Meredith Hambrock’s sophomore novel She’s a Lamb! is a masterclass in psychological horror disguised as dark comedy, following the catastrophic unraveling of Jessamyn St. Germain, a twenty-six-year-old aspiring musical theater star whose desperate pursuit of stardom leads to devastating consequences. Set against the backdrop of a Vancouver regional theater’s production of The Sound of Music, Hambrock crafts a relentless character study that forces readers to confront the toxic intersection of patriarchal exploitation and delusional self-preservation.
Character Analysis: Jessamyn as Unreliable Narrator
The Star vs. Actor Dichotomy
Jessamyn’s fundamental misunderstanding of her own craft serves as the novel’s central tension. Her repeated insistence that she wants to be a “star” rather than an “actor” reveals a profound disconnect from reality and artistic authenticity. Hambrock, drawing inspiration from the “Las Culturistas” podcast’s exploration of this dichotomy, uses Jessamyn’s superficial understanding of performance to expose the dangerous allure of fame over substance.
The protagonist’s voice is simultaneously compelling and repulsive. Her internal monologue reveals a woman so thoroughly convinced of her own specialness that she cannot see the mediocrity of her actual circumstances. Working as a children’s wrangler while fantasizing about Tony Awards, Jessamyn embodies the tragic figure of the failed artist who refuses to accept failure.
The Patriarchal Gauntlet
Hambrock doesn’t shy away from depicting the genuine horrors that women face in the entertainment industry. Jessamyn’s experiences with sexual harassment, exploitation by her agent, and degrading auditions are rendered with unflinching honesty. The novel’s strength lies in how it presents these very real systemic issues while simultaneously critiquing Jessamyn’s increasingly unhinged responses to them.
The character’s relationship with her father provides crucial context for her desperate need for validation. His emotional abandonment and financial manipulation create a perfect storm of trauma that Jessamyn channels into her theatrical obsessions.
Narrative Structure and Writing Style
Hambrock’s Surgical Precision
Following her critically acclaimed debut Other People’s Secrets, which The New York Times called “audacious” and “fabulous,” Hambrock demonstrates remarkable growth as a writer. Her prose in She’s a Lamb! is sharp and unforgiving, matching Jessamyn’s own cutting observations about the theater world while gradually revealing the protagonist’s moral blind spots.
The novel’s structure mirrors Jessamyn’s psychological deterioration through increasingly short, fragmented chapters that build to a crescendo of violence. Hambrock’s background in television writing, particularly her work on the Canadian Screen Award-winning Corner Gas Animated, is evident in her ability to balance dark humor with genuine pathos.
The Vancouver Theater Scene as Character
The regional theater setting becomes almost a character itself, representing the purgatory between amateur and professional theater where dreams go to die slowly. Hambrock’s intimate knowledge of this world—evident in details like union rules, casting politics, and the financial pressures facing small companies—grounds the fantastic elements of Jessamyn’s delusions in gritty reality.
Thematic Exploration: The Dangers of Magical Thinking
When Manifestation Becomes Manipulation
The novel serves as a devastating critique of “manifestation” culture and the toxic positivity that encourages people to will their way to success regardless of talent or circumstances. Jessamyn’s sessions with her voice coach Renée, who encourages her to “take” what she wants, provide a chilling example of how self-help philosophy can morph into justification for increasingly unethical behavior.
The transformation from childcare worker to full-blown antagonist happens gradually, with each small transgression building toward the inevitable violent climax. Hambrock masterfully shows how desperation combined with enablement can corrupt even basic human decency.
The Performance of Femininity
Throughout the novel, Jessamyn performs different versions of femininity depending on her audience—the devoted daughter with her father, the sexy girlfriend with her various men, the nurturing caregiver with the children. This constant performance becomes exhausting both for the character and the reader, highlighting how women are often forced to fragment themselves to survive in patriarchal systems.
