Monday, February 21, 2011

Book Review: The Dollhouse Murders

This is a sad place, she thought, as she had before. The sadness was not just upstairs in the dollhouse; it was all around her.

I am a huge sucker for Haunted House stories, from the Haunting at Hill House, to The Shining, and my personal Favourites Hell House and Burnt Offerings, there is just something about a creepy old house that really gets to me.

The story follows a twelve year old girl named Amy Treloar, who after having a fight with her mother moves in to her aunt’s old house for a week to help with the clearing and cleaning so the house can be sold. The house is big, filled with old furniture (no one has lived there for years) and in the attic Amy finds a dollhouse, one that matches the actual house down to every detail.

As with any haunted house story, the old place has a dark history, one involving murder, and very slowly the dollhouse seems to be re-enacting what happened...

Considering that this is a young adult novel written in 1983 for Scholastic books (you know, the ones that you could order from your class room in Elementary school), I was pretty darn impressed with the books atmosphere and its building tension throughout. Although it was a pretty fast read (I read it on my communte and during my lunch hour on Friday), I found it to be a pretty cool horror story for younger girls.

1 comment: