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The Girl in the Box
To Anybody Out There
My name is Jackie McGee. I am the girl who disappeared. Listen to the news. See if other pieces of paper are scattered nearby. Maybe if you yell really loud I can hear you and yell back. I am not making this up. Please help!
Left in an underground cement room by an unknown captor, Jackie has food and water but no light or human contact. She does not know when--or if--her abductor will retum.
As her desperation mounts, Jackie touch-types to focus her letters to her family, a story for her English class, and reflections on her life in the past few months. In her isolation and fear, Jackie is forced to test her emotional boundaries, and in doing so she finds new meaning in her past as well as rich reserves of strength and courage within herself.
My name is Jackie McGee. I am the girl who disappeared. Listen to the news. See if other pieces of paper are scattered nearby. Maybe if you yell really loud I can hear you and yell back. I am not making this up. Please help!
Left in an underground cement room by an unknown captor, Jackie has food and water but no light or human contact. She does not know when--or if--her abductor will retum.
As her desperation mounts, Jackie touch-types to focus her letters to her family, a story for her English class, and reflections on her life in the past few months. In her isolation and fear, Jackie is forced to test her emotional boundaries, and in doing so she finds new meaning in her past as well as rich reserves of strength and courage within herself.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
21 people are currently reading
1194 people want to read
About the author
Ouida Sebestyen
15 books20 followersOuida Sebestyen, nee Dockery, was born February 13, 1924, in Vernon, TX. She married Adam Sebestyen in 1960 and had one son. She attended the U. of Colorado. She began writing at age eighteen, but did not publish her first book, Words by Heart until 1979. Part of this novel had originally appeared as a short story in the magazine 'Ingenue' in 1968. The book was well received, and Ms. Sebestyen has continued to write fiction for young adults. She draws her inspiration, and often her setting, from the American West, especially its contrasting harshness and beauty, and the demands it places upon an individual's survival. While not all her novels are set in a sharply defined Western setting, throughout all of her books she focuses on characterization and detail, with an emphasis on human emotions and development. Her work is noted for its honesty and provocative story lines that do not always provide a conventional happy ending.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews
February 22, 2014
I was twelve years old the first time I read The Girl in the Box, by Ouida Sebestyen. More than two decades later, the story still haunted me. The magic of Amazon delivered the book to me in paperback glory. I may have aged, but the girl on the cover with her high-top sneaks was exactly as I remembered her: long fingers poised over a typewriter, crouched on the ground, and surrounded by impenetrable darkness.
I opened the book.
I was unprepared for the intensity of the experience. As much as the story put me on edge when I was a close in age to the protagonist, Jackie, the tale was even more terrifying for me as an adult. Sebestyen layers Jackie's emotions the way a fine chef layers a complexity of spices into a dish. You taste the fear and confusion first; it is palpable and realistic. Then comes a blast of fury that is so pure as to be physically biting. Hunger, weakness, bouts of insane battering of the walls follow, but most of that is glimpsed only in remove because Jackie isn't writing when she is tormented by her physical predicament. After the dark sleep, the discovery of new blood dried on wounds she can only feel, but neither see nor totally explain - only then does Jackie tell us that she'd had a bad time. By the time Jackie is eating muddy, moldy bread to try and soak up some spilled water, we have felt every kind of emotion, and often, felt many of them at once. Girl in the Box is a masterpiece of psychological horror.
It is also a masterpiece of literary finesse. Sebestyen manages to tell an engaging , terrifying story using only one character in a setting that is entirely divorced from all sensory input. In fact the entire set of items available for Jackie to manipulate is less than ten: her backpack, a stack of typing paper, a typewriter, a chap stick, a glass jar of water, and a box of bakeshop castoffs slowly going stale. As a writer, I am in awe of the skill such constrictions impose. The paper and the typewriter may seem a bit contrived, but Sebestyen set that up with believable panache, and we can "buy" the reason Jackie has them. Well before the end of the book, though, only the coldest of readers would countenance a retelling in which Jackie was deprived her only boon in her dark and terrifying quest.
The Girl in the Box is not a light read or even very sugar-coated for the teens who are its target audience. It is a tragic look at how one girl manages to find something meaningful in life, even as her life is ripped from her. Jackie is an exceptional heroine in a harrowing tale and, no matter your age, you will appreciate the beauty of your life more for having met her.
I opened the book.
I was unprepared for the intensity of the experience. As much as the story put me on edge when I was a close in age to the protagonist, Jackie, the tale was even more terrifying for me as an adult. Sebestyen layers Jackie's emotions the way a fine chef layers a complexity of spices into a dish. You taste the fear and confusion first; it is palpable and realistic. Then comes a blast of fury that is so pure as to be physically biting. Hunger, weakness, bouts of insane battering of the walls follow, but most of that is glimpsed only in remove because Jackie isn't writing when she is tormented by her physical predicament. After the dark sleep, the discovery of new blood dried on wounds she can only feel, but neither see nor totally explain - only then does Jackie tell us that she'd had a bad time. By the time Jackie is eating muddy, moldy bread to try and soak up some spilled water, we have felt every kind of emotion, and often, felt many of them at once. Girl in the Box is a masterpiece of psychological horror.
It is also a masterpiece of literary finesse. Sebestyen manages to tell an engaging , terrifying story using only one character in a setting that is entirely divorced from all sensory input. In fact the entire set of items available for Jackie to manipulate is less than ten: her backpack, a stack of typing paper, a typewriter, a chap stick, a glass jar of water, and a box of bakeshop castoffs slowly going stale. As a writer, I am in awe of the skill such constrictions impose. The paper and the typewriter may seem a bit contrived, but Sebestyen set that up with believable panache, and we can "buy" the reason Jackie has them. Well before the end of the book, though, only the coldest of readers would countenance a retelling in which Jackie was deprived her only boon in her dark and terrifying quest.
The Girl in the Box is not a light read or even very sugar-coated for the teens who are its target audience. It is a tragic look at how one girl manages to find something meaningful in life, even as her life is ripped from her. Jackie is an exceptional heroine in a harrowing tale and, no matter your age, you will appreciate the beauty of your life more for having met her.
January 3, 2011
Um, this book was clearly a factor in the raging of my first gnarly bout with teen angst- I was freshly 12, I believe... When I stumbled across "Girl in the Box" at my school's semi-annual book fair, it seemed intriguing, much more so than the 500th Sweet Valley High book that I would otherwise have my nose in. I bought it. I read it. I have still never gotten over it.
I don't understand why anyone would sell a book to prepubescent children that tells a story of a girl who gets abducted and locked inside a pitch-black crawl-space with only stale pastries and jugs of musty water for weeks, with only a typewriter and some paper to keep her company. Spoiler: the ending is a cliff-hanger. The reader never finds out if the character survives.
My warning is this: if you have a daughter/son who is the sensitive type, likes to read, empathizes with characters, etc., please don't give them this book. It's like giving a utility knife to Helen Keller- I mean, what do you think is going to happen?!
I don't understand why anyone would sell a book to prepubescent children that tells a story of a girl who gets abducted and locked inside a pitch-black crawl-space with only stale pastries and jugs of musty water for weeks, with only a typewriter and some paper to keep her company. Spoiler: the ending is a cliff-hanger. The reader never finds out if the character survives.
My warning is this: if you have a daughter/son who is the sensitive type, likes to read, empathizes with characters, etc., please don't give them this book. It's like giving a utility knife to Helen Keller- I mean, what do you think is going to happen?!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 31, 2011
I picked up this book when I was 11 years old at a bookfair. I am 32 now and it still pops into my head. The subject matter is way too intense for the targeted age group. I was a wreck for weeks. Maybe some would view a book that haunts you 20 years later as good, but having reread it , I can honestly say it's not even written that well. It wouldn't affect an adult the way it affected me as a child.I never write reviews but I feel like if I can save one little girl the experience I'm doing a service. Please don't let anyone younger than 13-14 read this parents.
