She’s a Doll by Barbara Truelove

TL;DR: A fun ‘good for her’ style haunting.
Source: NetGalley, so many thanks to the publisher!

Plot: Lucy didn’t plan on getting killed, but when she is, she definitely wants to plan revenge.
Characters: A very interesting cast, I loved Nicola and her more thoughtful foil to Lucy.
Setting: This one had a decent setting but it wasn’t crucial to the plot, so passable and visual but not outstanding.
Horror: This is a tricky one. She’s a haunted doll but the story isn’t particularly spooky.

Summary:

Lucy isn’t a normal girl. Ghost. Victim. Killer. She’s a doll on a mission—to find the man who killed her and return the favor.

Lucy McQuinn has been murdered, but she’s not about to go quietly.

If she doesn’t get to keep breathing, then neither does Kyle, her killer. Possessing the body of an antique doll, she sets out on a quest for revenge. But it’s hard when you’re eighteen inches tall and made of porcelain.

For help, she turns to Nicola, a human and fellow outsider with her own reasons to hate Kyle. But in their small idyllic town, no one wants to hear the truth, especially not about such a promising young man. If they can’t expose his crimes, Lucy will have to roll up her lacy little sleeves and teach him a lesson the old-fashioned way—as slowly and painfully as possible.

Thoughts:

The horror of this book is the violence that’s left unchecked by a man, till women (including one that lost her life to him) come along and change that. That being said, this is about a haunted doll. So depending on how much you hate dolls, this could be even worse. For someone like me who loves hauntings, even dolls, this was great.

Early on in the novel we see Lucy’s death, it’s hard to read and doesn’t shy away from the brutality of it. From there we watch her struggle with being trapped in this new body, which is not meant to be a real body, and her mental state. Obviously she is traumatized. There can definitely be something said here about how this shows and reflects a mind struggling with fresh trauma. Eventually we see her and others, find catharsis in some degree.

But the story for me was mainly about the violence one person can be allowed to perform. How so often these people (in this case a man) are just excused away, never considered even though the evidence shows a clear trail. And the trauma and struggle it leaves behinds in it’s victims. It’s a fun book, a quick read. But it definitely has things to say and when you sit with it, it is horrific but not in the way you expect.

If you want a quick horror book you can read and put down this is it. I ask you though, please sit on the ideas and message here. It would be easy to ignore, but it’s well worth examining.