Baby Doll - Hollie Overton

07:34 Unknown 0 Comments

A dead bolt has a very specific sound. Lily was an expert at recognizing certain sounds - like the creak of the floorboards signalling his arrival, the mice scurrying across the concrete in search of food. But Lily always braced herself for the sound of the dead bolt, listening as metal scraped against metal. The lock was beginning to rust, so it always took him several tries. But inevitably, she would hear the click, the sound that meant they were trapped for another week, another month, another year. But tonight she heard nothing. Only deafening silence. Hours passed, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the lock. 




I came across this book on NetGalley, as I often do, and the premise of it attracted me immediately. I don’t know whether this is to do with my love for fiction about families or the psychological thriller tales of girls held captive and escaping but this story really intrigued me. I read this book in about 4 hours which just shows you how exciting a read it was, which is always great from debut authors like Hollie Overton. However this is not a story for the faint of heart. 

Lily Riser is a young woman who was abducted at the age of 16 by her high school english teacher. Eight years later he leaves the door unlocked which gives Lily the chance to escape with her six year old daughter, Sky. The story follows her return to her family home, reuniting with her mum, ex boyfriend and her twin sister, all of whom have changed in the time she’s been gone. Throughout we see how they try to rekindle and redevelop their relationships, whilst also going through the judicial process. 

What I really enjoyed about this book was the different character perspectives. Whilst still written in third person, every character chapter had a different voice which really bought them all to life for me, rather than being one dimensional characters. For example Abby, Lily’s twin sister, is an understandably angry character. Her story is really developed throughout and we discover what Lily’s abduction meant for her long term, and I think that her perspective gave a nice depth to the story. 

Additionally, having her abductor’s side put in as well really made the story a whole lot different. In other stories I guess we are only ever confronted with a story from the side of the victim. We only ever know their side rather than the motives of the abuser. What Overton has done so well here is create a character that I hated but also I knew that he thought he was doing the right thing. He talks in such a way about his wife that you know he must care somewhat, yet he’s married to her as a cover because married men are more trusted. 

I feel like some of the details were missing however. I feel that perhaps there would’ve been something in having a prologue with Rick interacting with Lily before he left. Throughout there is mention of how he acts with her, his abuse and such, yet not with their daughter Sky, and there is mention of how they both made attempts to make sure that Sky didn’t see what was going on. I would’ve maybe liked to have seen this so that I could really feel for Lily and have much more longing for her to break free from him. This is really sensitive material but I feel that, even if not in the form of a prologue but as some kind of development throughout, the detail would’ve made me hate him more and long for the characters to succeed. This would ultimately make me enjoy the ending a little more I feel. 

There are many twists and turns throughout this novel, people’s actions and things they say taking the story from one point of bad to another. There were many times in reading where I had to put the book down and just let out a huge sigh of “why?” at which point my boyfriend would simply turn to me and ask “has it gotten worse?” because yes. Yes it had. Even when you think it couldn’t. 

It had everything I think I could want in a well structured novel. A fast opening, quick turns and changes to turn me off course, different points of view to keep me engaged and overall a satisfying ending. 


Total pages - 288
Total read time -  4 hours
Rating /10 - 7

Recommend - Maybe

Baby Doll is released on June 30th! Preorder here

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RE: Shakespeare's plots are terrible by Anne Tyler

08:10 Unknown 1 Comments

Oh there are so many feelings right now towards this woman’s article. I came across it this morning on the wonderful Will Sutcliffe’s twitter and I just couldn’t not read it. And I have some things to say. And yes I’m going to go through and pick her article to pieces. Bit by bit. Because that’s how much it got to me. 
Anne Tyler - Author of Vinegar Girl 

The Taming of the Shrew is an outlandish story. So I filled in a few details and toned down the exaggerations. 

Okay, so for those of you who don’t know Shakespeare plays were often put on in playhouses where it was okay for the audience to be loud, eat and drink throughout, unlike in today’s theatres. Therefore the stories had to be outlandish and extravagant to capture the attention. Additionally, if they were plays about every day people then the audience would be less inclined to return to the playhouse to see another play. However what really makes me laugh is that, although she thinks that the plots are awful, she’s still used it as the basis for her new novel. 

“Well at least I wouldn’t have to come up with one of my own"

This is a direct quote from Anne Tyler herself about why she’d choose to use Shakespeare’s plot as a base. As an aspiring author myself this makes me so infuriated. I spend a lot of time, as do other authors, searching for inspiration and writing down ways that we can be different to others. The fact that she believes that she shouldn’t even attempt to find a new idea makes me despair. 

“I have to admit that I’ve been slow in coming to a true appreciation of Shakespeare. My first “Shakespeare moment” didn’t occur till I was in college… really it was someone else’s Shakespeare moment, but still, it made me realise that Shakespeare could still have relevance”

Okay so here Anne Tyler is talking about how a friend of hers read Shakespeare to feel less alone and comforted, and yet she hasn’t yet herself talked about how she’s developed an appreciation of Shakespeare’s works before beginning to unpick what he has created and create her new work. I feel that perhaps she’s just decided that she doesn’t like Shakespeare and thinks that perhaps she could do better.

It’s almost upsetting that she hasn’t actually realised that Shakespeare is relevant in all ways. We use his language every day. We quote him regularly without recognition. Yet all she can seem to do is say that his stories are “outlandish” although this was what they had to be for the time. Theatre has changed dramatically throughout the centuries to become what it is more commonly known to us. It used to be loud and full of life not just on stage but in the audience. Men used to play women’s roles. I think that to say that his plots are terrible is to forget what their context was and read them with a modern eye, which these plays were never meant for. 

And yes there are modern adaptations, some which are incredibly well done if I may say so, but yet they still remain true to their original story because that is what people expect from Shakespeare. We have always been trying to play around with Shakespeare’s work to make them more accessible but I’ve never felt that “another side” has been necessary. 

I just think that this article is too short for Anne Tyler to really give a balanced argument about her choice of wording. Additionally, I don’t think she’s opened up enough about her relationship with Shakespeare’s work and I definitely think that her writing style is filled with a self-appointed importance that is unnecessary but unfortunately unsurprising for an article in the guardian. 

If you want to, read the full article here

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