04/10/25: Sonja Ska Reviews “Shy Girl”

Guys, what the hell. Shy Girl by Mia Ballard wrecked me.

Gia is lonely, depressed, and barely scraping by when she meets Nathan, a man who promises financial safety in exchange for submission—specifically, living as his pet dog. The absurdity ends up in full-blown nightmare territory that caught me entirely off guard. But honestly, the entire book caught me off guard.

Ballard drags you through several stages of dehumanization, leaving you hovering on the edge of reality, where maybe human bodies can change because of the torture they're forced to endure. And considering Shy Girl is splatterpunk, Gia is forced to endure a lot. Imprisonment, humiliation, rape - Nathan slowly strips away her autonomy, stealing everything from Gia until she has no choice but to become a thing that eats dog food and barks.

Tension hangs over every page, enveloping you with this suffocating need to crawl out of this nightmare, but you're powerless to do anything but turn the next page. Which is unfortunate because things only get more unsettling and gut-wrenching before the ending slams into you and leaves you staring at the wall because seriously, WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?

Shy Girl is a brutal, feminist horror book that isn't afraid to push you over the edge - but that's exactly what makes this great...and terrible. There's a scene towards the - you'll know when you get to it - that has been branded onto my brain and I'll never recover from it. Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Shy-Girl-Mia-Ballard/dp/B0DYVHXGCY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8ORHJTY0MHHN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ooM_-f1YWNd0Z_2xBMcc1enN8cu3JfPHy3C8RssGrIc0aBJT51ww8uWdm4xf6IKO.yBz380W2jydVxKYwLbhaGK-nWousaiqjcnX3TKn5y0s&dib_tag=se&keywords=shy+girl+by+mia+ballard&qid=1744286722&sprefix=shy+girl+by%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-1