I kind of just really wanted to bring these two books to everyone’s attention because of the covers. That’s honestly it. There’s zero meat to this post, but I think the books featured are both compelling in similar ways (insofar as the cover is concerned) and find myself hoping for an entire collection of creepy doll head/face covers like this. Perhaps they constitute a new genre in their own right?

First up is The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt, author of The Goldfinch and The Secret History, which Alyssia reviewed in her post earlier this year. I remember seeing it on the shelves way back when and slotting that book away into my memory for future reading. I still haven’t gotten to it, but I remember it quite vividly and, more importantly, was reminded of it when I saw this other book (see below) floating about.

Having read a number of reviews on Goodreads, I’m actually pretty convinced that The Little Friend and You’ll Never Know, Dear (below) are quite different in tone, but part of me still wants to believe that whoever will like one will like the other.

In The Little Friend, we follow twelve-year old Harriet as she tries one summer to solve the mystery of her brother’s murder, and of course she plunges into much more than she could ever have imagined starting into her investigation.

You’ll Never Know, Dear by Hallie Ephron. My first thought was that I had probably seen that doll before, which was immediately followed by the realization of where I thought I’d seen it before: The Little Friend. It’s clearly not the same doll, but I really want a huge collection of porcelain doll face close-ups that fill book covers. Does anyone have some more (porcelain) doll book covers they would like to share?