Trigger by N Griffin | Book Review

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The Queen’s Gambit meets The Hunger Games in this harrowing young adult thriller about a teen girl whose abusive father teaches her the finer points of chess and hunting for his own sinister ends.

Didi tries her best to be a good girl, but it’s hard to keep track of her father’s rules. When she wins a chess tournament, he’s angry she didn’t win with a better move and makes her run laps around the house. When she runs laps the next day, she has to keep running until she’s faster than the day before. When she’s skilled enough to outshoot him with both a gun and bow and arrow, he grows furious when she won’t then shoot a baby rabbit who crosses their path. And Didi can’t do anything to escape being threatened with the Hurt Stick when she misbehaves.

He’s all she has, he reminds her. They have to be prepared. They have to be prepared to fight the rest of the world, when the world comes to an end. He’s grooming her, to keep her safe. He loves Didi. He does—he says so! And so Didi runs harder; annihilates her opponents in chess; takes down a deer at a dead run. He’s grooming her, after all, to be the best…he says so.

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.

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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