769 reviews for:

The Dollhouse

Fiona Davis

3.67 AVERAGE


This book was like opening a time capsule to the 50s! I really enjoyed it: the characters, the setting and the history were all superb!
medium-paced
dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
emotional mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Great premise, poorly executed. My full review is here.

A historical novel focusing on The Barbizon Hotel for Women in New York City. The story is told in two different times and by two different protagonists. Darby is a young woman from Ohio who moves to NYC in 1952 to attend the Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School. Rose is a mid-career journalist in 2016 who is writing an investigative article on the history of the Barbizon and the women who lived there over the years. The reader gets a real feel for the 1950's in NYC: jazz clubs, heroin use, the role of women in society, dress codes, the Barbizon house mother, and most of all how the Barbizon provided a safe place to live for young single women who were new to the big city. The alternating chapters and storytellers (1952 and 2016) weave together very nicely and move toward a suspenseful conclusion.

Read more of my reviews at https://thegoodreader13.blogspot.com/.
emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Set in 1952 and 2016, this book switches the year almost every chapter. It follows the journey of a journalist writing a story on a young woman attending secretarial school in New York. I overall thought this was a good read. It was a little slow in some parts, but it kept me interested enough to finish. A bit of a plot twist toward the end. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

Book was awesome, but the end felt rushed and lost it's mojo.
mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes