The Girl Next Door

By: Jack Ketchum

Narrated by: Jack Ketchum

Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

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

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)

A Horror To The Core

Before you pick up this book, you got to ask yourself, why you like horror. You need to know where you draw the line or do you have a line? If you have a line, I guarantee this will cross it. The first two hours read like a coming of age story, that could have been written by Ray Bradbury. I was sucked in and then slowly things start to happen. Unlike many other horror novels, it does not involve ghosts, aliens or something out of the woods or swamp. The monster is a mom and the victim is a child. As another reviewer mentions, just as you think it gets to its worse, it gets worse. I have never read anything as awful (five stars) as this. With a couple of hours left, I found myself wishing it was over. I hoped the book would end and the last two hours was a preview, added short story, author interview, anything but more torture. It did not end. Ketchum is a great writer which makes this even more terrific. With many horrors, you have that certainty that the story is made up, fake, impossible. Ketchum's realistic writing scares the hell out of me.

It was good ... disturbing..

The performance was amazing, Jack Ketchum is a great narrator. The story was interesting and entertaining... but... idk. I was looking for a horror novel and this leaned more lord of the flies. It was very good. Just be prepared to feel bad about it when you finish.

extremely dark

really good book. very disturbing stuff but well worth the credit. narration was also really good especially since it's the author.

Whoa.

This story made me feel terrible. It's a tale of abuse endured by a 15 year old girl and her sister from the perspective of a young neighbor boy. The language gave me a slight Goonies feel at first, but when you realize where the story is going that quickly fades. I was crushed when I found out it was a fictional retelling of true events. I appreciated the author's ability to retell this story. I will always keep her and other victims of abuse in my thoughts. You should read this if you can stomach the content and a bit of required solitude after. Knowing what I know, I still would have picked this book.

While not a bad story...

I had a hard time listening to this book. The subject matter was a bit extreme. The summary and previews don't convey the depravity of the acts that take place in this book. I frequent suspense and crime books that have their own but of evil to them, but this comes off as something the will turn most people's stomachs. With well over 200 books listened to, this was the hardest to sit through by far. You have been warned.

Intense

Really insane sad story.. like a rollercoaster ride. The narrator could of used more emphasis and personality while reading as the characters. But good all in all.

couldn't believe rhis was a true story

I felt so hurt that her children could be manipulate in the way that they were. My heart juat broke for that young girl and her sister.

Harrowing and extremely bleak.

It's difficult to say you like a book like this, a book with a very dark heart populated with broken people to the last. but it's engrossing and beautifully told and it makes you glad you went through it anyway, if only to be glad to not see yourself reflected in The Girl Next Door's pages.

Eye-opening

This fictional novel is based on a true story that occurred back in the 1900s. Obviously, there are some changes to the actual story, but even those changes are pretty close to what really happened. I wish this was a story we could have all high school students read. I work in domestic violence and sexual violence. People don't realize how common this kind of thing is. This story could really help young people understand the impact of bullying and being a bystander.

Wide eyed listening

Sounded like the reader was holding the script flipping pages and chewing on some sort of lozenge at times, other than that I found myself engrossed in the story.