Abigail DeanReseñas

This novel deals with the ongoing trauma and repercussions of a tragic school shooting that engulfs the members of a small community on 'Day One'.
Starting with the horrific event the story unfolds through the points of view of various characters whose lives are touched by the events of the day. But whose account can actually be believed. Marty, the daughter of the school teacher killed on the day or Trent a young man with a head full of conspiracy theories who mistrusts the official version of events. Both of these main characters are written in a sympathetic way which was a welcome change as they could have easily become stereotypes in this tale.
This is not your conventional thriller as it is more of a slower paced read. Timelines are muddled with the narrative going backwards and forwards in time, to show how the main characters ended up behaving like they did , and what really happened on 'Day One'.
Another great read which builds on Abigail's impressive debut novel 'Girl A'.

A mass shooting at a primary school in a beautiful lakeside town, ten children and their teacher dead. After the event the town tries to come to terms with the trauma but then the conspiracy theorists start their campaign. Marty - a teenager who told a lie, Larkin - the policeman who has lost everything, and Trent - the former resident with ambitions, as time goes on each of them react in their own way.
This is such a good book! The characterisation is spot on, all the individuals with their closed lives who are changed forever by the events. It's pertinent too, the whole idea of people who deny events have taken place and the outspoken media politicians who peddle extremist views, this is a microcosm of modern British life. The whole story is very sad and beautifully written.

A lone gunman stalks the corridors of Stonesmere, randomly killing those before him. Marty Ward is a pupil at the school and witnesses her mother being gunned down before she is able to escape the wrath of the shooter: Rowan Sullivan. There is a media frenzy, and a group of outsiders known as The Truthers, or conspiracy theorists, have the audacity to claim that the event never actually happened. In the midst of all this there is doubt as to the authenticity of Marty’s recollection of the events, and questions about the shooter and his association or not with the school and its pupils. At the heart of this book is a community in mourning, a community that must accept this dreadful happening before it can heal, and learn to live again.

What I did enjoy about “One Day” was the feeling of fear and sadness, the tension, even suspicion that permeated each chapter…who could be believed? The author explores the various accounts in an attempt to establish the truth, and to try to understand why a lone individual would choose to act in such a manner. What I did not enjoy was the fractured storytelling, the constant movement of events before, during and after the incident, and the rather abrupt conclusion. However, having said that, I applaud the directness of the language, and the use of different narrators to tell the story. Thank you to the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Insanely intense and both horrifying and hopeful.

A very heavy and powerful store, in which I loved the characters. My only complaint is it was hard to follow sometimes, jumping around in the timeline without much rhyme or reason. Otherwise I recommend.

This is definitely one book that you won’t be able to forget!
Since it’s release I have both read the book and listened to the audiobook and the story line is still just as powerful the second time as it was the first.
The first reading of this amazing book literally took my breath away and it was impossible to not being invested in Girl A as well as her brothers and sisters.
I didn’t see the plot twists coming and one caused a lump in my throat it was so unexpected and heartbreaking.
If like me this book has been in your ‘to be read’ pile then I highly recommend you bringing it to the top of your list!
I had heard a lot of good things about this book and it was all correct, I just wish I’d read it sooner.
An outstanding book with an author to watch.

This is the second time I’ve read this book and it is just as good the second time, however it was an audiobook this time!
It’s certainly a book that you can’t forget so the plot twists and the hard hitting scenes you are more prepared for.
If you haven’t read this book then I would highly recommend it to any book lovers because of how well written it is and how powerful the storyline is.
Brilliant book to rediscover as well as to first discover!

This is one of those hard books to like because of the subject matter, most of the time it made me so sad and I just kept looking at my children and wanting to hug them. I wouldn’t reread it but it was well written and compelling to the end.

Very smooth read.......amazed at how quickly time went by while sitting reading this book.

What book did all the reviewers read who gave this book high praise and 5 star reviews?
I expected a messed up psychological thriller about 7 Kids who escape their psychopath parents. Instead this book is boring, really boring.
It has the amazingly annoying writing style of telling the story in the past and in the present, but instead of doing it per chapter the story bounces back and forth within each chapter.
I seriously doubt the author has any brothers and sisters because the siblings I. This book are all wooden and expressionless, you have the overly religious sister, the one trying to be in charge Girl A
A couple of train wrecks and I really lost track because I didn’t care.
Everything about this book was sterile.
Which when looking up the author you can see why.
She is a lawyer for google.
Read this book at your own risk.

