Title: Doe
Author: Rebecca Barrow
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 368
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Copy: ARC from publisher
Availability: Available Now
Summary: Maris Larsen is the captain of the West Eaton High cheer team. She’s Coach’s favorite and the team worships her. Being on the team makes her feel special—powerful. When she’s leading the girls on the mat, Maris doesn’t have to think about her dead-end life in a dead-end town. She can forget about her depressed mother and absent father and the fact that her girlfriend doesn’t really love her. But when newcomer and Coach’s new golden girl, Genevieve Ray, joins the team, the only thing going right in Maris’s life is suddenly in jeopardy. A bitter rivalry develops between the two, but Maris is determined to take Genevieve down. The knife she needs to wield comes to Maris in her dreams.
While sleepwalking, Maris is visited by a monstrous, decaying beast in the shape of an enormous deer. Doe is an ancient, tired creature who has been wandering, trapped in her current form for decades. She cannot die, but she cannot go on living as she has. Only a girl related by blood to those who bound her in this form can free her, but those girls she loved died years ago—murdered in a fire.
But Maris is somehow linked to Doe’s beloved girls—linked by blood—and so she has the power to free Doe, to unleash her immense power. In Maris’s dreams, she and Doe form a bond, but Maris doesn’t know the creature from her dreams is real. Maris doesn’t understand the danger she’s in. She only knows Doe has promised her a way to win her battle with Genevieve. But for Maris to win, someone has to die, and the only real winner in the end will be Doe.
Review: The premise of this novel is such a unique horror story but what made the novel even more interesting was that it was told in verse. And I have to say that the use of verse is what truly drew me into the story. One would think using verse would take away from the horror, but it actually changes it, makes it more stylistic rather than just straight scary horror. There were moments that were disturbing but they weren’t scary or disgusting, but rather heartbreaking – the type of horror that humans inflict on each other that is very real.
The story is told in mainly 4 POV’s, Maris, Doe, Genevieve and “Team”, which was my favorite. The “Team” POV was essentially the young girls from the cheerleading team that did include Maris from time to time. The way the team’s perspective was written as if they were a hive mind, a collective, and gave a unique view to the events in the novel. They almost felt like a Greek chorus as they observed, participated, and commented on their roles in the town, on the team, and within the tension between Maris and Genevieve. I feel like they also serve as representation of Doe’s set of girls who bound her to the Earth and whom she misses. There is a similarity to Doe’s set and the team in that they are girls bound to each other and often move as one. There is love among both sets of girls and when one of their own gets hurt, they will fight for each other. Both sets of girls are “invisible” and seen as outcasts in their town, but together they are strong and that is how they all survive.
One would think that Doe is the antagonist in this novel, but it really is society and how its treats it’s girls. How society expects certain behaviors from girls and how it reacts when girls choose not to conform. How society punishes and how this creates a feminine rage that is often not enacted upon. In Doe, however, this rage is enacted upon in ways that are both horrifying and satisfying.
Lastly, you know I love plot twists and this one had a good one that I didn’t see coming which left me with a sense of heaviness at the end, but when looking back, it fits with the “feel” of this novel. I’m not saying this novel is sad, nor is it happy (it is after all a thriller/horror novel) but more melancholy and the novel keeps that feeling until the very last page. This is very unusual in a YA novel and I loved this novel for that exact reason. Barrow decided to break some convention rules with Doe and did it beautifully.