Dollhouse by Anya Allyn

I was not too sure about this book when I started reading it, a disparate group of teens in the woods and something was bound to happen.  However, as I sunk in to the story I realised that this was not the straight-forward formulaic horror that it pretended it was going to be.  As soon as Ethan, Cassie and Aisha start chasing Lacey and find themselves in the old Fiveash house you know it is going to go badly wrong.

It is testament to the writing that I can still remember their names some 6 days after finishing the book - that is almost unheard for me.

The world they are plunged in to is like none you would dream exists and yet, it is all too real and there is no fantasy dimension here.  Nor are they plunged in to a hellscape.  Where they find themselves is in the oversized dollhouse of the title and it is chilling in there.  The descriptions are slight but telling and truly spark your imagination so that you start to live and breathe with them in the claustrophobic space.  So much so I was reading this book alongside another as I found it was overloading the synapses a little - not helped by my innate distaste for clowns and dolls.

Some sections feel a little repetitive in their action and on a couple of occassions I did become impatient for it to move on with the tale but these were relatively minor niggles when set against my enjoyment of the whole.  Definitely a leave the lights on kind of book though as it does cause your imagination to dwell in the dollhouse and you really do NOT want to be there.