Scan barcode
A review by angie_stl
Baby Doll by Hollie Overton
3.0
I was given a copy of this book by netgalley for an honest review.
Baby Doll opens with Lily escaping from the man that kidnapped her eight years before, when she was 16, and has held her captive in a basement along with her 6 year old daughter, Sky. The story continues on from there, telling how Lily, her mom Eve, her twin sister Abby and the man who held her captive Rick, spend the next few months adjusting to their new "normal". The book flips between the point of view of these four people through until the end, which can get a little confusing, but is helped by each chapter being titled with the narrator's name.
The story begins with Lily and Sky's escape from the basement Lily has spent the last eight years in, and Sky has lived her whole life in, but quickly progresses to Lily getting them to the house she grew up in, where her mom still lives. From that point, they get the police involved and Lily takes the sheriff to Rick. Even though this is still very early in the book, I don't want to spoil any of the surprises by saying how Rick and Lily knew each other before the abduction, or how things began to unfold from there. To me, who Rick was to Lily before he kidnapped her was probably the biggest surprise in the book. There were a couple others that followed somewhat closely on the shock scale, but Rick was the biggest shock of the book.
That being said, this book is marked as being in the mystery and thriller genres, but most of it seemed somewhat standard to me. I do read a lot of mysteries, so maybe that made it seem like the normal way things unfold in the genre, but most people that are going to grab a book because it's supposed to be a shocking thriller from beginning to end, are going to be avid mystery/thriller fans. I will say I was somewhat captivated by the book, but I think it was because I was waiting for more shocking events to take place or be revealed about Lily's time in the basement. That didn't really happen too much.
The timeline was a little hard to understand as well. You'd start a new chapter and a couple sentences in it would say "this had become the routine for the last few months" or weeks, or it would say it's been this long since Lily escaped the basement, but the chapter before that would have been 2 or 3 months before that. I'm sure it would have been tedious to have every detail of Lily and Sky adjusting to the world outside the basement, but sometimes important events were sort of mentioned rather than going into details, like when Lily starts seeing a therapist and how that progresses from the beginning.
I would recommend this to fans of crime novels, with the warning that the mystery isn't all that mysterious. I would also warn anyone with abuse triggers, physical or psychological, to be wary. Lily was held for eight years and "trained" for most of that time to become Rick's perfect "Baby Doll". That included punishment when she didn't act as he deemed appropriate, and so very much sexual abuse, though thankfully there was little to no details given for that. If you can get past those two warnings, then this may be the book for you. I hate to say that something of such a serious topic is entertaining, but it definitely held my attention and I loved the interactions between the twins. That, by itself, made it worth my time, the rest was just added bonus.
Baby Doll opens with Lily escaping from the man that kidnapped her eight years before, when she was 16, and has held her captive in a basement along with her 6 year old daughter, Sky. The story continues on from there, telling how Lily, her mom Eve, her twin sister Abby and the man who held her captive Rick, spend the next few months adjusting to their new "normal". The book flips between the point of view of these four people through until the end, which can get a little confusing, but is helped by each chapter being titled with the narrator's name.
The story begins with Lily and Sky's escape from the basement Lily has spent the last eight years in, and Sky has lived her whole life in, but quickly progresses to Lily getting them to the house she grew up in, where her mom still lives. From that point, they get the police involved and Lily takes the sheriff to Rick. Even though this is still very early in the book, I don't want to spoil any of the surprises by saying how Rick and Lily knew each other before the abduction, or how things began to unfold from there. To me, who Rick was to Lily before he kidnapped her was probably the biggest surprise in the book. There were a couple others that followed somewhat closely on the shock scale, but Rick was the biggest shock of the book.
That being said, this book is marked as being in the mystery and thriller genres, but most of it seemed somewhat standard to me. I do read a lot of mysteries, so maybe that made it seem like the normal way things unfold in the genre, but most people that are going to grab a book because it's supposed to be a shocking thriller from beginning to end, are going to be avid mystery/thriller fans. I will say I was somewhat captivated by the book, but I think it was because I was waiting for more shocking events to take place or be revealed about Lily's time in the basement. That didn't really happen too much.
The timeline was a little hard to understand as well. You'd start a new chapter and a couple sentences in it would say "this had become the routine for the last few months" or weeks, or it would say it's been this long since Lily escaped the basement, but the chapter before that would have been 2 or 3 months before that. I'm sure it would have been tedious to have every detail of Lily and Sky adjusting to the world outside the basement, but sometimes important events were sort of mentioned rather than going into details, like when Lily starts seeing a therapist and how that progresses from the beginning.
I would recommend this to fans of crime novels, with the warning that the mystery isn't all that mysterious. I would also warn anyone with abuse triggers, physical or psychological, to be wary. Lily was held for eight years and "trained" for most of that time to become Rick's perfect "Baby Doll". That included punishment when she didn't act as he deemed appropriate, and so very much sexual abuse, though thankfully there was little to no details given for that. If you can get past those two warnings, then this may be the book for you. I hate to say that something of such a serious topic is entertaining, but it definitely held my attention and I loved the interactions between the twins. That, by itself, made it worth my time, the rest was just added bonus.