June 30, 2024
Did nobody else on GR see the clues that maybe the girl was making this up, locked inside her room, or maybe inside her own mind, maybe catatonic. Maybe sorta like Me & Emma.
Whatever really happened, and whatever really happens after the last page, doesn't matter. The story is about the friendships, and about this girl with the amazing ability to tell stories, and the ambiguity of it all. And it's brilliant.
Whatever really happened, and whatever really happens after the last page, doesn't matter. The story is about the friendships, and about this girl with the amazing ability to tell stories, and the ambiguity of it all. And it's brilliant.
June 12, 2010
This book has gotten a quite a few reviews, and I think as readers we can all agree that this was absolutely one of the most disturbing, chilling, haunting stories that I have ever read. It has unsettled me since the day I read it.
I still remember clearly, the story of young girl who'd just had a fight with her best friend and is walking home when she is kidnapped. The only things she has with her are her typewriter and some paper, and she hangs on to them for dear life, just for the need of hanging on to something.
But after she's kidnapped, she isn't attacked or molested, but something unthinkably worse...She's locked in a basement and left ALONE. Until reading this book, I wouldn't have thought that would be worse, and now I don't have any doubt.
Alone, the only thing that keeps the main character sane is using the typewriter and paper to tell her story, to reach out to her friends and family, and even to try and humanize herself to her abductor.
But the abductor never returns, and a young girl is left between rationing scant rations that were left for her, eventually having to go to the bathroom, and the terrifying unknown of the abysmal darkness.
We never find out what happens to this girl, and though I always took the positive outlook, hoping she was saved, right after the ending, I know that it would not have been such a powerful book, or have stayed with me so long if I had known her outcome.
Spooky, scary, and haunting.
I still remember clearly, the story of young girl who'd just had a fight with her best friend and is walking home when she is kidnapped. The only things she has with her are her typewriter and some paper, and she hangs on to them for dear life, just for the need of hanging on to something.
But after she's kidnapped, she isn't attacked or molested, but something unthinkably worse...She's locked in a basement and left ALONE. Until reading this book, I wouldn't have thought that would be worse, and now I don't have any doubt.
Alone, the only thing that keeps the main character sane is using the typewriter and paper to tell her story, to reach out to her friends and family, and even to try and humanize herself to her abductor.
But the abductor never returns, and a young girl is left between rationing scant rations that were left for her, eventually having to go to the bathroom, and the terrifying unknown of the abysmal darkness.
We never find out what happens to this girl, and though I always took the positive outlook, hoping she was saved, right after the ending, I know that it would not have been such a powerful book, or have stayed with me so long if I had known her outcome.
Spooky, scary, and haunting.
March 3, 2014
Dark and haunting, I still remember this vividly over a decade on.
December 24, 2012
I read this book a little less than a decade ago, when I was about 13. It was in amongst many of the other books we had at my house that we've collected along the way. Whether or not we still have it, I don't know, but it popped into my head earlier and searched the internet to find it's name. And here I am.
When I read through it the first time, I couldn't stop. I couldn't put it down. It was scary. I was shocked. And that's why I loved it. "What happened to this girl? Why her? Why didn't her friend try to do anything?!" But then I got to the ending and just stared at the book. I sat there, on my bed, and stared. I hated that there was no closure, and I felt like I must have missing something, so you know what I did? Read it three more times, back to back. Each time, I got so invested in this book, this girl, her typewriter, the people who kidnapped her, what was outside the door. My mind ran with all sorts of theories about what happened after the typing stopped...
During this period in time, I was very into Fear Street, Christopher Pike's books, and all the other scary/thriller/horror books I found on the YA shelves at my libraries, so this books was right up my alley. I do not take issue with the target audience's age, unlike others.
