The Girl Next Door

Wow

This is one of those books that once you have read the last word on the last page, you sit there for a moment and just think about everything that just happened. This book grabs you...hard. It rips and tears at your mind making you just wish that a happy ending would hurry up and come. Towards the end of the story, I felt the urge to just chuck the book across the room because of the anger I felt towards what was happening in the story. Its been a while since I've read a story so honest, daring, and twisted. A highly suggested read, if you can stomach it.

9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.

deep psychological study

Suburban 1950s New Jersey is a great place to raise kids just ask twelve year old David, who loves playing in his idyllic neighborhood where crime is nonexistent. Next door Ruth Chandler, single mother of David¿s best friend Donny and two brothers, takes in two young distant cousins whose parents died in a horrific automobile accident. The older sister fourteen years old Meg seems to have fully recovered the younger sibling Susan needs crutches and wears heavy metal braces on her legs while mentally she is totally broken. David is immediately attracted to the lovely Meg and they begin meeting at places like 'Big Rock¿ they make a charming cute couple. Ruth lives in the past when she was the office manager of a large firm she hates suburbia and being saddled with five children. She takes her growing rage out on her new charges, physically and mentally abusing Meg and Susan, especially Meg who reminds her of all she gave up to have kids. Her sons by omission support her actions. David also knows that Ruth is violent towards Meg, but though he loathes what she is doing, he is also fascinated by her dehumanizing the one person who reminds her how far she has fallen. --- This reprint of a 1989 deep psychological study focuses on the watcher-narrator David who learns about abuse and helplessness when he fascinatingly observes the pain a human inflicts on another while neighbors ignore the truth. The story line hooks the audience from the opening line as a wizened David understands pain and never lets go as the serene middle class suburban neighborhood enables ugliness to hide behind the scene (mindful of the Kitty Genovese killing in 1964 Queens). This book also includes two short stories and an interview with Jack Ketchum, but cannot be considered padding since the novel is 340 pages. Readers will be shocked by the horror of customized violence that society chooses to ignore when it happens to THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. --- Harriet Klausner

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

A reviewer

I can't believe anyone, no matter what the age, could be stupid enough to not tell someone that a girl was being tortured for weeks, let alone months. There were other GIRLS there also, not just stupid boys. I think it's unbelievable that MORE THAN one person was that stupid.

4 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Amazing!

Wow. This book left me feeling sad and mad. Sad for the girl, she fought til the end. No matter what they did. Angry....David! So dissapointing how he acted towards this. Yes he kind stood up at the end but how count he know it was wrong from the start. Idk im confused on what i feel towards david

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Author, fan

Intense, once you start you can not stop. Once you finished you will never be the same.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

I would highly recommend this book to family and friends. Mainly, our society turns its back even in this day and time on the bad. We still say let someone else do something about it.

I retired from the U.S.A.F.,(Disabled), October 1, 1994. I worked in the SPI Career Field. This stands for: Securiy Police Investigations. We investigated crimes,etc. involving military personnel. Yes, many times we investigated fathers/mothers who molelested their daughters or sons. So, I can relate to this book. I can relate to this book and to the movie. It open old wounds again. i wish every junior/senior,both in highscholl and college should be part o their reading. Then, have discussion groups afterwords. Thank You, Mr.Ketchum for your stand on your writting of this material that our society still seems to try and hide or still say let someone else handle it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Powerful and moving, the story of the loss of innocence

No one can say that this story lacks nostalgia; it is however overshadowed by events that are hard to read, moments so painful that sometimes the reader is left in discomfort (but hungry for revenge). Perhaps when it comes to harming kids, certain emotions kick into higher gear, horror stories that involve adults never tug at me as much as stories where defenseless youngsters get the unfortunate piece of life, especially if they were good kids who didn't deserve even the slightest form of punishment. This story however is about two kinds of kids, the good ones and the ones who know no empathy and no boundaries, dark souls that manage to cause some psychical and psychological harm.

Told from the point of view of young David, the tale takes on personal feel when the boy takes interest in Meg, a bright young girl who moves in with the family next door. Along with her younger sister Susan, she is a survivor of a car crash that claimed the lives of her parents, moving in with her relatives seemed like a good a good idea until aunt Ruth started to act strange. Drinking her beer and letting her boys loose she was a tough feisty woman, one that you can't say no to, one that will punish you in bizarre and cruel ways, one that can destroy a young soul and send it to brims of pain and humiliation. This was a powerful and moving book, one that made me angry and wishing I could have appeared in it with a weapon ready to kick some @ss. This is a story that takes a life of its own, one that will change you for a while with its moving and descriptive -sometimes too descriptive, language. This was a great read from Ketchum, worth the hype and it delivers, it's simply a great story, read it.

- Kasia S.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Couldn't put it down!

Such a sad story. Couldn't quit thinking about it. A very fast read.

Disturbing, fascinating...excellent writing.

Must read

Great book, could not put down!

good read

Loved the book and the dvd. Probably could be a true story so very upsetting also, but well writen.

