Girl A by Abigail Dean
undefined

Get a free gift with your first book.

Join for just $9.99.

We’ll make this quick.

First, enter your email. Then choose your move.

By pressing "Pick a book now" or "Pick a book later", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Get a free gift with your first book.

Join for just $9.99.

You did it!

Your account is now up to date.

get the app

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play

Already have the app? Explore here.

birthday coupon modal image

A birthday treat.

Celebrate your birthday with a free add-on in your July box. It's our way of saying happy birthday, BFF.

Choose your free hat.

Add one to your first box.

Unreliable Narrator hat
Unreliable Narrator hat
Book Person hat
Book Person hat
Checkout without a hat

Please confirm your age.

Are you 0 years old?

Girl A by Abigail Dean

Suspense

Girl A

Debut

by Abigail Dean

Excellent choice

Just enter your email to add this book to your box.

By pressing "Add to box", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

The gates are closed.

You’re on the waitlist. We’ll email you once you can enroll.

Save $ with BOTM.

Quick take

This haunting exploration of trauma and survival is a gripping portrait of family, violence, and memory.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Psychological

    Psychological

  • Illustrated icon, Nonlinear_Timeline

    Nonlinear timeline

  • Illustrated icon, Sad

    Sad

  • Illustrated icon, Unsettling

    Unsettling

Synopsis

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

Lex 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, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents—her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But 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 siblings—and with the childhood they shared.

What begins as a propulsive tale of escape and survival becomes a gripping psychological family story about the shifting alliances and betrayals of sibling relationships—about the secrets our siblings keep, from themselves and each other. Who have each of these siblings become? How do their memories defy or galvanize Lex's own? As Lex pins each sibling down to agree to her family's final act, she discovers how potent the spell of their shared family mythology is, and who among them remains in its thrall and who has truly broken free.

Content warning

This book contains scenes that depict child abuse, domestic violence, PTSD, and suicide.

Read a sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Girl A.

Girl A

1.

Lex (Girl A)

You don’t know me, but you’ll have seen my face. In the earlier pictures, they bludgeoned our features with pixels, right down to our waists; even our hair was too distinctive to disclose. But the story and its protectors grew weary, and in the danker corners of the Internet we became easy to find. The favored photograph was taken in front of the house on Moor Woods Road, early on a September evening. We had filed out and lined up, six of us in height order and Noah in Ethan’s arms, while Father arranged the composition. Little white wraiths squirming in the sunshine. Behind us, the house rested in the last of the day’s light, shadows spreading from the windows and the door. We were still and looking at the camera. It should have been perfect. But just before Father pressed the button, Evie squeezed my hand and turned up her face toward me; in the photograph, she is just about to speak, and my smile is starting to curl. I don’t remember what she said, but I’m quite sure that we paid for it, later.

***

I arrived at the prison in the midafternoon. On the drive I had been listening to an old playlist made by JP, Have a Great Day, and without the music and the engine, the car was abruptly quiet. I opened the door. Traffic was building on the motorway, the noise of it like the ocean.

Create a free account!

Sign up to see book details, our quick takes, and more.

