Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Girl Next Door
    The Girl Next Door
    The Girl Next Door
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Girl Next Door

    Written by Jack Ketchum

    Narrated by Jack Ketchum

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets, well-tended lawns, and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sons and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths. A boy with a very adult decision to make . . .
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 19, 2016
    ISBN9781515974659
    The Girl Next Door
    Author

    Jack Ketchum

    Jack Ketchum has published twelve novels and several short story collections. He has won numerous Bram Stoker Awards, and four of his books were recently filmed as movies: The Lost (2001), The Girl Next Door (2005), Red (2008) and Offspring (2009). He lives in New York City.

    More audiobooks from Jack Ketchum

    Related to The Girl Next Door

    Related audiobooks

    Thrillers For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How To Install Your First Widget

      Feb 9, 2021

      > As you would expect with Apple, the company has made installing widgets in iOS 14 a piece of cake. Your device will come with Apple apps that have their own widgets ready to go, although you might have to launch third-party apps at least once befor

      1 min read

    • Article

      Terrify Yourself with These Ten Horror Novels

      Jun 19, 2019

      A list of books so scary you definitely won't keep them on your nightstand. The post Terrify Yourself with These Ten Horror Novels appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Farewell to Summer

      Aug 29, 2019

      A Farewell to Summer
      6 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium on Childhood

      Sep 1, 2021

      A Symposium on Childhood
      25 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Sep 1, 2020

      Cricket League
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Lives of Bryan

      Jun 1, 2023

      The Lives of Bryan
      19 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Jun 1, 2023

      Table Talk
      11 min read

    • Article

      My Story My Friend Cath

      Mar 25, 2020

      My Story My Friend Cath
      5 min read

    • Article

      Beautiful In The Distance

      Jun 24, 2019

      Beautiful In The Distance
      10 min read

    • Article

      We All Live in Uncertain

      Jul 30, 2020

      “Think of Caddo as a maze of lakes within lakes,” says John Winn, proprietor of Caddo Outback Tours, as the two of us settle into a small Go-Devil boat roped to a dock in Uncertain, on the border of northern Louisiana. For two decades, Winn has given

      6 min read

    • Article

      My Brief (Doomed) Surfing Days

      Jul 27, 2017

      My Brief (Doomed) Surfing Days
      13 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      I heard a scientist speak about new discoveries on multitasking.Apparently, it is beneficial to multitask only when doing repetitive things that are meniallike dishwashing, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of babies,and not while doing something ce

      4 min read

    • Article

      HUNTING With The Ellements…

      Sep 13, 2021

      HUNTING With The Ellements…
      19 min read

    • Article

      Any Given Day

      Mar 29, 2021

      Any Given Day
      11 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jul 1, 2018

      Without the adventof Stockholm Syndrome,how could I havelearned to love myself so much? I’m asking Godand New York, can anyonehelp me? (An all-but-audible “or else.”) The captain’s chair:it’s beginning to smella little too much like me. Again.But the

      4 min read

    • Article

      Clandestine

      Jan 10, 2022

      It was 1980 and I was nineteen, barely into what my mother quaintly referred to as the Prime of My Life. From what I’d learned up to that questionable apogee, there will never be enough time before bony-fingered Decrepitude sinks her yellowed nails i

      12 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Jun 16, 2022

      A genuine miracle occurred at the art opening of the Blinky 40th Anniversary Exhibition at California State University Northridge Gallery in Southern California on 2 February 2019. An artwork by Erika Ostrander of the “Shroud of Blinky” was found wee

      6 min read

    • Article

      Intelligent Creatures

      Jul 6, 2023

      Intelligent Creatures
      19 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      Sunday mornings I watch people at the gas station, off the highway,fill their cars on the way to the beach, or the game, or to whateverwholesome activity one shepherds their upstanding family.I wouldn’t know. The last time I went to the beach was 13

      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      I was trying to look a little less like myselfand more like other humans, humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.Purchased in another life, when I had a husband and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,the skort even had its own little poc

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Temporary Arrangement

      Oct 2, 2023

      A Temporary Arrangement
      19 min read

    • Article

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      loved best. Words I have neversaid. New sentence, at 80. Of coursenot more than his children, and their children. That goeswithout saying—but I want to lay down eachelement of love’s house. First,the hole, under—apple cellar, potato cellar,cellar to

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Girl Next Door

    4/5

    728 ratings61 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This book will stay with you long after you finished it. It is an extremely brutal book that is not for the faint of heart. You will be felt feeling sick to your stomach and want more answers.
    • 4/5
      I feel almost guilty giving this 4 stars. It deserves them. Maybe even 5. The writing is excellent. I expected a horror and got one. I listen to true crime a lot. This book shouldn’t come as any shock. But it does. I know these things happen every day and this is very much the way in which they happen. It’s soul crushing.
    • 5/5
      Very interesting from the psychological perspective of how people get sucked into doing evil things.
    • 4/5
      I tried to know as little as possible about this. Everyone knows it is disturbing as hell but that’s as much as I knew.
      It was actually different than what I predicted and therefore it was more disturbing. The extent of human depravity is horrific.

