#GirlA #NetGalley
Addictive and Twisty. Most compelling read of 2021. Highly recommended.
You don't know me. I'm Girl A. I was gripped by this line and finished this book in one sitting. It's twisty, addictive and emotional at the same time. Love, betrayal are at the heart of this book. Abigail Dean's writing is such a perfection that this book is going to be a TV show. I see why. I loved it so much. I loved the character of Lex. She portray the character of a girl who's strong from heart.
Go for it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK Harper Fiction for giving me an advance copy of this awesome book.

Six sibling survive "The House of Horrors", but do they really? The Gracie siblings grew up in a cult with abusive parents and now they are adults have very little contact with each other. But when their mother dies her will forces Girl A (Lex), the girl who escaped to get back in touch with her siblings. The book explores the different ways the siblings have found to cope with or deny the realities of what happened to them and how their shiny new lives can look superficially fine but underneath their childhood experiences still exact a toll. I was fascinated by the psychological characterization of long term trauma and how it affects people in different and subtle ways.

This is an incredibly powerful book, full of intense honesty.

I think the author has done an amazing job of capturing the life long scars that people subject to abuse in childhood carry with them for all time, how these scars are different for everyone and the coping mechanisms are different.

The characters are superbly written and even though you don't like all of them you can understand them.

I have feed back the review
I did it the other day
It was good
I had an Arc
I have a previous review

This was a rough book for me to read, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be talked about in 2021.
After her mother dies in prison, she and her siblings are left an estate to split, and ghosts and traumas of their past to face. I really engaged with the protagonist but I found myself struggling to fully accept or suspend disbelief properly in places, which really caused an enjoyment gap - as weird as that sounds - and sympathising with the protagonist made things a bit harder because I had to put up walls.

I think some of the stuff that characters worked through was less believable, but that was purely from the perspective of having to keep some distance to not react as harshly to some of the stuff that was discussed.

A complex book, one I'll definitely revisit when I'm in a better headspace.

Honestly I didn’t like this to begin with but stick with it! This is an incredible story.

Girl A shocked me, there’s moments that will bring you to tears and moments where you wish you could turn your emotions off but my god this is a breathtaking story. Is it the best book I’ve ever read? No. I found parts extremely confusing and clunky but overall I’d give this a 3.5/5.

Every generation has one (or maybe even more) of those awful news stories that capture the nation's attention - a person or people held captive who manage to escape and reveal that they have been trapped and kept apart from the world for years, whether they were kidnapped or born and raised in the environment. There's not always a lot of thought given to what happens to them afterwards, though, and that's what makes Girl A an intriguing story. It opens with the adult Lex discovering that her mother has passed away in prison and has made Lex the executor of her will, in which Lex and her siblings have been left the house where they spent their adolescent years chained to their beds and at the mercy of their fanatically religious parents. Through flashback, we slowly learn the story of what happened to Lex, how she escaped, and how, in many ways, she has never really been able to leave.

This is an incredibly powerful book, full of intense honesty.

I think the author has done an amazing job of capturing the life long scars that people subject to abuse in childhood carry with them for all time, how these scars are different for everyone and the coping mechanisms are different.

I love how when difficult questions are asked, the answers aren't twee or wrapped in fluff.

The characters are superbly written and even though you don't like all of them you can understand them.

The ending is both perfect and a punch in the guts.

This wasn't an easy book to read and I imagine it wasn't an easy book to write. The research into getting the psychology of everyone involved right must have been heartbreaking.

It's prompted me to volunteer with Action For Kids and I really hope it inspires others to do something similar.

Sorry I didn’t get this book at all and also don’t understand the high reviews it’s received. It’s a desperately sad theme of an abused family who escaped their fate, and their lives afterwards. Described akin to Room etc so I had high hopes. But meandering, going nowhere, and at times unnecessary vile language. I’m no prude, but this made me feel ill at times. I just wasn’t interested in finding out what happened. It all killed it for me and I did not finish it. It was quite the worst book I have read for a while.

Thank you though to the publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review. But sorry again!!

At first I thought I wouldn’t enjoy this book! But very quickly became engaged! Terrifying story! But also a tale of survival, sibling rivalry, and the strength of the human spirit! I couldn’t put it down and had to find out how it ended! A really wonderfully well written book! Loved it!!

This was absolutely gripping - one of the best thrillers I've read in years. The 'survivor of an abusive home/cult' genre is really packed, but this stands out! It felt very fresh and modern, with a contemporary and well-written voice. My only critique is that I would've liked it to be even longer and for a certain character to face up to their past actions...

Am not sure how I feel about this book. Am glad I read it, I had seen good review about it but it’s left me a tad disappointed.
Lex and her siblings living in the house of horrors, I read that bad things happened but when it was described as the house of horrors I expected it to be a bit more gruesome that it actually was and with some of the time mentioning Jolly a lot I thought that he may have played more of a part with the things that happened.
I thought from early on that Ethan may have played more of a part with things going on but I never guessed that Evie may have been dead.
A few times I got a bit lost with the book when it jumped back from one part to the other and with how it was set out.
I appreciate all the hard work that has gone into writing it but it wasn’t for me.

