Customer Reviews
Just plain Gross 
2008-09-12
This book has absolutely no redeeming value what so ever, I know these things occur in the sick minds of monster humans but I would prefer not to read about them in detail. It is definitely not a horror novel at least in my definition of what horror is supposed to be.
The book is just plain gross, it does not take any kind of talent to conjure up sick images, just a sick mind. I stopped reading a lot of King when he used a child in Pet Sematary getting hit by a semi trailer.Cheap tricks if you ask me. Good horror is akin to Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire. Read it if you must. Skip the first 135 pages nothing happens.
The fictionalized account VS the pure facts of this case 
2008-09-04
I recently watched An American Crime, the film based on this true story of the 1965 imprisonment & torture of 16 yr old Sylvia Likens in an Indiana home. The director of the film admitted he had held back in his account...keeping it purposely lower key (which I think is a grave disservice to the victims). I was stunned by this story and searched for more information on it, wondering how much worse it could possibly have been. I found a plethora of info on CourtTV's web page, read the chapters presented there, was even more stunned with the additional facts presented there, & made note of the references to all the material that has been published covering this case, determined to try to understand the full scope of this story. I found TGND at my library. I was quite disappointed with this book - finding the court/truTV account much more riveting. The first third or so of Ketchum's book dragged on..it felt like I was reading a story geared to teenagers. The torture of Sylvia is horrendous, made even more macabre by the cold participation of the children in the family and neighborhood. But the book didn't get me inside any of these characters, including the mother, & wasn't particularly well written. For me, the fictionalized twists offered by the author actually detracted from the true story. There was so much potential here in the pure facts of the case that wasn't given to us; a story the likes of which would be hard to match.
Riveting 
2008-08-31
The Girl Next Door is one of the few books that I have read that I absolutely could not put down. I devoured the book in just under 24 hours. The story focuses on David, a young teen, and what he witnesses as Meg and her sister move in with a neighbor, Ruth.
The story builds slowly, hinting at the horrors to come, and then explodes into one of the most brutal, riveting, and memorable books you will ever read. Ketchum does a wonderful job at allowing the tension and to build, and does so with with amazing flow.
There has been much said about the graphic nature of this book. Please note that this story is by no means "torture porn". Sure, there is inhuman cruelty, and sure, it is shocking in its impact. But the real reason that The Girl Next Door will turn your stomach and leave you in tears is because this is based on a true story and you simply cannot believe what one human can do to another.
You will remember Meg, Ruth and David, and they will linger with you for quite some time. That is the highest compliment I can give this book. A must read.
Horrifying 
2008-06-23
Wow, when you find out that there is information left out of this book b/c it's too digusting or horrifying to relate you know you've got a good piece of horror. I read this book in a day, & was completely mesmerized by Ketchum's storytelling. I thought the 1st person point of view was really interesting, you find yourself pulling for him & maybe not really wanting the believe that he acutally participated (passivley anyway).
I would recommend it for any horror lover, the fact that it's rooted in truth makes it even more terrifying!
Real life horror 2008-06-16
Good story, very emotional, overall a good read, but I felt Ketchum held back at certain key points of this book where he could have really floored his audiences. Who knows, maybe there will be an uncensored edition.
Brutal 2008-06-05
Features a 3,000 word Introduction by Stephen King!
Great book 2008-05-29
This is a great book. I am looking forward to seeing the movie and I truly hope it does the book justice. This is one of Jack Ketchum's best.
It wasn't her aunt 2008-05-24
Sylvia Likens was not killed by her aunt and cousins as many reviewers have stated. Gertrude was just a neighborhood lady who took in Sylvia and her sister because their parents offered to pay her $20 a week while they traveled with a carnival. She was poor, had too many kids and barely supported them. Sylvia's father never bothered to check out Gertrude's home to make sure it was suitable for his children. In his own words he "didn't want to pry" into Gertrude's private life. Unbelievable. Just wanted to clear that up. Might be kind of insulting to the Likens' family to say their own blood was responsible for the death (although some would say the parents were partially to blame for not checking up on their daughters).
Hell is the house next door 2008-05-18
When I first read about the horrific torture murder of Sylvia Likens in 1965, I prayed that Gertrude Baniszewski and her noxious spawn would all die horrible deaths in jail and spend eternity in hell. Forty years later, the case still haunts me. How does anyone sink to such barbaric savagery against another human being, let alone drag their children into it?
The case evidently haunted Jack Ketchum enough to impel him to write this loosely-based novel on the Likens murder, and it is not a book for the faint of mind, heart or stomach. This is a gut-wrenching book that will blow you away. Like David, the story's narrator, we are dragged into it as much as we are horrified and repelled by it. This book is what great horror writing is all about.
The girl next door is Meg Loughlin, who, with her little sister Susan, comes to live with their aunt Ruth after their parents are killed in a car accident. Susan is severely injured and left crippled; only Meg survives unscathed. By the time we discover what's in store for her at Aunt Ruth's house, we realize it would have been better for her if she had died in the accident.
Aunt Ruth lives with her three sons in a New Jersey suburb and she's considered the coolest mother on the street. She lets the kids smoke and gives them beer. She's lukewarm to taking in Meg and Susan, but they are family and they have nowhere else to go after their parents have been killed. But Aunt Ruth isn't firing on all cylinders and her unfocused anger at the world for dealing her a bad hand -- abandoned by her husband and left to fend for herself -- soon finds a convenient target. Her sons, along with several other neighborhood children, have been playing a game for years, in which one child is outcast and is It. Now Aunt Ruth, with the enthusiastic participation of the kids, have made a new game. Meg is It, and this time they're playing for keeps.
David, a 12 year old from down the street narrating the story years later from the perspective of adulthood, tells how Ruth graduated from slaps and spankings to more grotesque punishments, and from there to straight-up torture. He watched in horrified fascination as Meg's nightmare escalated into unspeakable torment, wondering when or if it would ever stop or what would happen next. What happened next, David says in one stark, shattering sentence, was the basement.
It's what happened in the basement that shows Ruth and the children in all their savagery and depravity while they turned into something less than human. It's where Meg suffered the tortures of the damned. And meanwhile, what about David? He saw all this happening and never said a word until it was too late. Why?
Ketchum doesn't answer this question; he lets the readers come to their own conclusions. Without pontificating or moralizing, he lets Meg's ghastly story tell itself. Like some other reviewers, I felt the story's resolution was a bit too pat, but infinitely more satisfying than the real-life case that inspired it. The real "Aunt Ruth", Gertrude Baniszewski, walked free after spending twenty years in jail.
This is not a book you will want to read again any time soon. It may keep you awake for a few nights after you read it. But it is a fascinating study of evil that will stay with you for years. Because true evil doesn't have vampire fangs or a demon's horns and tail; sometimes it's as ordinary and banal as the lady and the kids next door.
Judy Lind
How normal are your neighbors? 2008-04-13
As I read this book, I kept telling myself that the happy ending would come soon, that someone would finally step in and say "enough is enough" and save this girl from her abusers. But, no, the abuse just got more disturbing and at one point I threw the book across the room becuase I couldn't take it anymore. Just like the main character David, I too felt compelled to return to the basement next door.
This is a sick story- hard to put down, hard to stomach, but well written nonetheless.