      Dallas did a great job narrating his book.
    • 4/5
      Wow. This book depicts a true horror, especially knowing it is based on truth. Anyone looking for a monstrous mother/villain, look no further.

      Tough book to stomach.
    • 3/5
      The fact that it was based on a true story on a true story made it more interesting.
    • 4/5
      Wow! Just wow. Those last few chapters had me on the edge of my seat. There were moments when I was just horrified and when I couldn't breathe. Tears for so much pain. This is a def a book that some people might not be ready for. It is a wild ride.

      *Did I miss it or did we never find out what Ruth's problem was?
    • 5/5
      Incredibly sad but very well written. Hard to recommend. Cuz it’s so sad
    • 4/5
      Very intense, disturbing, and graphic. Absolutely heart wrenching. Definitely not for the faint of heart.
    • 5/5
      This book was very well written and narrated. However, it is very graphic. Be prepared.
    • 5/5
      This book was just as good as the Movie, It is based on a true story it was exhalent from beginning to end.
    • 5/5
      Incredibly haunting read. Very well-written and narrated. Highly recommend this for anyone looking to ruin their day.
    • 1/5
      This is so disrespectful to capitalize on a poor woman's life. I refuse to read anything else by this author. Anyone who can read this and see it as entertainment even for its disturbances, has no respect from me. Absolutely disgusting and disrespectful author.
    • 5/5
      Loosely based on the murder of Sylvia Likens, it was hard to read but hard to put down. Truly horrifying.
    • 5/5
      In the basement, with Ruth, I began to learn that anger, hate, fear and loneliness are all one button awaiting the touch of just a single finger to set them blazing toward destruction.

      And I learned that they can taste like winning.

      After Jack Ketchum (who's real name is Dallas Mayr) died, a few short weeks ago, I was determined to revisit some of his work. I also suggested it to a friend of mine, who'd said she'd specifically avoided the novel up to now. Unfortunately, I pushed her to read the book, because it truly is the single most important book Ketchum ever wrote. She stopped on page 192, saying she couldn't go on, and I get it.

      This is only the second time I've read this book, and it'll likely be the last. This is not a book that leaves you glad that you read it. It's not a book you read for entertainment.

      In his introduction to Jack Ketchum's last published collection of short stories, Gorilla In My Room, Edward Lee tells this story:

      One time Ketchum and I were sitting in a convention bar, in between panels, readings, etc., and I was yammering over my beer about some book I'd read that was flawed from a "writerly" standpoint but I found that I enjoyed it anyway. Then I said something like, "It seems to me that if a novel possesses flawed components but it's still entertaining, then it's done its job. An iffy plot doesn't matter, shitty characters don't matter, crummy dialogue doesn't matter, as long as some other element of that book entertains the readership."

      Ketchum replied rather perfunctorily, "Bullshit. I don't want to entertain readers, I want to provoke them. I want to make them think. Think about what's really going on out there, to consider that it's not all tiptoeing through the tulips, to recognize that some really awful shit could be awaiting them around the next corner. Bad, bad shit. Real horror that gets its hands on real people every damn day, when they least expect it. If all my books do is entertain, then they've failed. For a book to be good, it needs to perform, and it performs by provoking the reader into thinking, and to come away from that thinking with something useful."

      Nowhere was Ketchum more successful with that than with this novel. This is a masterclass in how to provoke a reader. It's an ugly book about an ugly subject.

      But Jack tackles it perfectly. He starts talking about pain. But there's pain, and then there's pain, and Ketchum ultimately delivers the pain. But, just as the plot slowly progresses and sucks you in, so do the lines that Ketchum crosses.

      Read the first quarter of this novel. You could easily believe you're in one of Stephen King's masterful coming of age stories. It, perhaps. But he turns the screws so slowly at the beginning, giving a glimpse of what could have been, the view from the top of a glorious Ferris wheel ride, before plunging the reader back down to that world where some really awful shit awaits the characters—and the reader—around the next corner.

      Truly horrible things happen in this novel, and I am the first to disavow gratuitous violence and torture in a book or movie. But it's never gratuitous here. Ketchum grabs the sides of your head and demands that you watch, not because he wants to gross you out, or titillate you. He wants you to watch and be reviled by it, to be sickened by it.