An original and well-written story of suspense. While the events depicted are traumatic, they are not salaciously written and the unsaid is as powerful - or even more so - than what is on the page. Compulsive.

Beautifully written and elegantly structured, Girl A is being touted as 'the book that will define a decade'. The story follows Lex Gracie, known as 'Girl A', who escaped abuse at the hands of her parents as a teenager, held captive inside their family home known in the press as 'The House of Horrors'. After the death of her mother, Lex must revisit what happened to her and her siblings.

I really must take my hat off to Abigail Dean's prose. It's gorgeous. So many turns of phrase I adored; dissonant details, choice words.

The story moves expertly between the past timeline (the abuse in the house) and the present, where the grown-up Lex must navigate the adult world and return to what happened to her. I loved the cuts between timelines, which kept me turning pages to find out what happened (why, exactly, did the father introduce 'Binding Days'?).

The abuse is handled delicately, without too much detail, which I appreciated from one point of view (being able to stomach it, for one...), though what precisely happened to the siblings does remain opaque by the end, which I didn't entirely expect. Instead I found horror in the small things; The Territory between Lex and her sister Evie's bed is a wasteland of rotting trash, which screams 'neglect' more loudly than some of the characterisation and explanation does. It's chilling.

If I have one criticism it's that Lex stays relatively static for me, as our narrator. She is unknowable, and not given a huge transformation in the narrative. I expected a big showdown at the end; it didn't come. And maybe that's more sophisticated, more classy, the change in Lex internal. There is a small twist, which was incredibly satisfying to guess correctly and I anticipate book clubs will love crowing about that next year! But overall Girl A hews more closely to the characters, eschewing multiple thriller tropes and focusing, instead, on excavating the past.

I'd describe Girl A as MY DARK VANESSA meets FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me read an early copy, I really enjoyed it and read the whole thing within a day.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC copy.

Lex Gracie is the first of the seven Gracie children to escape from the house of horrors that they called their childhood home. Known since as Girl A, Lex has tried to forget about their horrific past but when her mother dies and leaves her as beneficiary she is again thrown into the turmoil of her past. She must now comes to terms with what happened to her and her siblings and how it has affected the lives they have now.

A harrowing and sometimes uncomfortable read as we learn the secrets of the past, and sometimes the present, and what a damaged childhood can do to a person. All that being said it was an enjoyable read and I would highly recommend it.

I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. I was really looking forward to reading it and it got off to a good start but then it went nowhere so I was quite disappointed. It is well written just not the book for me.

This is Lexi's story. She is @GirlA. She grew up with abusive parents who eventually imprisoned their children in the house - named The House of Horrors by the press. It is a story of serious child abuse and neglect from parents with serious mental health problems - so be prepared for that.
To begin with I had to keep reminding myself that the story was set in the UK and not the US. The author is British and as the flashbacks unfold and the back story builds all becomes clearer and I could envisage the town, the house and the schools which are in the North West of England. The flashbacks are used effectively throughout the book to provide us with the reasons for why the adult Lexi is as she is.
Girl A is really well written and the reader experiences a roller coaster of emotions, with not everyone being as they seem.
I have to be honest and say I am not 100% sure how I feel about the book. I am a child protection social worker so I found myself asking a 101 questions about legal processes, adoption, why the family were not pursued by the authorities prior to Lexi's escape, etc etc. These are not questions that needed to be answered by the book of course, and my many questions won't have an impact on any lay person reading it.
A big thank you to the author, the publishers and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this original and fascinating story.

This is a tough read but an incredibly interesting one. What starts out as a simple story of children escaping from a bad upbringing becomes something infinitely more heart rending and complex. It raises so many questions which are not easily answered the main one being why didn't they simply tell? The answer is painfully sad and subtle as we follow Lex dealing with her siblings after the death of their remaining parent. Highly recommended.

Despite the rave reviews, I'm afraid this for me was a 2* 'OK Read'.

It's the story of family history, complicated relationships and a young woman's harrowing past.

The story is one of a group of children, all kept prisoner by their parents until Girl A escapes and manages to gain freedom for her siblings. After the parents death, Girl A is given the task of being executor to her mother's will and as such needs to visit all her siblings to gain their acceptance of her idea for the house in which they suffered so much and which is now their joint inheritance. The book takes you on her journey in reconnecting with each sibling whilst also facing her own demons.

It's a well written story, but, moves back and forth in (for me) a confusing way and I just found the whole thing quite a difficult to follow read. It's certainly not an easy read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview.

Wow! This really took my breath away. Abigail Dean's writing is sublime and I can't believe that this is a debut novel. "Girl A" is a complex and deeply emotional read. Some parts of Lex's narrative left me drained and exhausted. It's not an easy read though I would say it's an extremely worthwhile one. I particularly enjoyed the themes of hope, resilience and triumph over unimaginable adversity. Incredible!