I get this feeling when there’s something important I know I’ve forgotten, or when I sense that something is gravely wrong in my little world. It starts slow. I’d call it butterflies in my stomach, but that implies things much more light-hearted than what I speak of here. As I worked my way through this novel, completely enveloped in the world created by Ketchum, it began. Very lightly. In fact, it was only on the second day of reading this book that I even noticed. Today, as I made lasagna for...

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/ Have you ever read a book that you could not (with a clear conscience, at least) recommend to anyone? Ever read something that made you feel like you should turn yourself over to the authorities because only psychotic criminals would be interested in the subject matter you just exposed yourself to? If so, then you've probably already read The Girl Next Door. When Meg and Susan’s parents die, they are taken in by their aunt rather t...

WARNING: For those of you that still have a tattered, fragmentary scrap of optimism for the inherent goodness of people, this book may well rip it from you and shred your faith in mankind. This book is as disturbing as anything I have ever read. This is mostly because the novel slammed all of my soft/weak spots when it comes to violence, including:1. Torture; 2. Sadism;3. Violence against children;4. Violence committed by children; and5. Prolonged mental abuse.…and worst of all, this is based on...

"My mom says Meg's the lucky one," he said. "My mom says she got off easy."In 1950s suburban America, two teen girls are left in the care of their aunt following the death of their parents. The story is told through the eyes of David, the boy who lives next door and who is witness to the escalating abuse and torture that these girls endure at the hands of the aunt and the rest of the children in the neighbourhood.First of all, I need to explicitly warn potential readers that this book is very gr...

This is the scariest book I've ever read. No supernatural here, but it is full of monsters. Far too real, and completely upsetting because what happened was a reality for this young girl, a girl who deserved nothing but love from the people who should have found it easiest to give. It didn't make sense. What they did. Or why. How could it? ”Like some other species all together. Some intelligence that only looked human, but had no access to feelings. I stood among them swamped by otherness. By...

This is a fictional story based on an actual 1965 killing of a teenage girl in Indiana. The girl, Sylvia Likens and her sister Jenny were put into the care of a single mother by their carnie parents. The woman, Gertrude Baniszewski, several of her children, and some neighborhood children tortured and eventually murdered Sylvia. She was forced to endure unbelievable atrocities like scalding baths, the carving of words into her body with needles, repeated beatings, eating feces, and worse. Ketchum...

That´s so freaking hardcore because it´s based on a true story that shows the slow escalation from mental abuse to the worst things possible done to a human, especially from perpetrators one wouldn´t assume able to do such things to helpless and innocent kids.Another underrated, or let´s say too disturbing and extreme for many audiences, masterpiece that owns most of its much more prominent and well known horror and psychothriller colleagues, as it shows what can happen when mental illness hits

DNF.I’m out.I just can’t with this book anymore. *update an hour or so after I quit*Listen, I'm not "faint of heart" I'm not a "gentle spirit". Horror is my favorite genre and I love my stories bleak and dark but sometimes we have to know our limits. Is nothing off the table? No. We have to be true to ourselves. As much as I think Ketchum is a powerful, brave writer who drew me into this story even as I was dragging my heels, I just couldn't hang with those details anymore. I was angry, upset, e...

You should ask yourself only one thing: Are you ready for this book?No matter what you think, you probably won't be.The blurb reads as follows: A teenage girl is held captive and brutally tortured by neighborhood children. Based on a true story, this shocking novel reveals the depravity of which we are all capable. That's it. And in a nutshell, that is about 99% of the story. I went into this with a lot of knowledge about the book and some about the true story, with eyes wide open and ready for

Based on true events, The Girl Next Door is a painful heart wrenching story that will leave you feeling shattered. The book is written from David's perspective. He meets Meg, an older teen whose parents recently died. Coincidentally, Meg is David's new neighbour and will be under the care of Ruth, the mother of David's friends. Ruth treats Meg and her young sister Susan differently from the boys. But most of her anger and jealousy is toward Meg. With the help of her merciless sons and their frie...

