Wow!

So fast paced and moving. This kept me on my toes and had me hoping for the best outcome possible.

I can see the writing style not being for everyone, but I absolutely loved it! Kept the pace of the story moving quickly.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher. for offering this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Small town, USA is where Didi attends school but she lives with her father in a secluded area. He’s abusive and neglects to give Didi everything she needs. Didi is terrified and on edge always, even when she’s not around her father because she’s worried she’ll do something wrong and he’ll find out somehow. Her father makes her run laps around the property so she can become as quick as possible but she doesn’t know why he cares about that. He also forces her to learn and play chess and compete in tournaments and she has to be the best. Eventually Didi understands the reason her father has made her do these things but it might be too late for her to save herself.

Likes/dislikes:
The story is disturbing because of the neglect and abuse. The effects on the child’s physical and mental well-being are portrayed through the coping skills the main character develops over time to deal with her life; they were heartbreaking at times. The timeline jumps around and that was difficult to follow. The ending was the best part.
Language: R for 67 swears and 22 f-bombs.
Mature Content: R for physical abuse and severe neglect.
Violence: R for child abuse and hunting child with a gun.
Ethnicity: Didi has brown hair but other characters' ethnicities aren't described.

This was a little bit of a mind game for me. I was not in any way shape or form, prepared for just how evil Didi's father actually is. My heart broke for her as she grew older, because we, as the reader knew what her father was setting her up for and it heart. Wow did it hurt
The thing that is hard for me here is that even though I finished the book and thought it was a good book, I HATED the story itself. The story was twisted but a fast read. I of course, hated her father, (who wouldn't) but this book left me so conflicted!

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of Trigger by N. Griffin in exchange for an honest review. I really wanted to like this book. I've read the reviews and it sounded exactly like something I would enjoy, but it just felt very one dimensional to me and made for very slow reading.

Honestly, for this one, the cover drew me in. Overall, this was a strange book but it makes an lasting impression.

Didi is growing up with only her father. She doesn't remember her mother and isn't allowed to ask about her. Her father is very controlling and very demanding but this is all she knows. He "trains" her....to run as fast as she can, he wants her to be able to outrun anybody; he teaches her chess in elementary school so he'll have a worthy opponent and starts putting her in tournaments with the expectation she will win, or else. Her math skills are well above her grade level. She does all of this while also being responsible for all the housework. He teaches her how to hunt so she can start providing meat since he has to provide all her other food and clothes, room and board it's a way of paying him back. She's expected to only need one shot to down anything. She starts with a shotgun and also becomes proficient with a bow and arrow.

This is a short read but will stay in your thoughts well after you finish.

Brave and brilliant testament to survival against the odds, and thriving as revenge served cold and glorious. All about child abuse - major TW - but done in a way that is very well done.

First thing: The comps, they just don't fit for me. At all. So before you read this, and are let down because it is neither THG or (from what I can surmise) The Queen's Gambit, throw those right out the window. They don't apply. Then go into the book fresh, you'll be fine.

Second, this book focuses pretty heavily on abuse. Didi's life with her father has been no picnic, not by a long shot, and he is the absolute worst. So if child abuse, especially at the hands of a parent, is triggering for you, best pass on this one.

The story itself was very quick, focusing on Didi's life growing up with her father via flashbacks, up until the present time, when he is being extra awful, which is saying a lot considering how awful he's always been. And that... kind of sums it up? Obviously, I don't want to get too into the details of the plot, because this is a thriller. But also, that kind of is the whole plot? Like I said, this is very quick- I read it in a few hours- and since it is a thriller, it's obviously got a lot of fast-paced action.

Bottom Line: Minimal chess. Zero dystopian starving kid murder shows. A lot of action, and a lot of terrible "parenting". But overall, a quick and exciting read.

Trigger by N Griffin was pitched to me as a cross between The Queen’s Gambit and Educated. I just knew I had to pick this book up. Apparently this book was just what the doctor had ordered for my reading slump. I could not stop turning the pages and tore right through this book. Trigger is an excellent, emotional read. FYI, trigger warning for child abuse within the pages as well as child neglect.

Didi lives in a house in the woods with her father. She isn’t sure where her mother is. Her father expects her to attain perfection. He makes her run laps around the property with the expectation that she beat her personal records. Also, he makes her play chess and memorize different strategy books. This all starts when she is very young, before the age of five. As the book progresses we see that Didi has an adult social support in Lynne who lives by the bus stop with her young son Devin. Still, Didi’s life is very hard – her father’s love is conditional. When she does not meet his standards, he beats her with his rifle.

