Dana Reed

Lauren is the oldest and only daughter out of four children. She acts as a second mother to her brothers as their parents are busy people. Because of this, Lauren desperately wishes she had a sister to keep her company. Her mother, Edna, and her maternal grandfather have practiced magic. Lauren knows she can too. With the help of some library books, she casts a spell to create a double of herself that she calls Rachel. Unfortunately, Rachel is evil.

The creation of Rachel happens fairly quickly. The story doesn't linger on whether or not Lauren is going to go through with it. She is and she does. Then she has a "mental breakdown" from meeting demons at her casting and the novel skips ahead an entire year. The evil demon clone hides in Lauren's closet for an entire year watching her get baked on valium. How spooky.

The characters are not very diverse. The women either have "mental breakdowns" or are murdered. They have two body (and personality) types: thin and therefore unconsciously erotic and pure or fat and therefore grotesque and cruel. The men are either thin or nasty background characters. All of them are in lust/love with Edna, the mother, who is thin and pure of heart and whose boobs jiggle even when standing still. Everyone is white and straight. (Thankfully. I don't want to know what Reed would do with anyone else.)

Everyone gets their own pov. The story drags on with unnecessary, convulted character backgrounds. Most of the town turns out to be related to each other and part of a satanic cult. The father is despicable to an almost hilarious degree. Seriously, it just keeps going.

In the end, Rachel barely does anything. In 400 pages she kills 5 people. Mostly she paces around the family home, ranting to herself that Lauren is keeping her on some kind of mental leash, and hopping from closet to closet to hide or eavesdrop. It's a shame. After finding out how awful each person in town is, I wouldn't have minded seeing them all be attacked by a demon clone.

If you were looking for a bad horror novel from the 80s, you sure have found one. Good luck.… (mere)