Dark, Intense and Absolutely Enthralling: Read our Review of Girl A by Abigail Dean

‘Girl A,’ she said. ‘The girl who escaped. If anyone was going to make it, it was going to be you.’

Alexandra Gracie doesn’t want to think about her family. She doesn’t want to think about growing up in her parents’ House of Horrors. And she doesn’t want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped.

When her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can’t run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her six siblings – and with the childhood they shared.

Beautifully written and incredibly powerful, Girl A is a story of redemption, of horror, and of love.

With rights sold in twenty-seven territories globally, and hailed as the book that will define a decade, Girl A is perhaps one of 2021’s most highly anticipated novels. So, was it worth all the hype? Absolutely. Lawyer turned novelist Abigail Dean has hit the ground running with this dark and propulsive debut thriller, perfect for readers of Room and Sharp Objects.

The novel predominately follows Lex, now a successful lawyer based in New York, as she returns to England to tie up her dead mother’s affairs and come to grips with the atrocities she suffered as a child.

Told in sparse, honest prose, the novel seamlessly dips back and forth between the past and the present, slowly revealing the emotional and physical abuse Lex and her siblings suffered at the hands of their parents and the extent to which they still carry the scars of this trauma today. Not a story for the feint-hearted, these flashback sequences are dark, heavy, and at times unsettling, yet – thanks to Dean’s exquisite writing and fine character-work – I was utterly enthralled and unable to tear my eyes from the page.

Girl A is, at its heart, a character-study, with Lex and her siblings standing front and centre. The novel is broken into seven parts, each exploring the nuanced and uneasy relationship Lex shares with each sibling – both in the past and the present.

Dark, intense and beautifully written, Girl A is a gripping psychological thriller and a devastating story of survival and trauma. It’s a tremendous debut from Abigail Dean, and I’m expecting big things for her going forward.