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The Girl Next Door

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About this listen

Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets; well-tended lawns; and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan.

On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sons and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths. A boy with a very adult decision to make....

©1989 Dallas Mayr (P)2016 Tantor Horror Suspense Thriller & Suspense Scary Tear-jerking

Critic reviews

" The Girl Next Door is alive...it does not just promise terror but actually delivers it.... It's a page-turner." (Stephen King)
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While The Girl Next Door certainly deals with a truly horrific subject matter, to simply label it and file it neatly under the heading Horror would be an injustice.

While the book is unrelentingly horrific in deed and subject matter, the deeper point for me as a reader, that pushes it out of the realms of pure horror, is the challenge it offers.

Some reviewers have talked about dangers of peer pressure as the key theme. I feel that that does not go to the heart of the message. For me, Ketchum's almost matter-of-fact and sometimes even dry relating of the facts, pushes the question of responsibility not only onto those who took part, but also on those who failed to act. This by extension includes the reader himself. This challenge is poses might well be summed up by a quote attributed to Edmund Burke :"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Horror?

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Ok, the book is well written, but it's still trash. It appears to be a thought provoking piece but in reality it's similar to the feeling of staving to death. You know what's going to happen the whole time and you can't stop it.

Its just not enjoyable.

Also Im totally for the author reading his own book, that's something that I like but he keeps making a weird noise with his mouth like he needs a drink and it's a bit off putting.

I'm not sure who this is for

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Sometimes hard to listen to but so well written. Expertly narrated by the author. I'm going to buy another of his books with my next credit.

so well written

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it was very shocking. definitely not for squeamish people. though I believe this is fiction, it highlights how the importance of safeguarding and how children are easily influenced. actually watched a film adaptation years ago and figured that out halfway through the book....both are about as dark as it gets.

very good but very very dark.

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I'm not sure what I expected of Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door but it wasn't that it would be the saddest story I've read in recent years. Man, that was tough.

A truly sad story

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