The Ninja Reader

Read it, and now I want to crawl into a corner with my thumb in my mouth.-------------------------------------------------------------------------*shudders* Even in June, this book still gives me the chills.Ok, the reason why it took me so long to review this one is because I felt like it spoke for itself. There are never two opinions that are alike, of course, but I think this book was pretty straightforward about its message and didn't need me throwing my two cents in.However, I do feel like I have something to say, beyond the 'it's terrifying' comment, I mean."Living Dead Girl" just does a damn good job at exploring the human psyche. It exlores abduction, captivity, submission, dominance and all sorts of themes minimalistically, focusing on an individual and how, slowly, a completely normal human being is stripped of her free will, her desire to live, of her humanity itself. Alice is shown at a point where her whole world is narrowed to one basic desire - to put an end to it, even if it means condemning another child to the same fate. She even goes as far as to evaluate kids in the park to decide which one would be Rey's "type".The thing is, even though this book is scary, it offers us a good view at what kind of life "Alice" is living, and by letting us familiarize ourselves with it, the victim is no longer part of a statistic, but a human being. You see, it's very easy to ignore the darkness out there if it doesn't concern us directly - that's what a lot of people in the book do. They ignore the obvious, even if the signs are there. Likewise, people who have not had an experience like that can easily disengage themselves emotionally because statistics don't have names, or faces, or feelings. By giving a face to the victim, Elizabeth Scott not only makes people more aware of this darkness, but helps them sympathise where they would have otherwise resorted to victim blaming. So yeah, this is a pretty powerful story, although not without its flaws. Like Cory said, it can get a little repetitive. Some people might consider the physical and psychological torture described as gratuituous. Personally, I thought it was necessary, and while it wasn't explicit, it definitely made one's skin crawl.Most criminally, the ending, which I thought was depressing as sin. Ok, so she sacrifices herself, takes a bullet and just fades out? Why? Some people might consider this heroic, but to me, it perpetuates that Kyla is only fit to be used as a human sheild. That she is so far gone, she can not recover, and the only thing that would make her a decent person is sacrificing her life for a child. Oh, jeez, don't tell me this book is blaming the victim after all! That said, I think this book does a good job of describing the subject matter in a way that would stay with the readers. I just wish it ended on a more hopeful and less subjective note.