Ghost Girl - Torey Hayden

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Title: Ghost Girl
Author: Torey Hayden
Genre: Non-fiction, memoir
Rating: 7/10
# pages: 266 pages
Date read: January, 2009

Summary: Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled world - until one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told her - a story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge. Yet a little girl was living in a nightmare, and Torey Hayden responded in the only way she knew how - with courage, compassion, and dedication - demonstrating once again the tremendous power of love and the relilience of the human spirit.

Review: I read this book in translation, which was a mistake as the translator did not do a good job. The language didn't flow properly, idioms had been directly translated and she used formal language where casual talk would have suited better. A shame, but thankfully I could see it for what it was (i.e. the fault of the translator rather than the author) and ignored it as much as possible.

Like "Beautiful Child" the story of Jadie is a haunting tale, but I wasn't quite as mesmerized by it, as I wasn't quite as certain that the conclusions Torey came to were the correct ones. The advantage of reading a non-fiction is that we get a follow-up in the epilogue... the disadvantage of reading a non-fiction is that if there is no conclusion to the story, the author can't just make one up. That was the case here, and was slightly disconcerting.

Had this been the first book I read by Torey Hayden, I wouldn't be quite as keen to read more of her work, but as it is I'm still willing to give her another chance.

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