I almost gave up reading and am not convicted I didn’t waste my time reading this story of a damaged family.

A gripping read. Pretty grim at times, but that was to be expected.

sorry in what world is this a thriller??? it was literally just information thrown at the--
sorry I am in the middle of writing this but I have decided to switch timelines to before I read this book. wow looks interesting I guess, I think that--
okay back to that other timeline, reader and nothing happened the entire book and I am so confused about why this was published

I really really REALLY wanted to like this book! The plot was so intriguing! Like ripped from recent headlines intriguing. And while the story could have been good, the writing was not. Jumping back and forth between the past and the present is one thing, but when you throw the protagonists inner dialogue in the middle of a time sequence then things get a bit confusing. I’ve read so many other authors who can write this past/present narrative, this author just does NOT do it very well.

Read during a massive reading slump so I'll round up to 3 stars. Very well written and engaging, however there's not much that you might call a plot. There's one notable twist close to the end which doesn't really have much of an impact, or at least it didn't for me. It read believably like someone's loose memoir which I suppose is good but then, again, without a real plot to keep me wondering what's next it fell a bit flat.

This book is described as a psychological thriller, but I think it's more a psychological exploration of the effects of child abuse. In any event, like Magpie Lane it is a book involving neglected/abused children and an unreliable narrator.
Girl A is Lex, now a successful 30-something lawyer. When she was 15, she excaped from her parents' house of horrors where she and her numerous younger siblings were chained to their beds 24/7, and given little to eat (some died of starvation). After their rescue, adoptive parents were found for all of the children, and over the course of the novel, we learn how each has fared over the years.
When the novel opens, their mother has just died (in prison), and Lex must collect the children's "inheritance," which includes the house where they were imprisoned. She and her closest sister want to donate the house to the city for use as a community center. Lex must contact each of the siblings to get their permission to do this. Sounds very straight forward, but there are a few twists and turns along the way.
I didn't like this one as much as Magpie Lane, but it is competently written, and a brief diversion.

3 stars

Girl A asks what happens to the children who survive one of those infamous traumas that become a cause celebre. Lex Gracie is Girl A, one of the six Gracie siblings rescued from horrific child abuse when she frees herself and runs for help. The children are all adopted separately though most of them meet with each other in adulthood. When their mother dies, she leaves Lex as executor, which means she has to get each of her siblings’ signatures to create a community center, a gift to the community stained by their past.

The story has a chapter for each of the children as Lex tracks them down. She seems to have done well, adopted by loving parents, one of the police who rescued her. The eldest, Ethan, has done really well, writing about the trauma and capitalizing on it, though we learn his history is a bit more complex. Delilah copes with religiosity and Gabriel with drugs. Noel was an infant and has no idea his history. Meanwhile, Evie is the wise advisor helping Lex to cope.

Girl A is fantastic. I read it in one sitting. I could not put it down. The most fascinating part was the gradual disintegration of the family from happy to miserable. Their father changes from strict but loving to a monster. The gradual changes and the way this happened in front of everybody. This felt very real. The family dynamics, the favorite son, the neglected daughter, it’s all there.

Girl A at Viking | Penguin Random House
Abigail Dean author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2021/12/27/9780593295847/

I finished this book way faster than I meant to, but I kept reading and reading. Girl A is the oldest girl in a family of children who are kept chained up by their parents. She, Lex, is the ones who escapes and gets them help. We hear about their stories from different timelines and about different children. It is hard even imagining the thought of treating children like that, and reading about it from the perspective of the children is devastating. It's amazing they grow up to be functioning adults at all (most of them, shh), and to be thriving is beyond amazing! I'm not so sure I really liked any of the characters, even Girl A, but she truly was enthralling, as was the story. I don't like the end of the book, just the last 5-6 paragraphs. Even if we're unsure of her path in life anyway, we shouldn't have to be THIS unsure. And the book doesn't explain all her surgeries, other than to say she was hit in the abdomen by Father. Sorry, but the human body is better built than that. So, with those bleahs, I give the book 4.5 stars.