      Because, at least for me, he shows how any aggressor slowly, yet carefully dehumanizes their victim, whether through mental or physical abuse, violence or torture. It's a terrible thing, the most reviling thing one human can do to another, yet we do it all the time, every day. And sometimes we just shake our head, turn away and mutter, "that's too bad." And sometimes...sometimes...our anger, our hate, our fear, and our loneliness, when turned upon another, can taste like winning.

      Ketchum makes you feel shame for that.

      We are a world of casual violence. We choose guns over children. We watch murders while eating popcorn. We protect rapists and blame the victims. We send people to jail for longer sentences when they sell drugs than when they take a life.

      We are a broken world. But we mostly ignore it.

      In this novel, for a brief time, Ketchum does not let you turn away from that.

      I cannot stress how important this novel is, nor the impact it's had on my own writing. This is a horror novel, but not because of any vampires or supernatural presence. The monsters here are completely human. They are you and me.

    • 5/5
      brb scheduling my vasectomy

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      I read this book as part of a group read; and it pretty much killed any interest I might have for participating in any further group reads.

      This was the most depressing book I have ever read. It didn't scare me and it was disturbing in a bad way. In fact, it sort of made me wish I could find a couple of the characters from the book so I could bury a hatchet in their faces.

      From here on out I am going to be far more selective when choosing a horror genre book. I don't want to read books where all the horror comes from living, breathing human beings......if I had any interest in such atrocities I would watch the news; plenty of real life horror there....at no additional cost.

      I know some readers are dedicated to the human monster and the evil that they do; these readers claim that there is nothing more frightening than that which is real.

      I disagree. We all react to fear differently.....either flight or fight. Violence from another human being doesn't scare me, it makes me mad; so a book like this pisses me off way more than it frightens me.

      What frightens me? The unexplained, the unknown, that thing or feeling that can't be defined but poses a threat. So, basically nothing in this book frightens me.

      This book aggravated my already bad case of misanthropy. Want to know something scary? If I had a virus in a sealed jar that would cause worldwide infertility in humans, basically putting a one hundred year expiration date on the human race....... I would break that sucker open in a heartbeat.

      Maybe evolution will get things right the next time around, skip the primates and go straight for the canines or equines as the dominant race.
    • 5/5
      Before reading this book, you need to prepare yourself.
      Yes, it's going to be disturbing.
      Yes, it's going to turn your stomach to knots.
      Yes, it's going to make you very, very angry.

      I won't go into the plot since several reviews and the book description already do that. I will say that to me, this book reveals the ugliest possible sides of human behavior, the worst being when good people do NOTHING to help.
      Even the author is disgusted by what happened, according to his note at the back of the book. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
    • 5/5
      Haunting and sad, worst of all, it's based on a true story. Don't read if you have a weak stomach.
    • 2/5
      This is implausible.
    • 3/5
      This book is hard to review objectively. On the one hand it borders the style of horror termed as torture porn. On the other, and in a part for that reason, I’m sure it does what it intends to do. It provokes emotion and, I hope, for most people, in the right way, making the reader uneasy and restless. Ultimately, I wasn’t able to forgive anyone, not even the protagonist. There’s something voyeuristic in the reading, speaking to a part of the reader that wants to put the book down. Yet, like watching a train wreck, another part of the human soul/nature wants to discover the outcome. Wants justice. Retribution. Wants to ‘do something’, to act, particularly as this is based on a true story—the book’s real saving grace, as it highlights the plight of all abused children, spiking the guilty nerve of anyone who doesn’t want to get involved. The book is confrontational and unsettling in so many ways it questions the causes behind my dislike. The book is terrible, and in that it’s possible it achieves its purpose, making of the book a conundrum both excellent and dreadful. It’s a repulsive, grim read that’s hard to turn away from or to dismiss, though I’m positive not everyone who reads this will have the same experience as I did. I dislike this book (especially as, since reading, I discovered the sister never wanted it published and had I known I would not have purchased), but I appreciate it as a job well done: vile but emotive because of that.
    • 4/5
      In an interview in the back of the book Ketchum says, "I wanted everything up close and personal. I wanted to put you there, period. To make you a co-conspirator. In fact, part of my aim was to make you feel guilty about turning the goddamn page." He succeeds. I have never felt so shitty about liking a book.
    • 4/5
      David is your average 12-year-old boy. He has friends in his neighborhood and is becoming interested in girls. When Meg and Susan Loughlin move in with the family of his best friend, David thinks he has an opportunity for a new friend, even if Meg, the sister he encounters first, is a girl and a little older than him. Meg and Susan's parents were killed in an accident, and David's neighbor Ruth and her sons are all the family the girls have to speak of.

