Tagline: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who’s the deadest one of all?
Back tagline: Don’t look now.
Summary: Dore’s pretty. She’s got a good-looking guy. Very understanding parents. And such a devoted best friends.
But she wants more.
So when her new friend Luci offers Dore a chance to have it all, Dore decides to take it.
Now Dore is a real beauty. And only Dore knows that beauty is also the beast.
First impressions: I just know I’m gonna hate Dore. will she be as bad as Martha? I bloody hope not but I’m going to mentally prepare just in case. I like stories about greedy hotties getting what’s coming to them, so even if Dore is horrible I hope book is still enjoyable. Also, Dore? What kind of a name is that? And speaking of names, D. E. Athkins? Deathkins??? Love it. Surely a pen name though.
The cover is a bit whatever, and some of those shards of glass look a bit too big for where they’ve supposedly come from. Oh well, let’s get into it!
Recap
Roll call:
Dore – Our greedy and super hot protagonist who we loathe.
Gwen – Best friend and boyfriend-stealer who we love.
Carol – Dore and Gwen’s other friend.
Stan – Dore’s boyfriend and the football team mascot.
Luci – A spontaneous redhead and Dore’s new friend.
Randy – A brief fling for Dore.
Mary – Head cheerleader and Dore’s enemy.
Corbin – Mary’s boyfriend who Dore wants.
[Before we begin, I just want to add a side note from future, long after I read this book: Even though it is soooooooooooooo obvious, my dumb ass never clicked that this is a reimagining of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ because I’m an idiot, so there won’t be any comparisons or references to it that lol]OK, so the book begins at a pep rally where Stan, the mascot for the Roosevelt Tigers, is in costume, using a fake head with fake blood to make the crowd. Up in the stands, his girlfriend and our protagonist, Dore, is barely even clapping with the rest of the crowd while her best friend, Gwen, is super into it [Dore is so fucking glum and pretentious, I hate her already. It’s gonna be a loooooong book]. Dore is surprised at Gwen, who’s usually so serious about everything. Then Dore briefly flashes back to when Stan was telling her about his idea of using the fake head and blood. It’s super cute how passionate he is about it but Dore is pretty uninterested. Bitch.
After the pep rally, Gwen drives Dore home and talks the whole time, but all Dore contributes to the conversation is “uh huh” every so often. At home, Dore heads upstairs and thinks about how beautiful she is and how she much prefers being above everyone while they cheer her on, rather than cheering others on at a pep rally [Omfg I hate her]. She’s used to being cheered on, because she’s soOoOoOo0o000Oo beautiful you see, and we get this gem:
Only it was her face that the crowd cheered. A face very much connected to a body – hers.
[Hahahaha what else would a face be connected to? Such a stupid line]. Anyway, Dore always wins beauty pageants and even her first memory involves being complimented. But while everyone else sees beauty, she focuses on her flaws, even though she knows how beautiful she is [Is it too late to stop reading? I think I’m gonna neck myself by the end of this book].
The second chapter begins with “Personally, Dore thought, I prefer funerals.” She’s at a fucking party, and she’d rather be mourning a death. [Can Dore die please? I bet you thought I was exaggerating when I said she was the gloomiest person ever. I’m calling it right now, she’s worse than Martha!].
Dore wonders what Gwen might be doing tonight and decides she’s probably eating a vegetarian pizza. OK. Then Dore thinks about how boring and overbearing Stan is as he mopes about only winning the football game by a fault. The girl hates her boyfriend, that’s for damn sure. Mary, the head cheerleader, walks past and Dore thinks about how Mary is cute, but not beautiful [Stfu, Dore]. Mary is always laughing and partying with her friends, and has the best-looking guy in school, Corbin, but she’ll never be beautiful, according to Dore [Sounds like Mary has a lot more to offer than her looks, unlike Dore].