Highly Recommended

One of the few books that can emotionally attack you in a way you will never forget.

The Girl Next Door Review.

Five star's, This movie/book is very good. one of my favrites. it's about this teenage girl's family was in a car crash. leaving her parents dead, and her little sister left whereing metal legs. she's left with a few scars. her and her sister have to move with there "Cosins" who they have never met before. in the end she ends up dieing and the boy who try'd to save her is left in deppresion at age 50, this is based on a true story, i'm 14 and loveing this book!

Not for the average reader.

This story hit hard.I on the other hand Loved it. This gets 5 Chocolate Strawberries, dipped in sprinkles..He is the author I have been searching for for a long time. I want something that will scare me out of my wits, have me with nightmares for days on end. This will do that. And to think Ketchum said he left a lot of of the story.

amazing job

jack ketchum did an amazing gob writing down megs story and i myself have recommended it to a few people, this book is both my favorite and my most hated. i have no idea how i got around to read this book but once i red the first 4 chapters i stayed up till 4:30 am to finish it.

Amazing but sicking

this book was absolutley amazing. I couldn't put it down. The movie is sad as well. It's hard to think that this actually happened. This book is stomach turning but just an amazing book. I highily recommend it! But definately NOT FOR CHILDERN!

Creepy

I couldn't put this book down even though it was creepy and made my skin crawl during the torture scenes...

Shocking

Monsters don¿t always have a set of horns and fangs for teeth with dark demonic voices, hailing from some otherworld. Sometimes they come from middle America, wearing a plain dress, lipstick, speaking in a cool, calm voice. The only fire and smoke that follows is that of some cheap brand of cigarettes. This is the case for of Jack Ketchum¿s the `Girl Next Door¿. Based upon the true events of Syliva Likens in Indiana while with her Aunt Getrude Baniszewski, the story is of Young Meg and her crippled sister Susan as they are placed under the care of their Aunt Ruth and her three boys after their parents are killed in an automible accident. Aunt Ruth is every neighborhood kids dream adult because of her lenient, lazy-fare, idea of child care. All the kids want to hang out at her house with her three boys. She lets them smoke, gives them beer, and lets them do what they will, things that most parents would find inappropriate, especially for 10 to 12 yr olds. Although more of a friend than a parent, Ruth is still the iconic parental figure. For children of such a young age still trying to understand right wrong, Ruth is by far the worst guidance figure as she progressively becomes more and more warped and instills her sense of sick morals on the children . The dream quickly turns into a nightmare for Meg and her sister. It starts with verbal abuse, harsh chores, but escalates to beatings and humiliation in front of the boys. Quickly it takes a turn far worse than one would imagine. Evolving from the kids game of capture and confession, Meg is tied up in an old bomb shelter in the basement of the house and is brutally humiliated, tortured, mutilated to where she eventually dies. The story is told through the narration of David. Now in his adult years, David struggles internally since those dark days in 1960 as a 12 yr old boy. He explains how he witnessed the tragedy that befell Meg, the delusional Ruth as the ringleader of the neighborhood children, and the constant debate with himself as he realizes the events unfolding are wrong, yet he does nothing to help in fear of ridicule from his peers or of having the same fate. In the end he does make an attempt to save Meg, but it is far too little too late. As an avid horror fan, I have read endless words of horror and watched films old and new that were meant to make you squirm. None of which have fazed me, however, this truly made me feel uneasy. I was disturbed on so many different levels of this book. Realizing that this book is based not on a fictional event but yet a true crime, is what set it apart from any twisted moment you would see in say a ¿Saw¿ movie. A number of times I would stop for a few moments from reading, out of shock of the words I have just read. The things that were done to this girl, none of which I will elaborate here, were truly horrifying. After completing the novel, I did research on the true crime it was based from and was appalled as to how comparable the novel was to the truth. Aside from horrific acts of violence, the thought that people like this exist and that more often than not things such as this occur but are not reported is not a shock to me but yet it sends a chill through my spine. As growing up, we depend on our parents and other adults to teach us good and bad, right from wrong. Adults are our guides, our templates. Adults are suppose to mold us to be upright, good citizens. Well, what happens when the guide it the furthest thing from that. What happens if that so called template is without a shred of decency, has no sensibility, that they themselves don¿t understand right from wrong, and can potentially be the darkest murderous person you will ever meet, but would not be able to tell because they look just like you. What then? Once again, Jack Ketchum captures the horror in something familiar and what some would believe safe and normal. Ketchum¿s writing flows and literally pulls you in from the beginning. The book is a qui

a good book

this is a good book for the people that have many things that are wrong with there minds, it is a good just sit down and read

WOW... It still bothers me after 2 years...

I read this book about 2 years ago. It is very well written... I couldn't put it down. It took me a mere 2 nights to read it, but I still have thoughts of it 2 years later. I enjoy horror and thrillers, but this one is different. This is not for the faint of heart. Knowing that is is based on true events only add to the story.