Book Review: The Doll's House

Title: The Doll's House
Author: Neil Gaiman
Published: 1995 Pages: 227
Genre: Graphic Novel, Horror
Rating: 5/5

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The Doll's House is the second in Gaiman's Sandman series, after Preludes and Nocturnes, and I must say I am now hooked. I did enjoy the first novel, but I didn't feel that burning need to read the second - the true mark that I am not totally in love with a series. The Doll's House, on the other hand, I was sad to finish, and I'm already planning on heading to Barnes and Noble to pick up the next two graphic novels in the series...probably today.
Many times when I read something I deem creepy, it's in a sporadic, silly, or disgusting way, but not this novel. Gaiman sets a creepy tone and maintains it throughout the entire story. The pictures accompanying the text - this is afterall a graphic novel - do nothing the diminish this tone. I never found myself smiling at a ridiculous image. When I did smile, for there is humor, it was not a this-is-funny type of grin; it was more an amused but horrified grimace.
The plot involves interweaving stories which simultaneously focus on Dream, one of the Endless and if I'm not mistaken, the main character in the series, and Rose Walker, the focus of this book in the series. Rose, unknowingly and mistakenly, is a dream vortex. The Doll's House is her story. And yet, it is a continuation of Dream's story begun in Preludes and Nocturnes. I find myself wanting to say so much more and yet any type of plot summary, in my mind, is a spoiler. I don't even read the backs of novels before reading the story itself. Suffice it to say, the plot is complex, surreal, and most importantly, interesting.