The next day, at the mall, Dore asks Gwen what she’d want if she could have anything in the world. Gwen chooses world peace, because she’s a much better character than Dore and I don’t know how these two are even friends. Dore isn’t sure what she wants or who she wants to be because she feels like something is missing from her life. She feels like all the action happens elsewhere, and she doesn’t know who she is, she’s just a reflection of her parents and what they’ve brought her up to be [I almost feel sorry for Dore because she’s only ever been told she’s beautiful and it seems like that’s all her mother cares about, but then I remember Dore’s personality centres entirely around her looks and her upbringing is not an excuse for her shitty outlook on life].
The girls head to the ice skating rink and sip some Cokes, (Diet Coke for Dore, naturally) and admire a beautiful red-haired stranger skating around. The redhead stops suddenly and stares straight at Dore, who leaves because it’s so unsettling.
The next day at school, Stan calls her beautiful and she gets mad at him [???????] because she’s now discontent with being beautiful, I guess? Fuck right off, Dore. That night, as Dore exercise in her mirror-covered bedroom and is aroused by her own reflection [Omfg lol, I cannot deal with this girl], Stan calls and she ignores it because she’s a cow.
The next morning at school, Dore decides to go apologise to Stan for being rude and finds him standing with the redhead from the skating rink. Her name is Lucinda, or “Luci, with an i,” and even though Dore knows she’s “a thousand times more gorgeous” than Luci, she suddenly feels plain and sexless next to her. OK.
Later at lunch, Dore sits with Gwen and their other friend, Carol, when Luci appears and asks to join them. Carol and Gwen take a liking to the new girl and invite her to study with them after school, which a pissed off Dore won’t be joining. She gets up and leaves and as she passes where the cheerleaders and jocks are sitting, Mary looks Dore up and down, smirks and whispers something to super hunk Corbin and the other cheerleaders. Everyone laughs at Dore’s expense [Good. Knock her down a peg, Mary!], but we don’t know what the joke is which is annoying because I want to laugh at her too.
Dore just smiles back at Mary and walks off, maintaining her composure to hide the murderous rage within. When she gets to her locker, Dore realises her fists are clenched so tightly she’s drawn blood with her nails and vows that next time, it’ll be Mary’s blood [Big, tough Dore!].
Later that week, Gwen and Dore discuss an upcoming party that Dore doesn’t think her parents will let her go to, since they only want her at parties that will help further her reputation/image. As usual, Gwen is just “background noise” for Dore [Gwen deserves better, ugh].
Gwen is super keen to go to the party, probably because she doesn’t get invited to many of them, according to Dore, and suggests Dore lie to her parents about sleeping over at Gwen’s house so they can go together. Dore is surprised at this, since Gwen is usually so serious and obedient, but eventually agrees, looking forward to it now, but not for the same reason Gwen is [And after reading the book I’m still not sure what Dore means by this].
At the party that weekend, Luci offers them some alcoholic punch, which Dore declines but Gwen accepts, and Dore wanders off on her own. She’s in the mood to boogie, though, so hits the D-floor with a bad boy named Tom in a scene filled with some pretty obvious sexual subtext:
She danced a long time with Tom…
[…]
Then, another guy, one of the basketball players named Skip, suddenly materialised and pulled her into a play, and started a whole set of new moves.[…]
After Skip, another guy, and then another, until at last she was all used up, too tired to go on.
[Sounds like Dore had a great time ;)] As Dore talks with Randy, Luci appears and suggests that pretending to be nice is boring and won’t get Dore anywhere, and Dore realises that Luci isn’t that bad, she just puts her own pleasure first. Dore decides she’ll do that, too [Sorry, was she ever not putting herself first?], and after drinking some of the spiked punch, decides she’ll leave the party with bad boy Tom.
On their way out, Dore sees Gwen, who’s not looking so good. Dore hesitates for merely a moment before deciding she won’t have any fun going home with her best friend, who might get arrested for drink driving, since Dore doesn’t want to drive. And then Gwen’s parents would want to know why Gwen is so sick, and Dore doesn’t want to deal with all that [Dore, you are the worst friend ever!!!]. She leaves with Tom, but tells him she doesn’t want to go straight home… 😉 [Big night for Dore’s vagina, lol].