Cults Never Leave You

Those familiar with cults or have been in cults understand that while you can escape them physically, psychologically they can maintain their hold on you for years afterwards, even for life. That’s if you find yourself seduced into joining one as a young or full adult. If you are a child raised in one by parents committed to the cult, the damage to your psyche can be permanent and land you in therapy for life. If you doubt this, just peruse survivor literature.

Abigail Dean’s debut novel, billed as a thriller but more correctly a fictional psychological case study, follows Lex (Alexandra) Gracie as she returns home upon the death of her mother in prison. By all appearances, she had made a success of herself as a lawyer working for a digital company in New York, though her personal relationships haven’t been as fruitful. Back home in England, she relives her childhood, seen in interstitial flashbacks, well handled by Dean, that work to create a whole and extremely troubled individual.

Through this knitting of present and past, readers learn of her tortured family life, led by a father who fails at everything he tries, who focuses on religion, billing himself as a sort of Quiverfull Pentecostal cult preacher who exerts ever more demonic control over a large family of seven children, who range in age from young teens to an infant; a mother who cedes up all agency to him; and a teen brother who participates in the atrocities he visits upon his children, either for self-protection or in satisfaction of an innate cruelty. Dean provides just enough description so readers grasp the depth of suffering inflicted on the children, leaving readers to fill the details with their own imaginations. Her concern is with the psychological damage done primarily to Lex.

Suffice it to say that readers will become suspicious of Lex’s narrative of her contacts with her brothers and sisters, especially the younger sister closest to her, and recognize the tension between her and her older brother, who seems to have emerged well off but untrustworthy and conniving. Dean reveals the truth of what happened in the house on Moor Woods Road, Hollowfield, about two-thirds into the novel, confirming readers’ suspicions of Lex’s shattered psyche. But then that is the whole point of the novel, the everlasting, often crippling, effects of traumatic upbringings, and in dramatizing this the novel is quite successful.

This is a psychological family drama which focuses on the effects of shared trauma on the siblings of one family.

When she was fifteen, Lex Gracie escaped and rescued her siblings from the family home where they were held captive and abused. Fifteen years later, she is a successful New York lawyer who returns to England because her mother, who recently died in prison, made Lex the executor of her estate. Wanting to change the family house into a community centre, a positive space for children, she has to reconnect with her siblings to solicit their agreement to the project. The Gracie children were adopted by different people in different regions of the country, and Lex has not seen most of her siblings for years.

Lex is the narrator. During her time in England, as she contacts her siblings, she thinks back to the experiences of the seven children raised by a religious fanatic and his wife. These flashbacks show the physical and psychological abuse to which the children were subjected. There is not a great deal of detail, though we learn they were given little to eat and were kept bound to their beds. The vague depiction of abuse means the focus is on how the individual children have coped since their escape.

As would be expected, each sibling has been affected differently by his/her captivity. Certainly, their ages and the type of (mis)treatment they received have influenced their reactions. For example, Ethan, the eldest son exploits his past and has become an academic who writes about how education can overcome childhood trauma, Gabriel is the troubled one who is in a psychiatric hospital, and Delilah has found solace in religion. Lex takes pain to present herself as smart, strong, and resilient, but her detached, controlled tone suggests that she has built protective walls. Like for her brothers and sisters, there is no real escape from what she endured for years.

Lex has a different relationship with each sibling. Her relationship with Delilah, for instance, is the most difficult; Delilah was the pretty daughter and she manipulated her father into becoming his favourite. Ethan is a disappointment because Lex believes that since he was the oldest, he should have been the one to plan an escape; she describes him as having a “deficit of courage, and a good face for sympathy.” Lex is closest to Evie with whom she shared a room, just as Delilah and Gabriel are close because they shared a bedroom. The dynamics among the siblings are very realistic, especially when certain information is divulged.

Lex’s relationship with her mother is also problematic. She is unable to forgive her mother for not doing anything to help her children. There is some indication that she was a victim of abuse as well and lived in thrall of her husband. Delilah, for instance, has some sympathy for their mother, but Lex’s feelings are clearly shown in her decision to relegate her to an unmarked grave in the prison.

Towards the end there are some revelations that may come as a surprise to some readers, but there are actually many clues, especially in the flashbacks. I found that those revelations only confirmed the suspicions I had formed earlier.

This is not a light read; it is bleak and offers little hope. Nonetheless, it is a worthwhile read because it is realistic and thought-provoking. How would you react to years of abuse and deprivation?

