Starred Review Scott gives the phrase emotionally wrenching a whole new meaning in this searing book. When Alice was 10, Ray abducted her from a class trip and taught her how to be a "good girl." After five years of horrifying sexual and emotional abuse, Alice believes no one will help her. Despite near starvation, wax treatments to remove her pubic hair, and pills to suppress her periods, Alice's body is becoming too mature d she knows Ray will kill her soon. After opening with chapters that intriguingly utilize first-, second-, and third-person points of view, the narrative settles into first-person with a matter-of-fact tone that magnifies the horror. The description of the violence and sexual abuse, though vivid, is not explicit, but Alice's hopeless acceptance at times makes the book almost too painful to read. Skillfully crafted vignettes, particularly some disturbing scenes depicting Alice's sexual interactions with a teen boy, allow readers to draw their own conclusions about the impact of long-term abuse. Events leading to the conclusion are too convenient, but the ending itself will leave readers gasping. "You can get used to anything," Alice says, though some readers will not be able to get used to the sheer emotional power of this raw voice.

Fans of Scott's YA romances <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Perfect You or <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Bloom may be unprepared for the unrelieved terror within this chilling novel, about a 15-year-old girl who has spent the last five years being abused by a kidnapper named Ray and is kept powerless by Ray's promise to harm her family if she makes one false move. The narrator knows she is the second of the girls Ray has abducted and renamed Alice; Ray killed the first when she outgrew her childlike body at 15, and now Alice half-hopes her own demise is approaching (“I think of the knife in the kitchen, of the bridges I've seen from the bus... but the thing about hearts is that they always want to keep beating”). Ray, however, has an even more sinister plan: he orders Alice to find a new girl, then train her to Ray's tastes. Scott's prose is spare and damning, relying on suggestive details and their impact on Alice to convey the unimaginable violence she repeatedly experiences. Disturbing but fascinating, the book exerts an inescapable grip on readers—like Alice, they have virtually no choice but to continue until the conclusion sets them free. Ages 16–up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Sept.)

Kidnapped and raped when she was ten years old, Alice, now fifteen and still held captive, is forced to lure a child to be her successor. Alice's flat, curt voice reflects her emptiness and despair. Lurid details of abuse are suggested obliquely in a horrifyingly matter-of-fact style. Scott's novel is repellent in exact proportion to the brilliance of its execution.

Scott, best known for such chick-lit pleasers as Bloom (2008), breaks the mold with this harrowing tale of abuse leavened only by lyric writing a la Adam Rapp ( 33 Snowfish , 2003, etc.). When Alice was ten, Ray kidnapped her; five years later, Alice wishes only to escape by dying, as the last Alice did. But her freedom comes at a price—a new girl for Ray. Bit by bit, Alice reveals the depths of psychological and physical terror that hold her captive. Her voice is convincingly naive yet prematurely aged; vivid but never graphic, details of the sexual abuse perfectly capture the way in which she has normalized her situation while still recognizing the truth. Ray is a complex abuser, perhaps a bit too psychotic but terrifying nevertheless; he himself was abused, and the logic of how his own past has shaped his present and his treatment of Alice never falters. Choosing Ray's next victim does not provide a re-entry into empathy, a bold but believable choice. Scott provides neither easy answers nor a happy resolution, although the ending provides a grim sense of release. (Fiction. 16 & up)

Gr 9 Up-The numb voice of a teen who has been devastated by five years of captivity and compliance, a girl who has been named "Alice" by her abductor, relates her grim story. At 15, she still believes the threat by which Ray controlled her when she was almost 10 and he walked her away from a school field trip: he's made it clear that if she bolts he will kill her family. The trauma of multiple rapes on a child is portrayed, as is Ray's ongoing need to control her and his daily, multiple demands for sexual submission. Now that she's a teen, Alice is being starved; his disordered logic tells him that this will keep her a little girl. His control over her is so absolute that, although she can leave his apartment during the day and goes on her own to have a wax job, her only rebellion is to steal small amounts of food. When Ray decides it is time for a new little girl, Alice complies by locating a likely next victim. In the process she meets a needy teen boy and a police officer, both of whom suspect she is in trouble and want to help her, but all does not end happily. This story lacks the vivid characters and psychological insights of Norma Fox Mazer's chilling The Missing Girl (HarperCollins, 2008). For an ultimately hopeful, but still realistic portrayal of a damaged survivor of abduction and sexual imprisonment, see Catherine Atkins's When Jeff Comes Home (Putnam, 1999) Carolyn Lehman, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA