionless. From a character perspective, this makes sense as a way to deal with trauma, but it did make it hard to connect from a reader's point of view.

The marketing of this novel is what really lets it down. Going in expecting a thriller, it was almost impossible that I wouldn't come out of Girl A feeling a little bit disappointed. It was slower and more ephemeral than I was in the mood for, so it just left me feeling a little cold. I think Abigail Dean would have been better off writing a true crim book about the actual Turpin case rather than fictionalising it. Given the lack of detail in her narrative, it would have suited narrative non-fiction a lot better.

[Quirky Cat]

Abigail Dean's latest novel, Girl A, is one that will stick to the memory of thriller fans all over, with a chilling tale of family and secrets.

Lex Gracie is the girl who escaped. Girl A, as the newspapers called her. In her mind, she calls her family home the 'House of Horrors,' and it is an accurate depiction. For a time, Lex thought that she had left that world behind.

Before her mother's death dragged up all those memories again. Along with all of the secrets and lies that run through her family. Even today, so many years after she escaped and freed all of her siblings.

“You can endure an awful lot when you know that you'll be fed at the end of it.”

In many ways, Girl A is one of the most twisted and disturbing reads I've picked up in quite some time. Lex's story is dark and is not for every reader out there. Yet there was also something familiar about this story – I know I've heard of this before, but in reality and in fiction.

Lex's narrative is split, jumping through points of time with little or no warning. While it fits her mental state and the overall feeling of confusion she carries with her, it does make it more difficult to read and understand.

While there are many jumps, I mostly tried to sort them into two timelines. The 'before' and the 'now.' The 'before' timeline is naturally fairly graphic at times. though it goes a long way in explaining everything that is happening in the 'now.'

On that note, I should emphasize that this book is not for everyone. It contains many triggers, including abuse, starvation, imprisonment, severe injuries, and psychological abuse. There are also several other implications, but those are a bit harder to put my finger on.

“The past was one of the few foreign countries which neither of us wished to visit.”

Overall, I found myself wanting to enjoy this story, but I had difficulty connecting despite that. Which sounds crazy, given everything Lex and her siblings went through. You'd think it'd be easy to find that human connection. I'm not sure what went wrong there; perhaps it was simply all of the jumps in perspective. All I know is that it left me feeling slightly disappointed in Girl A.

Check out more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks (of Books)

[Molly J(Cover To Cover Cafe)]

When I got this one in the mail from BOTM, I jumped right into it. It was page turning and every bit the psychological thriller that it’s labeled as! I was glad to have given it the chance! Reading this book made me want to turn back time, bundle my kiddos into a bubble and never let them go, especially since my own child went through a horrific ordeal himself at the hands of his former stepmother. I definitely think that if you didn’t get this one with BOTM and want to read a novel by a talented author, you grab this 3.5 star read up. Be prepared to stay hooked until the end, needing to feel the emotions that thrown to the reader. Be prepared to experience every twist, every horror, every thought that is within the covers of Girl A.

*I purchased this novel. All opinions, negative or positive, are my own.*

[mrs_mander_reads]

This was good. I was hooked from the beginning and excited to finish. I wish there had been more details about the siblings relationships. There are a couple that we just get flashes of.