The next day, Dore’s hungover in bed when her mum announces she has a visitor. Luci barges into Dore’s room, gives her a beautiful hand mirror as a present and then leaves. That night, Dore has a nightmare where mirrors melt onto her skin and rot her beautiful flesh [If only it was real so this book could end]. Upon waking, Dore is terrified to see her own reflection in her mirror-covered wall and she throws the hand mirror at one of the large mirrors in terror. The mirror cracks, but the hand mirror is perfectly fine. How strange.
It’s Monday morning, and yesterday, Dore ignored Gwen and Randy’s calls, not wanting to deal with them while hungover. She’ll see them at school today anyway, so it’s not a big deal. Gwen disagrees though, and confronts Dore at school about ditching her on Saturday night. Classic Dore really doesn’t care and manipulates Gwen into feeling bad about questioning their friendship [Which is completely one-sided anyway, use your brain Gwen!]. I should also add that once or twice now, there’s been a voice in Dore’s head thinking mean-spirited things, but it’s not always clear whether they’re Dore’s actual thoughts or something else [I’m sure it will mean something later but hasn’t seemed too important until now. Note from future: This doesn’t amount to anything lol]. And as Randy approaches [Where the hell is Stan?] and Gwen heads off to class, Dore realises the voice is actually her own, not some strange one like she’d previously thought.
An unspecified amount of time later, Dore is at Luci’s luxurious apartment drinking champagne and eating caviar. Dore acquires a taste for these things after initially not liking them and suddenly develops a hatred for her life and her family, who she now thinks have kept so many things from her. Lucky she’s got Luci now to show her! The girls toast to getting the good things in life [I really don’t get Dore’s thought processes. Like, I get that Luci is probably somehow manipulating these feelings out of her, but it seems so abrupt because we’re not necessarily seeing it happen naturally over time? I don’t know].
A few days later, Dore watches football practice, paying close attention to Corbin, Mary’s super-hot boyfriend. Randy thinks she’s there to watch him, but she’s over Randy by now [Again, what happened to Stan?!].She wills Corbin to look at her in her mind while he’s getting a drink, and sure enough he looks right at her. She smiles and stretches her sexy, long legs out, and he smiles back before continuing practice. Across the field, Dore spots Mary glaring at her, which is just what Dore had hoped for.
After practice, Dore waits for Randy at the back of the school as a bunch of footballers and cheerleaders pile out of the building. Corbin smiles at Dore again, but Mary is quick to mark her territory. As everyone disappears and there’s still no Randy, Dore is grabbed from behind and attacked by a pair of claws that aim for her face. Then Stan is there, picking her off the ground, thinking she fell over [And I’m really confused because it’s not clear if she was attacked and passed out?? Or if someone did grab her and Stan just didn’t see as he approached, and just saw her on the ground???] Randy appears from the building with more footballers, and then Gwen appears too. Dore is unharmed, but her jacket sleeve is shredded to ribbons.
As Stan and Randy compare dick sizes to decide who’ll take Dore home, Gwen pipes up and says she’ll do it, surprising Dore with her sternness. Gwen is full of surprises lately, it seems. At home, Gwen puts Dore to bed and heads downstairs to get her some water. Stan calls Dore and tries to warn her about Randy, who is apparently horrible to girls but Dore doesn’t want to hear it, instead telling Stan to find a nice girl he can be with instead [When did they break up? Or is this their break up? I’m so confused]. Gwen is in the doorway as Dore hangs up and nervously asks what Stan called to talk about, and I’m now sure Gwen is dating Stan behind Dore’s back [Good! Not that Dore would probably care anyway].
Dore asks why Gwen was at the school so late, and Gwen says she had to get stuff from her locker, quickly changing the subject to the hand mirror Luci had given Dore before eventually leaving. Then Luci calls to check if Dore is OK, and the conversation seems super forced and awkward to me. After they say goodbye, Dore studies her ruined jacket and decides she hadn’t fallen, but was attacked by some sort of beast. As she looks at her reflection in the mirrors of her room, Dore’s relieved it was just the jacket and not her face or body that was damaged [I wish she’d died]. Then, picking up Luci’s hand mirror for a closer look, she’s horrified at her reflection.
