Living Dead Girl

I am really tired today. Tired because I stayed up late to start Living Dead Girl--which I ended up not being able to put down until I finished it.

WOW.
Creepy.
Powerful.
Sad.

It was won an impressive list of awards:

A 2010 International Reading Association Young Adults' Choices Pick
A 2010 YALSA Popular Paperback
A 2010 YALSA Amazing Audiobook
A 2009 YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
A 2009 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers
A 2009 Amelia Bloomer Project Young Adult Fiction Pick
A 2009 NYPL Stuff for the Teen Age Pick
A 2008 BCCB Blue Ribbon Award Winner
A 2008 VOYA Editor's Choice for Teens
A 2008 ABC Best Books for Children Teen selection
A Teenreads.com Best Book of 2008
A Cynsations Cynsational Book of 2008


The book starts out in third person, with a description of "the girl" living with her father in an apartment complex. Three pages later, we hear from the girl: her name is Alice, but it used to be something else. And, we know that the father is no father at all. Alice had been kidnapped five years earlier. I was hooked from the beginning and needed to find out what happened to Alice (I won't spoil it for you).

In some ways it reminded me (as it has others) of The Lovely Bones or the writing of Cormier. I had not read any of Elizabeth Scott's books before but if they are anything like this one, then you can count me in.

You can access a reading guide (written by Pam Cole) and the first few pages here.

Hear the author talk about the idea behind the book here: http://www.simonandschuster.com/multimedia?video=6625375001.

Female teens will love this book. It is fast paced, has suspense, and the chapters are short, no more than six pages each.