Dead Girls

by Abigail Tarttelin

This book is majorly disturbing.

Young girls discussing rape and motivations for it is just disturbing. I feel funny about it.

One reviewer commented that it's Lovely Bones meets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and she's not wrong. But this is a much better book than Lovely Bones and nowhere near as good as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Thera does have shades of Lisbeth though and in all the best ways.

I think this may be all the more horrifying because it's told from an eleven year old. Thera has flashes of worldly insight but the majority of the time she's an eleven year old girl who knows about sex and perverts and rapists and murders but doesn't actually understand how this correlates to her life.

As a woman I have always had to be aware of my own safety. What I wear, what signals I may be sending, who I go out with/home with/speak with. But there was never an aha moment. I guess I came to these realizations gradually. Thera is just slammed by them. One day she's got imaginary friends. The next days her imaginary friends are girls that have been raped and murdered. And she doesn't understand. And it's heartbreaking and tragic to watch her try to understand.

For the most part, this was very well written. There were some parts I felt could have been better edited, but it was generally good. The supernatural element wasn't too pervasive and while I would have liked the book more without it - it did work well with the story. I liked Thera. But I also felt at times I was reading about a sociopath. And it seemed like it took her way too long to come to some understanding about things. On the other hand, she was an eleven year old - but it grated on my nerves a little. It also annoyed me how little the adults bothered to talk to her. To explain to her. And could not one person tell her to stop bloody talking in the interrogation? Shouldn't her appointed social worker/cop told her not to speak without her lawyer? Surely she was smart enough to realise that if everyone is angry at her she should start lying?

And she kept talking about intellectual curiosity but she either didn't seek out information enough or she totally got the wrong end of the stick. The first few times was sad, but it did start to get a little ridiculous. Or maybe the story of an eleven year old. I don't know. I haven't read anything like this before and I'm not sure entirely how I feel about it all. It was good but it was strange and disturbing and has made me reassess a lot about children and my own experiences growing up and sex and rape and men and women and just everything. It's a book that will make you think.

The ending was unexpected and a bit surprising. The guilty party was fairly obvious but the consequences and actions undertaken were somewhat of twist. I guess the ending could potentially be left open to a sequel book/series of an older Thera and if that did come about I would definitely read it.

This is definitely a book that is going to stay with me. 4 stars.