A hideous scar ran from her temple to her chin. It was as white as the belly of a dead fish, with that same gruesome iridescence. It pulled the skin of her face sideways, making one eye wild and skewed. The mouth on the face in the mirror gaped open. Breath fogged the mirror, hiding the face…
The face of a beast.
She jerks her hand in shock and her normal reflection stares back when she looks again. Dore dismisses the scarred reflection as a trick of the light before letting her mind drift to Stan and Gwen, and why they were at the school so late. Stan had said he was at practice with the cheerleaders, but Dore knows that’s not true because she was watching practice and he definitely wasn’t there [OK, Gwen and Stan are definitely sneaking around together. Good for them!].
Then she remembers how awkward Gwen was being after Stan’s phone call and she puts two and two together and realises they’re having an affair [Wow, a protagonist that doesn’t take 3495767 years to see what’s right in front of her! Sucks that Dore is so horrible, though]. Dore’s not impressed and now believes Gwen stole Stan from her [Uhhhhh??????], even though she’s been sleeping with Randy and never really cared about Stan for the whole book, or Gwen for that matter. Not to mention she told Stan earlier that he should move on???
The next day at school, Dore asks to borrow Gwen’s notes for the English test, claiming she hadn’t had time to study. Gwen is feeling super guilty so agrees straight away, as long as Dore gives it back first thing the next morning so she can go over it again before the test. Poor Gwen seems to really be struggling with such a big secret, since she’s usually so demure and honest. Dore is really enjoying watching her squirm, though.
Later that night, Dore is bored while on the phone to Randy, who is obviously stoned [Drugs in Point Horror! Not used to that]. As Randy rambles on, she starts going over Gwen’s notes and finds Stan’s name repeatedly written in the margin, along with a love note to Gwen from Stan that falls from the notebook. Dore quickly ends the conversation with Randy and fumes over Gwen and Stan’s betrayal.
Dore’s lips curled. Vegetarian sex, she thought, if there was such a thing. Boring boy, boring girl, boring sex…
[Hahahaha vegetarian sex. What’s Deathkins got against vegetarians?]. She crumples the note and throws it in the bin, exactly where she plans to put Gwen as well.
The next day, Dore arrives just in time for English and sits in the front row, leaving Gwen up the back. Their teacher hands them all a test paper and Dore pretty much flirts with him, sliding her fingers over his as he hands her the paper and hiking her skirt up a bit more [Gross, I hate her]. Soon, the test begins and Dore is thankful for Gwen’s notes but has no remorse about throwing them away when she was done with them [I hope Dore gets what’s coming to her, lol].
After class, Gwen confronts a nonchalant Dore about not giving the notes back, only to be accosted herself about sneaking around with Stan. Dore walks away from the shocked Gwen, silently promising that this isn’t the end and Gwen should get use to it [Dore literally didn’t care about either of them until she realised they were hooking up, and now she’s playing the victim?].
After school, Dore is with Luci at the local teen hangout when Luci shows her a magazine article about a big blockbuster movie searching for new talent. Luci encourages Dore to audition, and Dore knows she can become a star. When she asks Luci if she’s planning on auditioning too, Luci shrugs and smiles, and Dore suddenly wants her out of the picture [Can someone just fucking kill this bitch already?].
Then big, sexy Corbin comes over to say hi, and Luci makes a dig about how he spends all his free time with Mary. Mary then arrives to pull Corbin to another table. Corbin looks annoyed, but winks at Dore, who smiles at him the whole time [God I hope Dore ends up single and friendless]. Luci notices this and comments on Dore’s progress with him, who retorts that it’ll be progress when Mary disappear and wonders if someone can die from embarrassment. That’s what she’d like to do to Mary [Fuck off, Dore].
Another unspecified amount of time later, Dore is in a clothes shop called Rice [????? lol] trying on some dresses in the change rooms. She overhears Gwen and her mother excitedly talking about the upcoming school dance. It’s Gwen’s first one, and she’s super stoked to be going with Stan. Dore isn’t impressed, as usual, and turns her attention back to her own selection of dresses. For the movie audition, she decides on a short silk suit, white for innocence, but it also makes her “feel sort of kinky”. For the dance, she opts for a blood-red dress with long sleeves. Randy hasn’t even asked her to the dance yet, but Dore is as confident as ever that he will [I hope he doesn’t lol].
