Paula's Reviews > The Cellar

Her name is Summer. She’s fifteen and in love with her boyfriend Lewis and annoyed by her brother and doesn’t like scary movies. But the man who abducts her from the park near her house calls her Lily, and when he locks her in the basement apartment below his house, the three other young women who are already there - Poppy, Rose, and Violet - call her Lily too.

Life in the cellar is a grotesque parody of domestic life. Their captor, who calls himself Clover, is pleasant and attentive, complimenting their cooking and supplying them with books and DVDs - unless he detects disobedience or is in a bad mood, in which case he erupts into hideous violence. The narrative alternates between Summer’s, Clover’s, and Lewis’s point of view, although there is little difference in tone between the three. Given the harrowing subject matter, the book is curiously flat and repetitive. Best for fans of realistic horror like Living Dead Girl and Stolen. —Paula Willey for Booklist Online