By pressing "Sign up", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Debut authors
Good People
Annie Knows Everything
Silver Elite
Vladimir
The Exes
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Names
Love & Other Disasters
Count My Lies
Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
Weyward
The Love Hypothesis
Shark Heart
Lunar Love
This Story Might Save Your Life
Lessons in Chemistry
The Sun Was Electric Light
Red, White & Royal Blue
Dirty Diana
Alive Day
Liquid
Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
More
Honey
Flat Earth
Most Eligible
Crying in H Mart
Passion Project
Black Cake
Penitence
The Road of Bones
Spitting Gold
The Maid
The House of My Mother
Among Friends
Dinner for Vampires
You Between the Lines
A Thousand Times Before
Ariadne
Aftertaste
The Days I Loved You Most
The Wives
Here After
The Wishing Game
Did I Ever Tell You?
Middletide
The Teller of Small Fortunes
Northwoods
A Flicker in the Dark
A Short Walk Through a Wide World
The Storm We Made
Neighbors and Other Stories
Finding Grace
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Maame
Thistlefoot
The Other Black Girl
Age of Vice
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
One Day in December
Paper Names
We Are the Brennans
The Last Russian Doll
Olga Dies Dreaming
Somebody's Daughter
Beautiful Country
Dearest
Kaikeyi
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
Sign Here
The Stranger Upstairs
Damnation Spring
The Verifiers
A Little Hope
In Every Mirror She's Black
Taste Makers
Fiona and Jane
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Camp Zero
The Last Story of Mina Lee
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
My Body
Honey Girl
Big Friendship
Black Buck
White Ivy
White Horse
Peach Blossom Spring
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
The Animators
Marlena
Sharp Objects
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
Small Country
Golden Child
Small Fry
Too Much Is Not Enough
All That You Leave Behind
To the Moon and Back
Leaving the Witness
All of Us with Wings
Frankly in Love
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
Trick Mirror
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
A Burning
The Boy in the Red Dress
Fleishman Is in Trouble
The Beauty in Breaking
The Comeback
The Prophets
Girl A
What Comes After
Things We Lost to the Water
The Family
The Keeper of Night
Win Me Something
Four Weekends and a Funeral
The Compound
The Man No One Believed
All the Tomorrows After
The Second Chance Cinema
How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates
Porcupines
Nymph
The Shrouded Queen
Hopeless Necromantic
Games: A Love Story
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
The Great Wherever
Debut authors
View all
Good People
Annie Knows Everything
Silver Elite
Vladimir
The Exes
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Names
Love & Other Disasters
Count My Lies
Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
Weyward
The Love Hypothesis
Shark Heart
Lunar Love
This Story Might Save Your Life
Lessons in Chemistry
The Sun Was Electric Light
Red, White & Royal Blue
Dirty Diana
Alive Day
Liquid
Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
More
Honey
Flat Earth
Most Eligible
Crying in H Mart
Passion Project
Black Cake
Penitence
The Road of Bones
Spitting Gold
The Maid
The House of My Mother
Among Friends
Dinner for Vampires
You Between the Lines
A Thousand Times Before
Ariadne
Aftertaste
The Days I Loved You Most
The Wives
Here After
The Wishing Game
Did I Ever Tell You?
Middletide
The Teller of Small Fortunes
Northwoods
A Flicker in the Dark
A Short Walk Through a Wide World
The Storm We Made
Neighbors and Other Stories
Finding Grace
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Maame
Thistlefoot
The Other Black Girl
Age of Vice
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
One Day in December
Paper Names
We Are the Brennans
The Last Russian Doll
Olga Dies Dreaming
Somebody's Daughter
Beautiful Country
Dearest
Kaikeyi
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
Sign Here
The Stranger Upstairs
Damnation Spring
The Verifiers
A Little Hope
In Every Mirror She's Black
Taste Makers
Fiona and Jane
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Camp Zero
The Last Story of Mina Lee
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
My Body
Honey Girl
Big Friendship
Black Buck
White Ivy
White Horse
Peach Blossom Spring
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
The Animators
Marlena
Sharp Objects
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
Small Country
Golden Child
Small Fry
Too Much Is Not Enough
All That You Leave Behind
To the Moon and Back
Leaving the Witness
All of Us with Wings
Frankly in Love
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
Trick Mirror
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
A Burning
The Boy in the Red Dress
Fleishman Is in Trouble
The Beauty in Breaking
The Comeback
The Prophets
Girl A
What Comes After
Things We Lost to the Water
The Family
The Keeper of Night
Win Me Something
Four Weekends and a Funeral
The Compound
The Man No One Believed
All the Tomorrows After
The Second Chance Cinema
How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates
Porcupines
Nymph
The Shrouded Queen
Hopeless Necromantic
Games: A Love Story
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
The Great Wherever