As she pays for the dresses at the counter, she notices a beautiful blue one on a rack scheduled for alteration and sees on that tag it belongs to Mary. Dore reckons Mary has good taste, but won’t look as good as her. Shut upppppppp.
On her date with Randy that night, Dore runs her finger down his earlobe, knowing how much it turns him on, and mentions how excited she is for the dance. Randy’s just like “Yeah…” and seems more interested in getting a root. [Good]. Afterwards, Dore is in her room, considering doing some exercise.
“No,” she said aloud, remembering the last part of the evening with Randy. “I’ve had enough exercise tonight.” His name certainly suited him…
[If Dore wasn’t such a horrible cow I would probably love this book! I usually love the bitchy characters, but Dore has absolutely no redeeming qualities. I think the book is trying to make out like Dore is changing due to Luci or the mirror’s influence or something but Dore has been unbearable from the start, before meeting Luci or getting the mirror, so I’m not entirely sure they’re even that relevant. And if they are supposed to be influencing her to be a worse person, it’s really not that clear].
On Saturday morning, Dore flicks through the newspaper in search of information about the movie audition but is unsuccessful. Her dad comments on how something is different about her, that she looks more beautiful than ever, but adds that that’s necessarily an achievement [Sounds like one to me!].
Then Luci arrives to pick up Dore and the two speed off down the road. Luci is a bloody hoon and almost crashes head-on into another car. She’s completely unfazed by it, and Dore soon stops caring too, demanding Luci drive faster [Please crash the car, Luci!]. They head to the school where the cheerleaders are raising money with a car wash. Luci ends up jerking the car forward, getting Mary’s shirt caught and ripping it in half. They then drive off, laughing at their cruel prank.
We’re at the dance now, and Dore is bored because it’s just so high school, but can’t wait to publicly humiliate Randy by breaking up with him there [Not sure when she got sick of Randy, but OK]. She spots Gwen and Stan being cute together and storms off to the locker room. Shortly after, Gwen comes in and Dore tells her that Stan attacked her at the stairs the other night, since he’s so good with special effects stuff, and accuses Gwen of knowing about it. [Again, not sure how she reached this conclusion because this is the first I’m reading about it]. Gwen is furious about these accusations and Dore vows that there’ll be a price to pay. Dore then leaves the locker room not hearing Gwen hiss [Hiss? really?] and promise that Dore will get paid [Go, Gwen!].
Later, Dore and Randy are dancing near Corbin and Mary. Dore’s feeling on top of the world, so doesn’t notice Gwen and Stan leave. Mary’s dress is a blue wraparound that ties in a big bow around her neck, with the ends dangling down her back [Sounds fugly]. When Mary does a dip, Dore steps on the ends of the ties, causing the bow to come loose and Mary’s dress to unravel when she comes back up. Everyone laughs and for some reason Mary slaps Corbin when he tries to help her before hurrying to the bathroom. Dore bids Randy farewell and waltzes over to Corbin [Is that the public humiliation she was so excited to give him?].
Later, Dore’s heading for the doors to meet Corbin, who’s gone to get his car, when Stan steps out of the shadows [So he and Gwen didn’t leave?], to lecture her about how her sudden attitude change. He’s upset about her accusations and insists he didn’t push her. Dore’s still pretty adamant it was him, though, and heads off to meet Corbin. When she gets outside, she instinctively turns around and is greeted by a dark, clawed figure who attacks her. They struggle briefly before Dore manages to push the figure down the stairs. Then Corbin pulls up and Dore moves to the car, passing the unconscious figure without even bothering to check who it is, acting like nothing happened [Ummm, why the fuck would you not check who attacked you? Or even raise the alarm? I seriously don’t understand how this girl reaches the decisions she makes]. Corbin and Dore drive off, not noticing the second figure exit the school and approaching the unconscious body.
