Librarians concerned about selecting horror for libraries are often concerned about getting a book that crosses the boundaries of violence and/or good taste. They may feel more comfortable with more mainstream choices like Stephen King but might balk when having to determine if The Girl Next Door should go into the collection. My own thoughts are that horror, great horror, should push some boundaries and that libraries are responsible for selecting a wide range of materials, including horror. One example of such a book that should be in a library's collection is Karen Runge's novel Doll Crimes, a book that brazenly and beautifully tells a horrifying and heartbreaking story.
The female protagonist in this story travels the country with her mother, using their good looks and street smarts to live off the kindness of male strangers. Told through the young girl's perspective, the reader gets a sense of this girl's hopes, dreams, and violent imaginings because the world she lives in, this vagabond lifestyle shared with her mother, slowly loses its romantic sheen over the course of the book. The readers are introduced, little by little, to what the mother does to get by as well as what it does to her daughter. By the end of the book, the daughter grows as a person, but not necessarily a well-adjusted one.
What makes Doll Crimes such an extreme book is not the level of violence, really hardly any actual blood is spilled in the novel, but this book does delve into some dark corners of the human psyche through the unreliable view of the daughter and the slow realization of the tragedy that her life has become. I have made a lot of comparisons to The Girl Next Door in this review, and the actual physical violence in Doll Crimes is considerably less than that work, but Runge's work will also tear at the reader's heart as they see a young girl broken by the people that were supposed to be protecting her.
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