My heart just ached for Didi while reading Trigger. I read this from the perspective of someone who is a mother and it just hurt my heart how anyone could treat their child that way. Her father was definitely an evil man and I could not find any way to empathize for him at all. At one point I teared up at the realization that one of Didi’s coping skills was using her imagination to pretend she had an adult support living on the edge of her family’s property. N. Griffin had me in a grip while reading this. I could not shut off the mother and case management piece of my brain while reading. I think if you can handle the tough portions of this book, it is absolutely worth picking up.

I'm not really sure how to rate this. I think a lot depends on the target audience. As an adult reader, I needed a bit more substance. For YA readers, it might be a bit too much (and I'm not usually one to shy away from tough topics for younger readers). My own confusion about the target audience aside - which could very well be a "me" problem - this was an intriguing read.

Didi is being raised by an extremely abusive father. Just insert tons of CW here. We never find out for sure what happened to her mother. They say she left them, but the circumstances left me with more questions than answers. I would like to say that there is no way that his abuses would go unnoticed, but I live in this world and know better, unfortunately. We bounce around to different points in Didi's life and see that her father appears to be training her for something. He's mentally and physically abusive, liberal with the gaslighting, and downright dangerous.

Didi is brilliant, athletic, and kind, but is still an outcast at school because she has been carefully instructed to never talk more than necessary and wears ragged clothes, making friends an impossibility. Overall, this is worth the read if the trigger warnings won't bother you.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Didi's father has raised her to be perfect. The perfect hunter, perfect chess player, perfect academic. While his methods may be questionable, Didi can't deny that she excels in every lesson her father has taught her. She must, or suffer the consequences. When her father's challenges get increasingly more difficult, Didi will face the biggest obstacle of her life.

Trigger is like a modernized, more personal version of The Most Dangerous Game. The abusive undertones make it a bit darker than the older short story, but the action will certainly appeal to reluctant readers. The timeline and format are effective writing methods.

I did not like it. Actually l, I couldn’t even finish it. Too silly for my taste. Hmm.. I have to type 100 characters for the review to go through so this title can be archived…

I loved this book. Didi lives in a remote area with an abusive father. Didi doesn't know she is abused because she has no other frame of reference. She does know that it is in her best interest to keep her father happy, and right now she can make him happy by winning at chess. When a confrontation at work released the violence in her father, Didi uses the things her father taught her to save herself. I loved her strength and resourcefulness. Both teens and adults can appreciate this book.

This was a good, addicting, quick read. There was a lot of action. Something seemed to be happening all the time. I really enjoyed the way Griffin wrote the story and the subject was handled very well. It is a very delicate topic. That being said, there were several things I didn't like. There were a lot of loose ends that I felt should be wrapped up. Questions left unanswered at the end of various sections. I know part of it is the style of writing but some of it just made it confusing. It also made me wonder why no one from child services ever came to investigate. There were so many red flags with this family.

But, if you can look past these issues, it is a good story dealing with physical and emotional abuse. Just make sure the reader is aware of it before they pick it up.

Trigger was a compelling look into memory, trauma, abuse, hope, and resilience. Didi has been training her whole life to be the best - as long as her father can be better still. Hers is a harrowing story exploring power and what it means to be strong.

Violence: Moderate (child abuse)
Sex: None
Language: Moderate
Drugs: None

I had difficulty reading this book. The description was vague and made it seem very similar to the TV show Hanna which is why I was interested, but it ultimately just didn't compare. The plot didn't seem to be going anywhere, and no trigger warnings were provided despite some of the things it dealt with. Maybe others will enjoy it more?

This was an odd one. Didi and her father live alone on the outskirts of town where from a very early age he starts training her. For what exactly we never know, but he teaches her how to shoot, hunt, and play chess as a master. Throughout the book it feels like he's trying to prepare her for something big, like running from the FBI or bad guys or anything, but the only bad guy is Didi's father. He's abusive throughout the story until their relationship comes to a head.

I think the most disappointing thing about this book was the feeling that there should be something more. Like Didi should use her skills to accomplish something other than just getting by. The tag line for this novel is "The Queen's Gambit meets The Hunger Games" and with those two stories in mind you would think something big and exciting would happen. And then it doesn't. It's the same old same old: her dad berates her for something and so Didi becomes faster, stronger, smarter to get his approval. It feels like there should be a sequel or something, but as far as I know this is a standalone novel.

The only real good thing I can say about this is that the writing was fast paced and it was a very quick read. You could maybe recommend it to teens looking for a quick action story but that's about it.