When I read through it the first time, I couldn't stop. I couldn't put it down. It was scary. I was shocked. And that's why I loved it. "What happened to this girl? Why her? Why didn't her friend try to do anything?!" But then I got to the ending and just stared at the book. I sat there, on my bed, and stared. I hated that there was no closure, and I felt like I must have missing something, so you know what I did? Read it three more times, back to back. Each time, I got so invested in this book, this girl, her typewriter, the people who kidnapped her, what was outside the door. My mind ran with all sorts of theories about what happened after the typing stopped...
During this period in time, I was very into Fear Street, Christopher Pike's books, and all the other scary/thriller/horror books I found on the YA shelves at my libraries, so this books was right up my alley. I do not take issue with the target audience's age, unlike others.
February 28, 2008
I read this book when I was young, and it still haunts me.
February 19, 2009
This book had a very weird premise: a girl finds herself in a dark basement with an old typewriter. She isn't sure who kidnapped her or why they are keeping her. There isn't any light, but she knows how to touch type, so she proceeds to type about what's happening to her, letters to people she loves and may never see again, pretty much anything, as she is kept in this basement starving and waiting to die or be killed. The ending left me hanging and wondering, "What happened to the girl in the box??" (meanwhile also wondering, Where did she get this endless supply of paper? How is it that she doesn't mistype more often, or have her fingers on the wrong keys and type a bunch of gibberish, or lock up the keys, or even have enough typewriter ribbon? All problems I have had while NOT being kept starving in a pitch black basement). Of course some of these things were addressed, but it was just such a strange scenario... why did the kidnapper/possible killer leave the typewriter down there?
Sometimes I like being left to wonder and imagine my own ending... Clearly I remembered reading this obscure book!
Sometimes I like being left to wonder and imagine my own ending... Clearly I remembered reading this obscure book!
January 29, 2009
I remember really liking this story, and reading it over and over again, and everytime I finished, I wondered...
September 30, 2009
I got this book from my mom as a Christmas gift one year. This book still haunts me even though I read it when I was very young. I found it to be depressing book to read and had a hard time getting through it. In an effort to make it a worthwhile read I did the unthinkable and skipped to the end to see if it was a salvageable. I put the book down and never finished it. I still get creeped out when I think about this book.
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November 11, 2007This is probably the most disturbing YA book I ever read, and I'm at a total loss about how to rate it. I can't really say it was good in the way that, you know, Robert Cormier was good. However, I can't really say it wasn't good, because it haunted me for years.
October 19, 2008
I read this when I was in high school, and I remember being just so plain shocked by the ending. It's one of those books that disturbs you and stays with you, even if you can't say whether you enjoyed it or not.
April 28, 2018
This book scared the utter crap out of me when I was about 11. It wasn't until a few years ago (in my late 20s) that I found the title and author's name online.
It came to mind as I was (recently) reading Emma Donoghue's new book, Room.
It came to mind as I was (recently) reading Emma Donoghue's new book, Room.
February 2, 2023
This is a good book but I didn't enjoy reading it. Incredibly disturbing and sad.
January 28, 2012
I read this book as a young teenager (when it was first published), and probably reread it a few times around that time as well. Since college, I've been describing it to friends who still like to read and reread YA novels, but nobody ever knew what I was talking about! I've tried to find its name several times in the past, but only just found it by searching "kidnapping, typewriter" keywords on Bookfinder (description of success just in case you need to search for something yourself).
So I haven't laid hands or eyes on the book in at least twenty years, but it is a truly psychologically harrowing account of a young captive not knowing what will to happen to her. I still vividly remember the descriptions of the large jar of greasy tasting water and the congealing glazed doughnut she was left with to eat. I think I do, anyway, and I've chosen not to look at other reviews until I write mine. I definitely remember thinking "I should learn to touchtype---if this were me, I'd be typing sflhdeufnob and no one would ever know my possibly-last thoughts or what happened to me!" I know at times she worried she wasn't typing properly either. Imagine if you were desperately typing out your last words to anyone and it was all one letter off or with a spent ribbon!