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).

This book. Wow. Wow. It’s fictional but it’s probably so real it breaks your heart.

Girl A is Lexi , and she escaped a house of horrors and saved all her brothers and sisters. She was closest to her sister Evie they were chained together , in the same room. Each child is exceptionally smart and gifted. Two of them , are really messed up.
One boy is his father recreated
And one daughter , the prettiest didn’t think it was all that bad.

Her mother has just died In prison and left her the house of horrors and some money. She has to go see all her brothers and sisters to have them agree to make the house into a community center for kids that went thru the same things. A safe haven.

I could prob tell you about each sibling but then this review is a mile long. I will tell you each one is broken down by what happened in the past and what is in the present. So it doesn’t leave you questioning anything

I couldn’t put it down

Inspired by the real life case of the Turpin family, this novel tells the story of Lex, a successful lawyer who is called back to England when her mother dies, leaving a house and a small inheritance to divide among the surviving children. Her younger sister conceives of the idea of turning the house into a community center, but they need the rest of the siblings to sign off on the project, so Lex visits each in turn, which awakens her memories of what happened in that terrible house.

This novel was a lot stronger than I had expected, given that this is Dean's debut novel. It's well-paced and with nuanced characterizations of all the various family members, even the parents, who are guilty of egregious abuse. And Lex at first appears like a woman who has it all together, which turns out later to be true. This is a family where the surviving siblings are not okay and there are good reasons for that. I'm looking forward to seeing what this author does next.

Girl A is about the survivor of a “House of Horrors”. The story is told by Lex Gracie aka ‘Girl A’ in alternating timelines. The story begins when Lex’s mother dies in prison and Lex is named executor and heir to the mother’s estate. Lex, along with her little sister, Evie, decide that they should turn the family home, the “House of Horrors” into a place for good. Lex needs to get approval from her other siblings to do this.
As Lex meets with her various siblings, she relieves the horror of their youth, when her domineering “Christian” father abuses the children, keeping them in chains and starving them and punishing them. Lex escapes and frees her siblings and spends years in therapy, trying to make sense of what happened and how to move on. She has a special relationship with Evie and shares dreams of escape and secretly reads to her. The other siblings are Daniel, Noah, Ethan, Gabriel, and Delilah - and all have different stories.
The abuse and its aftermath and the effect it had on the children was difficult to read. The ending was a bit of a surprise.

Abigail Dean provides an unflinching glimpse of the enduring wreckage caused by child abuse in her novel, Girl A. The title refers to Alex, one of seven siblings rescued from a “House of Horrors,” where they suffered years of horrific abuse and neglect. Girl A is the name assigned to Alex, the oldest girl and the one who escaped her bindings, exposed their circumstances, and enabled their rescue. As the novel opens, Alex is now a successful lawyer with a new family and strong friendships. She has been informed that her birth mother has died in prison and she has been named executrix of her will. She needs to obtain signatures from her far-flung and estranged siblings to be convert the ramshackle house into a community center. She hopes that such a gesture would overwrite the story and serve as a type of repentance. The community is not exactly welcoming of a renewed association with their family name, and Alex has not spoken with some siblings since those days of captivity. As Alex deals with the estate, the novel jumps back and forth in time, slowly revealing the sordid story of the family’s descent into madness. Alex recalls new details the closer she gets to the house, and she comes to grips with some difficult memories that she had been repressing. Dean uses Alex’s investigations to explore the viewpoints of the surviving children-both during those years and following their emancipation. The medical and psychological scars, bad blood, shame and blame all work against Alex’s efforts but provide evidence of trauma’s lasting effects. Girl A might be a bit too graphic for more sensitive readers, but the author does an admirable job exploring themes of loyalty, created families, re-invention and self-deceit.

Thanks to the author, Viking, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.½

After escaping her family's house of horrors, Lex is known by the media as Girl A. The oldest sister who escaped and freed her siblings. Years after escaping, her mother dies in prison, leaving Lex and her siblings the house and a substantial sum of money. Deciding that the best use would be a community center, Lex begins convincing her siblings to accept the plan.

Although the premise of the story was interesting, the book itself was a bit lacking. It rambled all over the place and spent considerable time in the past, without giving any details of the past. Overall, not a book I would reread or recommend.