Crack open any Lindy Ryan novel (there are three now), and you’ll immediately understand why she’s risen to become one of the most popular voices in contemporary horror.
There’s a cozy element to it, not at the expense of scares, but in service to putting you in the shoes of her characters and their unusual, frightening situations. She packs her paragraphs with wit, gives her characters emotional heft, and layers in loads of detail in a style that feels more like a friend telling you a story than an artist proclaiming on high. There is an instant bond in her words, and Dollface reassures us all that it’s not going away any time soon.
A slasher billed as a combination of Barbie and Scream, Dollface borrows at least a little from Ryan’s own life as a breakthrough genre author. Her protagonist and narrator is Jill, a horror author whose debut novel put her in the enviable position of writing full-time. When her Coast Guard-serving husband packs up and moves the family to suburban New Jersey for his latest posting, Jill is left mired in the chaos of moving while trying to dredge up some kind of usable idea for her sophomore novel, caring for her son Tanner, and dealing with the largest geographic separation ever from her little sister, Kitty. A shared childhood tragedy formed an especially strong bond between the two sisters, and while they still talk every day, the distance is hard.
All of this means that Jill is really not in the mood to get roped into the local group of PTA moms, but when a new neighbor comes calling, that’s exactly what happens. Suddenly, Jill’s world is ice cream socials and cosmetic sample parties as much as it is Halloween mugs and Killer Klowns from Outer Space t-shirts. It’s a rough adjustment, and it gets worse when a mysterious killer starts picking off women connected to the PTA one by one.
Putting a horror writer in the middle of a horror story certainly isn’t new territory, but Ryan quickly and deftly makes it her own. Jill’s voice emerges fully formed, and while it would be easy for her to be a one-dimensional creative hermit who simply does not care about the world around her, there’s much more brewing beneath the surface. Jill’s traumatic childhood has made things like makeup and particularly garish fashions and hairstyles into something she avoids, and when confronted with suburban moms who relish such things, it’s no longer avoidable. Her past resurfaces, slowly but surely, even as her free-spirited, influencer sister keeps reaching out, and her dutiful husband does his best to make her life easier. Everything from an eyeshadow palette to a bag from a local coffee shop takes on fresh meaning, and we get to follow Jill as she first begins to shape her next book, then begins to shape the slasher tale happening before her eyes.
The slasher story itself, when it starts unfolding, is also beautifully paced, and gives Ryan a chance to flex a different narrative muscle as she places us in the world of the killer for select chapters, a “slasher cam” first-person view that preserves the whodunit aspect of the story while laying out some very memorable kills. That her slasher’s overall look, dominated by a doll mask, ties even deeper into Jill’s emotional narrative is the icing on this hot pink cake with bright-red, bloody filling. It adds a sense of narrative synergy that, as the pages keep turning, reveals Ryan’s gift for taking the goodwill she builds through her characterization and turning it into genuine fear. We can be afraid for Jill because we feel like we know her. It’s not a new trick, but Ryan does it very well, and she does it in a singular, thoroughly entertaining voice.
Though some readers might find its reliance on horror trivia and meta storytelling somewhat trying, the core of Dollface remains its characters and the horrors they face, and that makes it a novel well worth any slasher fan’s time. This is a book perfect for new Lindy Ryan readers, as well as fans of Rachel Harrison and Grady Hendrix.
Lindy Ryan continues to build a reputation as one of the most unput-downable authors of the current horror generation, and readers who embrace Dollface‘s overall tone will be reading this one late into the night.
Dollface is available now wherever books are sold.
