A few things before this one even gets started: this is a
book about an
abduction of a teenager. Said teenager is abused for eight
years before
making her escape. If your brain fills in all the horrific
things that must
have happened to her and you need to walk? Then walk now.
Baby
Doll, the debut novel from author Hollie Overton,
shies away from
nothing. Doesn't shy away from how sociopathic her captor
is, doesn't
shy away from the quasi-Stockholm Syndrome mental paths
Lilly (one of
our heroines) strays down, doesn't shy away from how the
whole thing
carpet-bombed her family, especially her twin sister Abby.
I barely breathed as I read this book in one indulgent
sitting. I ignored the
buzz of my tumble dryer, the insistence of my to-do list,
and any other
thoughts in my brain and I climbed inside this story and
walked around.
Immediately upon finishing, I grabbed my phone and texted
a fellow
bibliophile who loves thriller/suspense books with a
command: you must
read this. You simply must.
There are so many suspense books which are worth your time
this
summer, so let me tell you quickly why this one super is.
The connection
between the twins, the dance between the pain of their
pasts and the
hopes of their future; that's a dynamic I've never seen
explored.
Additionally, this book shifts focus between the
sociopath, the survivor,
the survivor's mother, and the survivor's twin. We're
in all their heads at
different points, understanding motivations that would
have otherwise
perhaps remained oblique had we not been given that
privilege.
There's a lot about pregnancy and childrearing and
reproductive choices
in this book. Lilly was repeatedly raped during her
captivity and escaped
with a 6-year-old daughter named Skye. While the book is
careful to let us
know that Skye never suffered first-hand abuse, there is
acknowledgment
of second-hand trauma and I appreciated how deftly that
was dealt with.
If you liked Room, then I think you should get BABY
DOLL
immediately. Just get a snack or something before you
start, because
once you read that first chapter, you're not coming back
up for air until it's
finished.
You've been held captive in one room, mentally and
physically abused every day, since you were sixteen years old.
Then, one night, you realize your captor has left the door
to your cell unlocked.
For the first time in eight years, you're free.
This is about what happens next ...
Lily knows that she must bring the man who nearly ruined her
life to justice. But she never imagined that reconnecting
with her family would be just as difficult. Reclaiming her
relationship with her twin sister, her mother, and her high
school sweetheart, who is in love with her sister, may be
Lily's greatest challenge. After all they've been through,
can Lily and her family find their way back after this
life-altering trauma?
Baby Doll is a taut psychological thriller
that focuses on family entanglements and the evil that can
hide behind a benign facade.
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