I first heard about LIVING DEAD GIRL by Elizabeth Scott from a YouTube video, of all places. I was searching for a review of a different book, found a video commentary on this one, and stashed it away on a mental note somewhere in my multi-thousand long to-be-read stack that never seems to dwindle down -- no matter how much I read. I finally ended up coming across this one, improperly tossed on the "NEW RELEASE" table at the library, and decided to give it a try. It looked like a pretty quick read -- and I *am* kinda far behind on my reading for the year and all .... 
 Basically, LIVING DEAD GIRL reminds me most of the true crime books we read in one of the legal psychology courses I took -- most notably the one where the girl lived in a box or a cage that her kidnapper created for her until she learned to be so helpless that she just stayed in that cage even when he left for work and left her fully able to escape at any point. (Anyone read that one?) So, LIVING DEAD GIRL is fiction, of course, but it still reads the same, I think. You feel the same range of fluctuating emotions towards the victim, who seems at times both to loathe the man who entrapped her and to embrace the same evil that motivates his actions. 
 "Alice" was kidnapped from a school field trip when she was just ten years old. Ray, her kidnapper, has done everything to maintain the look of childhood innocence as much as he can, keeping her starved, waxed, and tiny so that she can perform as he likes over the last five years. But now, Alice is getting too big and too old and Ray needs a new victim -- so he enlists fifteen year old Alice to search the playgrounds for his next catch. 
 Needless to say, LIVING DEAD GIRL deals with a disturbing subject matter that is probably best left to older teens and to readers seeking out a certain darkness in their reading materials. Much like FORBIDDEN by Tabitha Suzuma, I'd say read this one if you think you can handle it -- but I fully understand that it won't be everyone's cup of tea.