The Girl Who Died

by ,Wendy Dranfield

[zooloo1983]

I have to say I am speechless, as I write this review it’s been a short 10 minutes in which time I have messaged Wendy, ran a bath and marked the book as read on Goodreads. I flew through The Girl Who Died, it was just…well it was just. I have no words. I have been eager to read this book ever since I read Where the Snow Bleeds as I was made aware that Hannah had her own book and was it powerful. It is so not an easy read and does tackle difficult subjects, it is not a race to the finish type of book (even though I did) it is a slow burner showing the lives of everyone, it is a character-driven book as we learn what secrets need to be told.

Secrets and lies cause so much destruction it is unreal and it is even case and point here when Katie, Hannah’s best friend, is found dead at the bottom of a quarry. Hannah says she killed her but is it that cut and dry?!

We have the entire story told from Hannah’s point of view, we see all of her sufferings, everything is laid bare for this girl, every horrific thought, every anger, anguish, heartbreak and tears. Could it all be as simple as what we are led to believe?

Ah but alas, paths never do run smoothly and it is no different here. What you think you know, you find out more and it’s not always for the better. It is set over five short weeks, with Katie dying pretty much at the beginning of summer leave and we have our eyes opened as the innocence of these 15-year-old girls are stripped away for good. Hannah is immature and you see that so clearly through Wendy’s writing, her writing is far from immature. She writes as if she is Hannah, a 15-year-old girl talking but growing up too quickly due to circumstances. She keeps the secrets, she tells the stories, she does extremely reckless and selfish things just like you imagined a 15-year-old would in this situation. Yet at the same time, it is all believable. I devoured this and sadly could imagine this being a scandal that broke out on the news especially in this day and age.

My heart broke for everyone, this death affected a lot of people in a variety of ways and not always for the better. Hannah has lost her friends, her mum can’t be near her, the only solace she has is Josh, but he’s Katie’s big brother. Both are lonely souls trying to understand what has happened and whether they can move on from these events.

I won’t tell you anything else about the plot, I just want to get this book on everyone’s radar. It’s a relevant book for the current times, it’s shocking and as I said it has left me speechless (not an easy thing to do!). It has been classed as a Young Adults, but it truly is so much more than that. I still can’t believe this was written before her Dean Matheson series, because man the writing here is just unbelievable. I feel like I have been reading her work for years, not the 2 years I have been.

It’s on Kindle Unlimited so you would be crazy not to pick this up. It doesn’t pussyfoot about nor sugarcoat anything. There is darkness here, a different kind to the Dean series but darkness nevertheless of how one death can cause such a butterfly effect.