Book Journal: Doll Parts by Penny Zang

Doll Parts by Penny Zang started out very promising. I was excited to discover it. One of my favorite authors, Ashley Winstead, gave it a great blurb. Once I found out it was about 90s grunge era girls who obsess over Sylvia Plath, I was on board. I was even more excited that the there was a feminist angle, and Zang was providing commentary about how we, as a society, fetishize young women who die. (That’s something I wrote about earlier this year here on Laurellit, in my post, “Young, Beautiful, and On Her Way Out.“)

Anyhow, at some point the novel started going downhill for me. It wasn’t because Penny Zang’s writing is bad–quite the opposite. Her characterization, imagery, figurative language and details were all very well done and impressive. It had to do with the plot. First, the most likeable character is dead, and we hear from her through flashbacks. That made me less invested.

More importantly, there were one too many incredible coincidences that involved secondary characters being related to each other. When the second one was revealed, it was just to outrageous for me to buy. And I stopped listening, even though I was close to the end.

It’s rare for me to post a negative review because I like to support fellow authors. And I wouldn’t even call this review negative. In fact, if outrageous coincidences don’t bother you, I recommend Doll Parts, especially if you enjoy dark academia with a feminist flare.

 

See Doll Parts on Amazon