The Girl Next Door: Book Review and Discussion
I just finished reading The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum. This is a widely known novel, infamous for its content, and for a variety of reasons. It often makes lists of "Most Disturbing Books That I Have Ever Read." It is also loosely based on the death of Sylvia Likens, an actual woman who suffered at the hands of an adoptive mother and a number of her adoptive siblings and even the surrounding neighbors. The book has aroused a rather interesting array of responses, so I want to talk about that as much as I want to talk about the book itself. The Response From the outset, many people who are critical of this book dismiss it as torture porn. It depicts a wide range of horrific acts of violence inflicted on the innocent victim in the story while she is tied up and defenseless. I disagree with this characterization, or I at least disagree that it is only torture porn; I will get into the details down below. All the same, the book takes you to places physically, even sexually,...