Review: Usual Girl Abducted and Chained Up in a Cellar Read, But Made to Be Like a PG Horror/Thriller Movie
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 26, 2014
Doubles is your usual abducted cheerleader type, chained up in a basement with a torturer driven by a hate for his own mother torturing and assaulting her for his own sick reasons novel. However it reads like a movie that is deliberately leaving stuff up to its audience's imagination rather than having you experience those events through the victim's eyes so it can get a PG rating.  We've also got a quarterback strung up down in the basement who really seems to have no real purpose other than to communicate with Cameron in between her being dragged upstairs so we know what happened and provide some back story on how evil, the abductor has been so far to previous girls.Doubles is certainly no William Malmborg'sJimmy, or J.F. Gonzalez'sSurvivorand those type of books where you actually experience what the victim does and really live their fear as the torture happens to them through experiencing each scene along with them.  The other main problem with this one is that it is told as a flashback, so we know Cameron obviously survives and she also reminds us it is a flashback a few times.  Part of the thrill of better thrillers is not knowing if the person telling the story will survive, escape, whatever.  Simonson should have told this as a real time reading experience, especially for Cameron's point of view.  We still could have had read some of it through the abductor's eyes, other victims, twin sister and FBI agent too.  But flashback style doesn't work with this one, the only reason to use this style is if your going to graphically remember the scenes but since each scene just ends with something like being taken up stairs, then waking up later or being chained back up, there's no payoff for using that style.Cameron was an interesting and likeable character and one the reader will certainly root for to survive, which is what you need with this genre.  The villain was a bit underdeveloped and even though he keeps telling you he's really intelligent, it's obvious he's not.  The FBI agent was a bit too arrogant and constantly telling the reader he is better than your average person at observing things and other life aspects to enjoy reading through his eyes.