Critical Assessment: Strengths and Limitations
What Works Brilliantly
- Character Voice: Hambrock’s commitment to Jessamyn’s perspective never wavers, creating an authentically unreliable narrator whose delusions feel genuine rather than constructed.
- Dark Comedy Execution: The humor emerges naturally from Jessamyn’s observations and misinterpretations, never feeling forced or mean-spirited despite the dark subject matter.
- Industry Authenticity: The theater world details feel lived-in and real, from audition politics to backstage hierarchies.
- Psychological Realism: Jessamyn’s mental deterioration follows a believable trajectory that honors the complexity of trauma responses.
Areas for Improvement
The novel’s relentless focus on Jessamyn’s perspective, while effective for psychological immersion, occasionally limits our understanding of other characters’ motivations. Supporting characters like Michelle the director and Samantha the lead actress sometimes feel more like plot devices than fully realized people.
Additionally, the ending’s violent crescendo, while thematically appropriate, may feel somewhat inevitable given the novel’s trajectory. Some readers might crave more surprise in the final act’s developments.
The Horror Beneath the Comedy
Psychological Terror in Everyday Spaces
What makes She’s a Lamb! particularly effective as psychological horror is how it locates terror in mundane spaces—rehearsal rooms, coffee shops, apartment buildings. The real horror isn’t supernatural but deeply human: the capacity for self-deception and the ease with which victimization can transform into perpetration.
The novel’s climax, featuring Jessamyn’s violent breakdown during the dress rehearsal, represents the logical endpoint of her journey. Her transformation from sympathetic victim to dangerous antagonist happens so gradually that readers may find themselves complicit in her early justifications.
Literary Comparisons and Context
Contemporary Voices in Dark Academia
She’s a Lamb! shares DNA with recent novels like Rebecca Ross’s Divine Rivals and Alex Michaelides’s The Maidens in its exploration of artistic obsession and unreliable narration. However, Hambrock’s theater world setting and specifically gendered critique of industry exploitation set it apart from the broader dark academia trend.
The novel also echoes elements of Gillian Flynn’s psychological thrillers, particularly in its refusal to make its female protagonist entirely sympathetic. Like Flynn, Hambrock understands that complexity—even moral ambiguity—makes for more compelling and honest character work.
Recommendations for Similar Reads
Readers who appreciate She’s a Lamb!‘s blend of dark comedy and psychological insight should consider:
- “Flashlight” by Susan Choi – For its exploration of artistic ambition and sexual awakening
- “The Idiot” by Elif Batuman – For its darkly funny take on young adult confusion
- “Circe” by Madeline Miller – For its complex female protagonist navigating power dynamics
- “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt – For its academic setting and moral deterioration
- “Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney – For its examination of class and psychological complexity
Final Verdict: A Disturbing Success
She’s a Lamb! succeeds as both entertainment and social commentary, offering readers a deeply uncomfortable but ultimately rewarding journey into the mind of a woman whose dreams have curdled into delusion. Hambrock’s fearless commitment to her protagonist’s perspective creates a reading experience that is simultaneously funny, heartbreaking, and genuinely unsettling.
The novel works as a horror story precisely because it locates monstrosity not in external forces but in the human capacity for self-justification. In our current cultural moment, where discussions of artistic authenticity, industry exploitation, and female ambition dominate social discourse, She’s a Lamb! provides a darkly comic but ultimately serious examination of what happens when the pursuit of dreams becomes divorced from both talent and ethics.
This is bold, uncompromising fiction that refuses to offer easy answers or comfortable resolutions. Hambrock has crafted a novel that will linger in readers’ minds long after the final page, forcing continued examination of our own complicity in systems that both create and destroy dreamers like Jessamyn St. Germain.
For readers seeking contemporary fiction that challenges conventional narratives about female ambition while delivering genuine thrills, She’s a Lamb! represents a significant achievement in darkly comic psychological horror.