Because it's just a YA novel, I didn't rate this as amazing, since it's usually the case that the writing doesn't live up to the ideas (when it does, the book commonly transcends its YA label and more people know it). Still, considering I remember the story, atmosphere, and gut-twisting end so well even after twenty years, I'm comfortable recommending it as one to seek out and read for yourself.
March 9, 2015
I found this book at a library book sale several years ago and purchased it based on the title and back cover summary. Having just finished it, all I can say is *wow*. Absolutely, it's a disturbing read. Written entirely from the point of view of the titular girl, the chapters chronicle her thoughts, reflections, and internal (as well as physical) struggles post kidnapping while trapped in an underground cellar. It's a haunting book, and very well written. It's not the feel good story of the year by any means, but it's one of the few "real" books I've read in a long while. It is meant to terrify you, and it quietly does just that.
August 31, 2009
Stupid Dumb Hated it.
A girl is kiddnapped, luckily she had a typewriter and a whole reem of paper. Luckily she just took a typing class. WOW really??? Lame. So while sitting in a room where you never meet her captors or know why, or what happens after she writes a story of her life.
She has two friends a boy and a girl they hook up she is sad. THE END
seriously it's the end of the book.
A girl is kiddnapped, luckily she had a typewriter and a whole reem of paper. Luckily she just took a typing class. WOW really??? Lame. So while sitting in a room where you never meet her captors or know why, or what happens after she writes a story of her life.
She has two friends a boy and a girl they hook up she is sad. THE END
seriously it's the end of the book.
November 18, 2009
This book, written from the perspective of an abducted girl locked in a cellar, typing missives in the dark and pushing them through a small slit in a doorway, is totally the most f-ed up young adult novel ever and yet I can't imagine having grown up without it. She doesn't even know if she's hitting the right keys on the typewriter and she's running out of the greasy water that was left in a jar down there for her. I really want to know more about the author, Ouida Sebestyen.
August 11, 2010
H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E!!!!! This book was soo boring she just went on and on about her boring and pathetic life and she didnt even escape the box.
December 12, 2013
Not many books are read once by a 10 year old girl and remembered vividly 20+ years later. This is one of those books.
February 8, 2013
this book is where all my fears come from.
February 23, 2010
I read this as a teenager and have never forgotten it.
May 6, 2011
This book is maybe a three, but it's definitely rounded up to a fourth star just because I loved it a lot as an eighth grader and I found myself remembering what I'd taken from this book, way back then. I used to write myself notes sometimes, which I guess is like journaling that you do in the middle of social studies class, and I would always write TTM at the top, for Talking To Myself. I got that from this book, and I'd totally forgotten that.
The set-up device for the plot isn't great, but it works well for what it does. Plausible is not a word you'd use to describe how this plot goes. But nonetheless, I love Jackie. Part of me doesn't like her, for the fact that she's not very distinctive, but I love that she's all about the relationships in her life. And her sense of fairness in these relationships rings very true to me. She wants this equality, this even-ness, this un-rock-the-boat-ableness, to her relationships. When she and her best friend both want the same thing (sweater, guy, whatever), they find a way to keep it fair. And everything goes wrong when for the first time they're made clearly aware of the fact that they can't split everything evenly. And sometimes, splitting things evenly also means splitting the hurt between them too.
I read this whole thing yesterday, and when I put down at midnight and turned off the light, I cried just a little, a little tiny pity party, for the times when I've been on the losing end of a friendship-turned-romance. Books like this remind me that my feelings were justified, and that growth always comes with the time passing, even when questions go unanswered.
