The Girl Next Door

Had an interest in reading some pulp horror and saw that Ketchum is one of the more well regarded writers in the genre. This novel was based on a true crime in which a woman tortured a teenage girl who was in her care and encouraged the neighborhood children to take part. I don't think this was a story that was worth telling, at least not in novel form. There were some thought provoking themes, like the exploration of the ways in which objectification of women leads to dehumanization and violence, but ultimately this was too lurid for me and not close enough to the real life events for me to feel like i learned much about what actually happened. As far as pulp horror goes I preferred The Cellar which was about a bunch of weird sex monsters and was too stupid for me to take seriously. This was just disturbing and not worthwhile.