      It's not long before Ruth begins a descent into madness and begins abusing the girls. First come the beatings, then a campaign of torture that David and other neighborhood children witness and participate in. The cops had already been involved and hadn't listened to Meg's pleas. Her and Susan's only hope is David. Will he be able to save the sisters before it is too late?

      This novel was very disturbing. It includes graphic depictions of torture, rape, and other violence. It is an interesting character study in how people in violent situations respond to that violence; whether they become the predator or the prey. "The Girl Next Door" was very hard to put down, but very hard to read, as well. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart.
    • 5/5
      When choosing a story to read in the horror genre, a reader should expect to be shocked, amazed, or have the reader mind bent and twisted into new directions. Some are just a bit too graphic and the reader should consider warnings given to a potential reader. This is one of those books.First there are the graphic physical descriptions of torture and physical abuse. For those who think they have seen it all, did I mention the victims are teenage females? And, just by the way, one (the younger one) is physically disabled by a car crash which killed the parents of the two girls. So much for the physical abuse.Now we turn to the mental and psychological degradation and abuse of the books narrator, a teenage boy. Initial Stockholm Syndrome is evidenced by the girls in the above paragraph, but there are elements of this syndrome with the male narrator also, as he shifts between roles of a rescuer and facilitator of torture. I have seen this confusion in the personalities of interrogators as they shift in and out of roles. Over time, they may forget which role they need to be in. The narrator in this case exhibits the same problems, although over a compressed period of a few months.Ketchum writes a thoughtful part at the end of the book on the writing, inspiration and background of the story. He reminds us that this was inspired by a true event and invites those of us old enough to reflect on growing up in the post WWII era up through the 1960s. Children did not complain to police; they were adults, just like mom and dad. Children were chattel. In his endnotes Ketchum points out that although there were neighborhoods where doors might be unlocked and everyone knew everyone, there were also no real secrets. There were adults that were free with adolescents (enablers) much more than they should have been. There were severe disciplinarians at that time that cannot hide in the era of the internet. Ketchum combines what he knew from his background, combined it with an actual event and stretched it to a point where, in the second to shortest chapter of the book, our narrator refuses to describe what is about to happen.The shortest chapter is “They went to the basement.”Prepare yourself for true horror if you choose to read this one.
    • 4/5
      Well I think I should have read the comments on here before starting this. No don't get me wrong it was not a badly written book and the comments would not have put me off, but if I had looked into the book before starting it, I would have been more prepared for the horrific nature of the events described. It was horrific and the mother was evil personified! It was one of those books that you keep on reading in spite of yourself, not really because you want to.
    • 4/5
      This is the sickest, most depraved shit I have ever read. I know, there are plenty of sick and twisted books out there, I've read many of them. But, all of them pale in comparison to this disturbing book.

      A young teenage girl is systematically abused, beaten, tortured and raped throughout this book. But, that's not really the sick part. It's the old lady who is enabling all this torment. Getting the neighborhood boys to do the dirty deeds. Offering them Cokes, or candy so they will stick around for the good old fashioned torture of this poor teenage girl.

      The boys go from being just harmless bullies in the first part of this book, to being straight up psychopaths by the end. They enjoy torturing this girl. They beg the old woman to let them cut the girl. They're constantly coming up with new and interesting means of torment.

      My eyes were glued to the pages of this book. I couldn't put it down. The decent into insanity was pure terror, and it was fascinating to read.
    • 5/5
      One of the most disturbing pieces of literature I have ever read. This book is an assault on the senses.
    • 5/5
      This book is fantastically written. I mean. It's amazing. I wanted to read it all the way through. If it hadn't been an extremely busy work week, I would have.

      But for every well written word, there is a disturbing feeling left with the reader. This is NOT a book for everyone, and yet, it was written so dang well I do want to recommend it to everyone.

      It is the story of two young sisters who were sent to their cousin's house to live when their parents died. They are living in a single parent house with three boys...and start to be tortured and abused by the mother, the boys, and the neighborhood kids.

      It's dark. And at the same time that you are repulsed by what is happening, you also cannot stop reading. Wanting to jump in and protect these girls.

      Such a good book. Such a disturbing book.
    • 4/5
      This book disturbed me so thoroughly, I resorted to skimming for the second half. It's well written, terse and suspenseful - but the detail in the violence was so stomach-churning, I wanted to be done with the book as soon as possible. The most upsetting book I've read since Koushun Takami's BATTLE ROYALE. You've been warned.
    • 4/5
      Inspired by the heart-breaking true story of a young girl, Sylvia Likens, who was tortured and abused in the 1960's by a woman, her children, and several neighborhood children. The book is disturbing, but powerful. Well-written with good pacing and an interesting Author's Note at the end.