There's going to be some personal information in this review. If you feel uncomfortable reading about child abuse of a sexual nature, you might want to skip this one.The Girl Next Door was one of the first Leisure paperbacks I recall buying. I don't know what I was expecting, but what I got was a kick in the teeth. This book is brutal and unapologetic. And, in my opinion, Ruth is one of the scariest characters to be found within the pages of the book. What makes this all the more terrifying and

The most horrifying thing about Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door is that it is based on a true incident - horrendous abuse, torture and eventual murder of the 16 year old Sylvia Likens in 1965. Sylvia's parents, carnival workers who moved often, left her and her sister in Indianapolis under care of their acquaintaince, Gertrude Baniszewski. Baniszewski was paid to care for the girls, but as the payments were late she began to abuse the young girls, focusing the torrents of her anger on Sylvia.

Great, cruel cautionary tale. The type that valiantly finds the Sad in Sadism. This one's about the hideousness of child abuse, about Miserable Psychopaths & their deep punctures that leave nothing but death and devastation behind...Herein THAT form of evil, which is regularly found, sprinkled, Disneyfied previously in such forms as Cinderella, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Body/Stand By Me, Misery...Jewels, really, all of them, to our culture. It is a summer idyll worthy of Lord of the Flies (!).

Check out all my reviews on my blog page: http://constantreaderpauloneill.blogspot.co.uk/All hail the king of horror. No one makes me squeamish quite like Ketchum. To my horror, half way through the book I realised that it’s loosely based on the true story of the tragic Sylvia Likens. The story is about two teenage girls who are left in the care of their aunt after a horrible accident. It tells the story of the escalating abuse both of them suffer at the hands of their aunt and her children. The...

This is one of the most brutal books I've ever read.He's a very good writer, his style reminds me of early Stephen King. He takes his time developing the characters and then puts the one we care about through hell, which is why this particular book is so controversial I guess.I wanted to throat punch 95% of the characters. If you've read it, you'll understand.I've given it three stars because it was a difficult read due to the subject matter.I couldn't read it again.I'm looking forward to readin...

Before reading this book, you need to prepare yourself.Yes, it's going to be disturbing.Yes, it's going to turn your stomach to knots.Yes, it's going to make you very, very angry.I won't go into the plot since several reviews and the book description already do that. I will say that to me, this book reveals the ugliest possible sides of human behavior, the worst being when good people do NOTHING to help. Even the author is disgusted by what happened, according to his note at the back of the book...

I've seen the movie a couple of days ago. It gave me nightmares. I don't think that I have the courage to read the book. I'm pretty sure that it'll drive me insane. Won't happen any time soon.

When a pretty girl named Meg moves in next door, young Davy is smitten. Soon, however, Meg's aunt Ruth begins mistreating Meg and invites her children to help. Can Davy help Meg escape? Or will he join in her torment? This is the twentieth book in my Kindle Unlimited Experiment. For the 30 day trial, I'm only reading books that are part of the program and keeping track what the total cost of the books would have been. This is one brutal damn book. At the beginning, it felt like Stephen King's co...

I honestly don’t know how to rate this book. One star? Five stars? Throw it away? Is it a great book? Is it a pile of shit?There are a few stages of reading it:1. Oh, great, it drew me in from the first page, that’s great.2. Interesting character development. So logical. Great introspection.3. Oh, the tension is building even in the smallest scenes.4. Oh, shit is starting to happen. I can’t put it down.5. This is so great. It sends a great message. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil i...

Here's another long lingering gaze upon our inhuman humanity for everyone who is still labouring under the delusion that there might be a tiny shred, maybe just a single thread, something, anything, of common decency to be found in the vast majority of ordinary people. Jack Ketchum's here to tell you - sorry. There's not. This novel is based on a real crime which took place in 1965. JK relocates it to 1958 and, creepily, as if this tale needs more creep, which it doesn't, to his home town - to h...