Well, geez. My friend has some dark taste in reading materials. Off the heels of her recommendation for Pretty Girls, I maybe stupidly didn’t give myself a break and picked up Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door.
Firstly, if you search this book on the internet, the picture that pops up is already super spooky. It’s an older novel, so the coloring is dark and grainy and feature a skeleton in a cheerleading uniform. Now, cheerleading plays absolutely no part in this novel whatsoever, but I can see where it’s being used to sell the title of the book. Cheerleaders are typically portrayed as the girl next door. In the case of this book however, the titular girl is played by the low-key Meg. Told from the perspective of the slightly younger, David, he meets Meg in the woods and learns she’s his new next door neighbor. She and her sister have moved in with Ruth and her three sons, Willie, Donny, and Ralph after the passing of their parents in a car accident.
Look, these boys in this quiet neighborhood are seriously messed up. Maybe all boys were back in the 50s, but this group seems especially sadistic. In a strange turn though, they are all led by an even more sadistic Ruth. At first, all the boys take an awe towards Meg, David very much included, but then the tide turns and Meg’s life is transformed into a living hell. Seriously, the tortures detailed in this book are so disturbing, and it’s even more terrifying to learn that this book is based off a story that actually happened in real life. In reading the details of the real story, Ketchum’s tale is pretty darn close and that is freaking horrible. They all got theirs in the end, but spoiler, not before Meg suffers and dies at the hands of her captors. It also points at something that still happens today: people in authority not believing women. Meg had went to the local cop to get help, but she got ignored and then paid the ultimate price.
I might have spoiled the ending here, but the details are something you need to experience first-hand. Also, it’s all too gruesome to recap. That’s not saying it’s unreadable. In fact, there was a morbid curiosity to keep going and see how far this group went. That makes me more like David, too enthralled and scared to do anything other than watch. Ironically, that coincides with a newer Don Broco song that I just started listening to in earnest called “Fingernails.” In it, they describe the horrors the government inflict on people as they watch on, but are affronted once it gets to their doorstep. This book is harsh and intense, so it’s not for everyone, but if Stephen King endorses it, you know it’s got to be good.