• r e v i e w •

Girl A is anything but a thriller. It is a sloppy mess, like that of a sandwich with its contents spilling out. Both the cover and the premise fooled me into getting a copy but right from the second chapter, I knew it was going to be a long torturous journey. This is the story of seven siblings growing up in the house of horrors as the papers will later start calling it. With parents who are mentally ill, the kids are chained and are deprived of food and hygiene. There was obviously an amount of curiousity that pushed me forward to go through those lengthy 7 chapters but in the end, I left without answers. No thriller/psychological fiction should end that way. Period.

The protagonist is Lex, who is also known as Girl A. She rescues her siblings and carries darkness within her all her life. She's a cynic and doesn't clearly get along well with her brothers and sisters. Each adult has his/her own flaw, thanks to their past. Growing up in a dirty and dank house with swollen feet and bound hands, moulds accumulating underneath their beds, they have had a tough life. With a violent and unpredictable father and a helpless and mostly participating mother, the children are left in terrible conditions. Each chapter is dedicated to each sibling but what Dean missed was how a chapter was required for both the parents. After all, why will we know why they decided to treat their kids badly? The entire novel is strung very loosely, with plenty of loopholes and at times very annoying narration. Girl A could have been the best-seller but without a solid plot, it crumbled and fell. For a reader who enjoys reading perfect and almost flawless stories, this one ended up being a major disappointment.

Rating : 2/5.