The next day, Dore gets a phone call from an unrecognisable voice calling her a murderer. She hangs up and the phone rings again, only this time it’s Stan, calling to tell her that Gwen is dead. Apparently she fell down the stairs at the back of the school. Dore literally could not care less and accuses Stan of pushing Gwen, just like he pushed her, before hanging up on him. I guess she was just doing that to be a bitch because she also realises Gwen must have attacked her last night. She takes no blame for Gwen’s death, though, deciding that Gwen attacked her and got what she deserved [I still don’t understand how she reached the conclusion that Stan and/or Gwen were her attackers though. Like I’m sure one of them probably did it anyway, but like what does Dore think their motive is? It’s not like they needed Dore out of the picture, she’d practically frozen them out already?].
Two days later, Dore’s at Gwen’s funeral with Carol, regretting even coming because she’s a cold-hearted bitch. She’s feeling super paranoid for reasons she can’t figure out and gives a lot of attitude to Carol. It seems like the whole school is here, except for Luci, who had earlier told Dore that funerals aren’t her scene, which had angered Dore. [Not sure why, though, since Dore hated Gwen at this point anyway and doesn’t want to be there either?].
Eventually, Dore becomes overwhelmed after an internal battle with the little voice [That I’m still confused about, because she already realised it was her own voice, but it’s still being made out to be something different to her own thoughts…] and runs over to some trees to gather her senses – her senses being that Gwen’s death was her own fault, not Dore’s. She returns to the funeral and as it wraps up, she thinks she’s sees Luci at the far end of the graveyard. Whoever it is disappears when Dore blinks, though.
That night, Dore gets another phone call from the strange voice who again calls her a murderer. Dore thinks it’s Stan, but isn’t too sure. Later, she has a nightmare about being buried alive, but wakes up and again convinces herself that she didn’t murder Gwen.
The next day, Dore is being photographed by a guy named Klaxon [Lol?], the “best photographer around”, because she wants some sexy photos for her audition port folio. As she goes to touch up her makeup in her new hand mirror, Dore recognises her own features, “but the face of a fiend”. Hearing her startled cry, Klaxon comes in to see what the issue is and admires the mirror, noting that despite it’s age, it reflects a true image, lacking the warp and distortion that a lot of old mirrors have [Dore’s true reflection is a fiend, can’t say I’m surprised]. Dore decides that maybe Stan has rigged the mirror to get back at her, which makes absolutely no sense because he doesn’t even know about the mirror and even if he did, i a high schooler really going to know how to do that?
Yet another unspecified amount of time later, Dore’s in her bedroom with Luci after school, admiring Klaxon’s photos of her when the conversation turns to Dore’s parents dictating her life. Luci reckons they’ll be all over Dore once they find out she’s making her own decisions. Dore hasn’t told them about the upcoming audition because she knows they won’t approve because they want her to go to college. After all, that’s what all the money she wins in pageants goes towards! But then she suddenly remembers that her family’s rich, so it’s not like they need to put her pageant winnings in a college fund. What are the really spending it on?!
She confronts her parents about it on the following Sunday, and they explain it’s all in a nest egg for her future. Dore demands her money right now for no reason other than it’s her money [Which I would totally agree with normally, but it really makes no difference for Dore since her parents buy her whatever she wants anyway?? It’s not like they’re using it for themselves, she’s just being a brat].
Of course, her parents object, not understanding Dore’s sudden burst of anger, and the little cow calls them thieves and storms off. The big audition is tomorrow anyway, the first day of the rest of her life, because she’s so sure she’s about to become a star [I think she’s planning on landing the role purely because of her looks because there’s been no mention of her acting abilities. Cocky bitch]. To punish her parents, she won’t be acknowledging them when she’s famous. That’ll teach ’em!
The next day she sneaks out early, leaves a note for her parents and heads to the auditions in her mum’s car. Luci, who isn’t auditioning, had offered to drive her, but Dore doesn’t trust her and would rather go alone [Hope you botch the audition hun xx].
She heads to a nice hotel to prepare herself before the audition and chucks on the gorgeous white silk suit before looking in the hand mirror.