The set-up device for the plot isn't great, but it works well for what it does. Plausible is not a word you'd use to describe how this plot goes. But nonetheless, I love Jackie. Part of me doesn't like her, for the fact that she's not very distinctive, but I love that she's all about the relationships in her life. And her sense of fairness in these relationships rings very true to me. She wants this equality, this even-ness, this un-rock-the-boat-ableness, to her relationships. When she and her best friend both want the same thing (sweater, guy, whatever), they find a way to keep it fair. And everything goes wrong when for the first time they're made clearly aware of the fact that they can't split everything evenly. And sometimes, splitting things evenly also means splitting the hurt between them too.
I read this whole thing yesterday, and when I put down at midnight and turned off the light, I cried just a little, a little tiny pity party, for the times when I've been on the losing end of a friendship-turned-romance. Books like this remind me that my feelings were justified, and that growth always comes with the time passing, even when questions go unanswered.
August 23, 2016
My review will spoil the end of the book, so if you really want to get to the end and be completely depressed and overwhelmed, please do not read this review.
I find it highly difficult to believe that The Girl in the Box is marketed for young adults. The story that Ouida Sebestyen has created is based on a shaky premise: that a kidnapped girl somehow ends up in a small dark room with her typewriter and a box of paper. The room also contains some packages of bread and a jar of water.
If you are willing to accept that she can sit in the dark and type for who knows how long (without making breathtaking typing errors), can you accept that her kidnapper never visits her once? That he apparently has no interest in her beyond the kidnapping? Or--ultimately--that he will leave her there to die after her moldy bread and water are gone?
There are moments in the story that seem trite and difficult to swallow, but, to be fair, there are also moments that are absolutely gut-wrenching. Quite frankly, it's scary as hell. Now, I'll gladly give you scary as hell, if there is some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, but this book is bleak right to the bitter end. Okay, storytellers have a right to tell whatever story they want to, but I seriously wonder at anyone publishing this book. Personally, I think that storytellers have an obligation to their readers to ultimately point them in a good direction and also think that it's my right to really dislike books that leave the reader with no hope at the end.
Sorry, but I can't recommend this one for anyone, especially for young adult readers!
I find it highly difficult to believe that The Girl in the Box is marketed for young adults. The story that Ouida Sebestyen has created is based on a shaky premise: that a kidnapped girl somehow ends up in a small dark room with her typewriter and a box of paper. The room also contains some packages of bread and a jar of water.
If you are willing to accept that she can sit in the dark and type for who knows how long (without making breathtaking typing errors), can you accept that her kidnapper never visits her once? That he apparently has no interest in her beyond the kidnapping? Or--ultimately--that he will leave her there to die after her moldy bread and water are gone?
There are moments in the story that seem trite and difficult to swallow, but, to be fair, there are also moments that are absolutely gut-wrenching. Quite frankly, it's scary as hell. Now, I'll gladly give you scary as hell, if there is some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, but this book is bleak right to the bitter end. Okay, storytellers have a right to tell whatever story they want to, but I seriously wonder at anyone publishing this book. Personally, I think that storytellers have an obligation to their readers to ultimately point them in a good direction and also think that it's my right to really dislike books that leave the reader with no hope at the end.
Sorry, but I can't recommend this one for anyone, especially for young adult readers!
February 4, 2016
The story the girl in the box, is about a girl who is kidnapped by an unknown man, she never saw his face because it was a surprise attack. As she is trapped in this mystery man's basement she continues to type on her typewriter, In hopes of someone finding them somewhere and eventually find her down there and save her. The story gives an emotion sense because the reader could be worried about her or feel sympathy for her, or the reader could feel like they're in her shoes and feel the same way she does.
What I love about the book is one in a large group of books that gives good detail as if you are in the mind of the character as she goes through the situation and gives you an emotion as you feel her pain and betrayal through daily struggles between friendship and regular childhood issues it's a book that keeps you hooked through the whole thing because you want to know what happens next. I disliked how short the book was but I liked the fact it wasn't as violent as you sometimes expect it to be.
