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A review by frantasticmissfox
Doll Face by Tim Curran
3.0
Actual rating 3.5.
For the most part, I absolutely loved this book. The imagination that went into it was incredible, I loved the atmosphere, it was scary, it was creepy, and it was a hell of a lot of fun to read. However, there were a few things that I wasn't so keen on which is why my rating is at 3.5 instead of the 4 I probably would've given it.
I loved Soo-Lee and I really liked Lex but they were the only ones. Only liking two of the characters isn't really a problem but, as the story was split into the 6 points of view, when the story was focused on one of the other characters I found myself not really caring about what happened to them. Danielle wasn't in it long enough for me to know what my opinion on her was, although from the way other characters spoke about her it seemed like we were supposed to dislike her because she was a ditzy blonde but that actually made me find her quite endearing. She got killed off fairly quickly though and then we were left with the other five. Creep was one of the most hateable characters I've read about in a long time. I think we were supposed to hate him but because of how annoying and horrible he was it made it even more frustrating that he lasted as long as he did. Chazz could've been a much better character. If the backstory with his stepmother had been explored and developed more then he would've been an interesting character. As it was, he spent most of the book being a boring stereotype of the 'bully jock' with nothing else going for him and his backstory seemed like it was just thrown in at random to try and make him somewhat redeemable. Now onto Ramona, Ah Ramona! The girl that we were so blatantly supposed to root for, the one that was clearly the 'final girl', the one that was practically pushed into our faces with a sign over her head saying 'like me!'. It was way too forced and it was just too much. I didn't find her very likable anyway which, I guess, made it harder for me to understand why she was the one we were supposed to be rooting for but even so it was like she was being forced down our throats like 'YOU WILL LIKE ME'. No wonder Mother Crow felt threatened by her!
The plot itself moved along well for a good portion of the book and then, like a lot of others have already pointed out, in the middle it just lost its flow. Now, that's not to say that there weren't still some excellent scenes and scares during the middle of the book however some of the scenes just felt unnecessary and like a way to just drag out the story longer. I really didn't like how a few of the POV chapters would end with the character in immediate danger with no obvious means of escape and then their next POV chapter would start with them having gotten away somehow. It took me out of the story a bit and annoyed me that we didn't see how they managed to get out of the situation. I understand that the world of Stokes itself doesn't make sense and sometimes the environment would change around the characters in the blink of an eye but sometimes it just felt like a really convenient plot device to get the characters out of the danger so that they wouldn't have to be killed earlier in the story.
Overall, I did really enjoy this book though (although it might not seem like it from my little rant) there were just a few things that I didn't like so much which earned it a slightly lower rating from me. The story was a lot of fun to read and was definitely very entertaining. There were some scenes I absolutely loved, particularly the diner scene with Lex and Soo-Lee and some scenes that truly horrified me, in particular Soo-Lee's rape and I'm very glad I read this book.
For the most part, I absolutely loved this book. The imagination that went into it was incredible, I loved the atmosphere, it was scary, it was creepy, and it was a hell of a lot of fun to read. However, there were a few things that I wasn't so keen on which is why my rating is at 3.5 instead of the 4 I probably would've given it.
The plot itself moved along well for a good portion of the book and then, like a lot of others have already pointed out, in the middle it just lost its flow. Now, that's not to say that there weren't still some excellent scenes and scares during the middle of the book however some of the scenes just felt unnecessary and like a way to just drag out the story longer. I really didn't like how a few of the POV chapters would end with the character in immediate danger with no obvious means of escape and then their next POV chapter would start with them having gotten away somehow. It took me out of the story a bit and annoyed me that we didn't see how they managed to get out of the situation. I understand that the world of Stokes itself doesn't make sense and sometimes the environment would change around the characters in the blink of an eye but sometimes it just felt like a really convenient plot device to get the characters out of the danger so that they wouldn't have to be killed earlier in the story.
Overall, I did really enjoy this book though (although it might not seem like it from my little rant) there were just a few things that I didn't like so much which earned it a slightly lower rating from me. The story was a lot of fun to read and was definitely very entertaining. There were some scenes I absolutely loved, particularly