A monster was looking back at her – a creature so hideous that Dore couldn’t look away. Transfixed, she stared at her ruined face: Sagging scars of flesh and strips of wattled, mottled skin hung on a skull that seems about to pierce the veins that lashed the whole together. In sunken pouches the lashless eyes looked out, meeting hers.
[…]
The lipless mouth opened, taking its own evil breath. Foul, uneven teeth showed beneath it, and a bulbous tongue flickered out like a snake’s and ran across where the lips should have been.
[This is a great description! I still don’t understand why the mirror is showing her monstrous reflections though. Maybe it’s showing who she is on the inside? Dore is definitely rotted, so it makes sense to me!]. She flees the room to get some fresh air, but in the lobby she notices people staring at her. She glimpses her normal reflection in a nearby mirror and realises they’re staring because she’s so beautiful, not some hideous monster. Relieved, she starts walking the four blocks to the audition.
Ahead of her in the street, Dore spots flaming red hair and realised Luci lied to her about auditioning. Dore is enraged, knowing Luci could outshine her and instantly decides she needs to get rid of Luci. When Luci stops for a traffic light, Dore rushes over to push Luci onto the road, but somehow, it’s Dore who ends up tumbling head first into the street and gets run over by a car [Hahahahaha good].
Unfortunately for me, Dore’s survived and slips in and out of consciousness over an undetermined period of time while in hospital. She remembers bits and pieces of her parents talking, needles, and operations on her face as she dozes in and out. Eventually, she’s able to ask what happened and her parents explain that she was in a car accident. Her note had said she was leaving to auditioning for a movie, but it didn’t make sense because there were no auditions of any sort being held nearby. As she sleeps that night, Dore has a nightmare about Luci and wakes up, remembering everything.
Later still, a doctor removes bandages from Dore’s face. Dore’s mother and the doctor explain how she’s lucky to survive and the damage to her face is just superficial, and this is just the beginning of the surgeries. Dore demands a mirror, and the doctor hands her a plastic one and her mother hands her the one from Luci. She looks in the plastic one and it’s a grotesque, hideous monster that stares back [Dore definitely deserved that!].
She demands to be left alone and later, Stan arrives. He admits that Gwen had pushed her down the stairs, borrowing some props from his tiger mascot costume, but he didn’t know about it until the night of the dance when Dore told Gwen Stan had done it [Why are the claws on a costume so sharp?] He also confesses that he was the one that called her a murderer over the phone because he was so angry with her. Dore is super rude to him, as per usual.
Before he leaves, she asks about Luci and Stan reveals she transferred the same day of Dore’s accident, telling Carol she was going some place warm [To ruin someone else’s life probably. I wish there was more explanation though]. Dore flashes him her deformed smile and says “Boo”, and Stan runs away [Hahahahahaha].
Dore finally looks into Luci’s mirror, and instead of her true, monstrous reflection, her beautiful, old face stares back. She recites “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” and the book ends as she has a big old maniacal laugh [Very anticlimactic].
Final Thoughts
This was painful.
Dore was an absolute cunt [Mind the language, literally no better word to describe her though] from the start to the finish. The whole mirror thing was incredibly underwhelming. I was expecting more of a supernatural element with it, like the creatures in the design would be responsible for the attacks or something?? Like, what was the point, all the mirror did was show her a disfigured version of herself. And the attack plot really went nowhere either.
And then the whole Luci thing doesn’t make sense to me either. Who was she? Was Dore becoming worse because of Luci, or the mirror, or was it all just a coincidence? Why was it happening anyway? What was the point? It’s not like Dore changed for the betters? And the whole other voice in her head plot went nowhere as well? Maybe I’m just stupid or missed something, but I don’t think anything was explained except the attacks.
Besides an explanation for Luci and the mirror, some actual character development would have really benefitted this book. Dore was horrible from the start, as opposed to being a nice girl getting drawn in by the power of her looks or something. It’s like D.E. Athkins had all these ideas and smashed them into one book, resulting in this mess. Ugh.
1 photographer named Klaxon out of 150 and I will not be reading another D.E. Athkins book anytime soon.