When should you read this book? That choice is entirely up to you. Do you wanna see if the girl gets saved? do you wanna know what she has to go through in that small dark room? Do you wanna find out what kind of room she has to be kept in? Then read this book, It'll keep you in suspense and keep you entertained all at once, you have a half and half chance of feeling attached to the narrator because her emotions could be just like yours, who knows? That's the reader's job to read and find out themselves. If you love reading, this book is for you to read.
What I love about the book is one in a large group of books that gives good detail as if you are in the mind of the character as she goes through the situation and gives you an emotion as you feel her pain and betrayal through daily struggles between friendship and regular childhood issues it's a book that keeps you hooked through the whole thing because you want to know what happens next. I disliked how short the book was but I liked the fact it wasn't as violent as you sometimes expect it to be.
When should you read this book? That choice is entirely up to you. Do you wanna see if the girl gets saved? do you wanna know what she has to go through in that small dark room? Do you wanna find out what kind of room she has to be kept in? Then read this book, It'll keep you in suspense and keep you entertained all at once, you have a half and half chance of feeling attached to the narrator because her emotions could be just like yours, who knows? That's the reader's job to read and find out themselves. If you love reading, this book is for you to read.
August 21, 2011
Its been more than 20 years since I read this book and I have never forgotten, or gotten over, it.
This is the story of a young girl who wakes up in a cellar with only a bag of stale bread, a jug of dirty water, and her typewriter & paper. Her only light is from sunlight coming through a crack in the cellar door. She remembers arguing with her best friend, storming off, and then being grabbed and thrown into the back of a van. She has no idea who has done this to her or why.
She uses the typewriter to tell her story and maintain her sanity. You are with her through every moment of her captivity. You are afraid for her, you hope for her, and you suffer with her when her food and water begin to run out and you see her writing begin to deteriorate as a result. The cliffhanger ending haunts me to this day.
This is clearly not a feel-good novel but, in my opinion, any book that sticks with you for as long as this one has is a truly great read.
This is the story of a young girl who wakes up in a cellar with only a bag of stale bread, a jug of dirty water, and her typewriter & paper. Her only light is from sunlight coming through a crack in the cellar door. She remembers arguing with her best friend, storming off, and then being grabbed and thrown into the back of a van. She has no idea who has done this to her or why.
She uses the typewriter to tell her story and maintain her sanity. You are with her through every moment of her captivity. You are afraid for her, you hope for her, and you suffer with her when her food and water begin to run out and you see her writing begin to deteriorate as a result. The cliffhanger ending haunts me to this day.
This is clearly not a feel-good novel but, in my opinion, any book that sticks with you for as long as this one has is a truly great read.
October 7, 2021
I read this creepy book as a teenager and was recently reminded of it while reading "Room" by Emma Donoghue. It is the story of a girl, Jackie, who is kidnapped and locked in a cold cellar with only some water, food, and a typewriter. she passes the days by writing letters, stories, and coming to terms with her fate.
I am sure I read this (and several other kidnapping-themed YA novels) multiple times in my youth. This was definitely the most memorable and haunting. However, reading it as an adult took away some of the horror because my logic kept popping into my head..."Why would he kidnap her and never come back? Where is the motive in that?!" The ending is inconclusive and I really would loved to have had some/any sort of epilogue.
I am sure I read this (and several other kidnapping-themed YA novels) multiple times in my youth. This was definitely the most memorable and haunting. However, reading it as an adult took away some of the horror because my logic kept popping into my head..."Why would he kidnap her and never come back? Where is the motive in that?!" The ending is inconclusive and I really would loved to have had some/any sort of epilogue.
September 4, 2015
I read this to see if it was as creepy as I remembered it being when I read it around age 11-12. Yep, it is. Although adult me picked up on the implausibility of the situation a lot more, and hopefully won't be plagued as much by nightmares.
October 24, 2009
I read this book in middle school and it still creeps me out to this day.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews