It’s bad enough being dead, but when Lucy McQuinn is murdered and wakes up in the body of antique doll, all she has on her mind is vengeance. She finds an unlikely ally in Nicola who has her own score to settle with Lucy’s
killer and through some strange twist of fate is the only one who can hear Lucy. Together they plot their revenge, facing the dismissiveness and denial of their small town in pursuit of retribution, because there are few things more dangerous than a promising young man.
Such an enjoyable take on a murdered spirit getting revenge after death, full of humor, heart, and female rage! I read Barbara Truelove’s debut Of Monsters and Mainframes at the end of last year and it was such a fun and unique story. I think She’s a Doll establishes her as a writer to keep an eye on because she’s already knocking it out of the park.
Balancing humor with dark themes is really challenging and something I’ve seen a lot of books struggle with. In this story, they feel like really natural compliments because Lucy and Nicola’s situation is both an absolutely horrifying and absolutely ridiculous situation to be in. On one hand, all the hijinks Lucy gets into as a doll like riding around in a remote control car and actively trying to freak people out at the thrift store is funny, but you also feel her intense frustration with the limitations of being a spirit possessing the body of a doll. Even if she doesn’t feel pain, it’s disturbing to see your arm popped off or to be stuck paralyzed in one place for weeks or months at a time.
Lucy’s murder and Nicola’s own traumatic experience both feel very present in the story but they aren’t completely defined by them as characters. If the story started out with Lucy being murdered, probably we wouldn’t get a great sense of her personality because it would be so overwhelmed by her narrative motivation for justice. As such, it’s really important to have the set up of the tea party and these bits of humanity throughout the book like Lucy’s humor and her reckoning with the fact that she’ll never really be able to resolve her feelings about her sexuality.
Lucy and Nicola have great banter, and the conflicts with the side characters feel realistically complicated. The pace is nice and snappy and the story doesn’t feel like it goes on too long (which was the one major issue I had with Monsters and Mainframes). It’s just a really good time all around. My only critiques are two moments in the book that seem to allude to something else going on but (as far as I can tell) they never get followed up on. One is right at the start of the book where the author warns the reader that Lucy is a liar, setting up the idea of her being an unreliable narrator. There are some points where Lucy lies or omits information to other characters, but I can’t think of any time she lies or misreports events in the narration, so I was kind of let down by that. The other moment is about 2/3rds of the way through the book while Lucy is recalling the last time she hung out with Krissy and there’s this kind of anomaly in the scene, as if Lucy is blocking something out. Both of these really had me expecting a twist down to the last page, and maybe I just missed something but I don’t think they went anywhere. For those who have read it, let me know what you think. Maybe there’s some subtext or alternate interpretation that went over my head.
In short, I’m officially a Barbara Truelove fan! Looking forward to The Secret Lives of Zombie Wives early next year!
Thank you to Barbara Truelove and Bindery Books for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!
Happy reading!
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