I’m in a complicated situationship, a cloying mix of mummified passion and the sunk cost fallacy.
Not to fret: it’s Audible.
I subscribed years ago, as emedia struggled to put its feet to the ground. Had I any sense of foresight, I might have seen that the clunky, slow-loading Axis360 would inevitably fall for the sheer impracticality of its interface. It looked nice and slowed reading. I had no foresight, though. Audible was a step up from loading audiobooks-on-CD into my Zune, so I subscribed.
These days, I have a Libby wish list ten leagues and a fathom long, thousands of titles at my fingertips for no more than the taxes I already pay to support my local library. I only need Audible every so often, when the height of a hyperfixation demands immediacy. And, really, it would make more sense financially to simply cancel my Audible subscription and purchase those three or four titles a year, except that cancelling would delete my existing credits and there’s a principle, dammit!
(There’s not.)
So every sale, I scroll through the familiar bestsellers, slightly-outdated award winners, and Elfin pornography of worrying interpersonal dynamics, and justify my exhausting anxiety into two-for-one impulse splurging. (I’m not sure it’s a splurge if it’s money I’ve already spent, nor an impulse after three hours of deliberation, but nevertheless.)
Anyway, that’s why I read Broken Dolls by Ally Malinenko. I’d bought it on two-for-one, and there it was in my Audible library when I couldn’t stand the narrator of my library borrow.
It started with promise: an openly queer middle school girl is grappling with isolation, loss, and the fear of more loss. I appreciated the mildly nuanced dynamics in Kaye’s family. Her mom wasn’t cruel, but was struggling with her own grief. Her sister wasn’t bratty, but could be immature, as six-year-olds often are. Her uncle was well-intentioned, if sometimes clumsy around kids, not having any of his own.
When Kaye and her family visit a fair, Kaye and little sister Holly explore together and find a mysterious magician, running games at his booth and offering prizes to the winners. At this point, the book reminded me of an old Are You Afraid of the Dark episode, the plucky but unsuspecting heroine encountering a mysterious, probably cursed object… and I like that Malinenko made Kaye an active participant in bringing the eerie and wicked Holly-doll into their lives. Holly flubbed the card game. Kaye won. Because of Kaye, Holly brought home far more than they bargained for.
Overall, a strong start!
The book had other strengths, too. The dolls, which multiplied like rabbits, were deeply unsettling. The descriptions brought up images of abandoned and creepy old toys. Later in the book, they were sprinkled with truly stomach-wrenching elements of body horror. In a quite different vein, Kaye’s elective mutism was treated, I thought, well. She can struggle to speak, but it’s hard and though she ultimately recovers, it’s not a straight or easy path.
I suspect this began as a short story. It’s incorporated late in the book, a desperate choice and dire straits and what becomes of love and fear and powerlessness. The short story was good. It was complete and creepy.
Unfortunately, beyond that, the book is more potential than achievement. And it had a lot of potential… sadly unrealized, nonetheless.
Kaye’s characterization is the best example. She is the main character, the protagonist, the one who knows things are wrong. She’s also extremely passive. Throughout most of the book, the most she does is try to ask for help. She chances upon a secret room when her uncle invites her to help with renovations. A hidden diary literally tells her how to neutralize the dolls. In traditional pacing, a character switches to action from reaction at around the 50% mark—and, sure, there’s not a wrong way to write a book, but the action-from-reaction switch really shouldn’t come after the 85% mark.
Her queerness was handled the same way. It’s mentioned in the first chapter that Kaye first came out to her uncle when she realized she had feelings for both boys and girls. Cool, so Kaye knows she’s not straight. I clocked the love interest immediately, but a bit of predictability for an adult reader of a middle grade novel, that’s less than a nit to pick. No, I take issue with how long it took for Kaye to notice. There would be these comments about Kaye not understanding why she has funny feelings around Joey. Kaye is out. She knows what a crush is. Not only did Joey become part of the story far too late—again, past the 50% mark—she seemed to confuse Kaye.
Worst of all, the themes had so much potential!
This is the part where I want so much more. Spoilers ahead.
Holly-doll, the original creepy toy, was created by a spell when a magician couldn’t afford medical care for his daughter. Now they find lonely or sad little girls and turn them into dolls, so they can live forever with their friends. Twisted, right? And it could have been such a cool parallel for Kaye. What if she tried to find answers to begin with? What if, instead of watching this all happen, she tried to stop it? What if her actions were doomed, and the big twist was that Kaye was somehow enabling the transformation, pushing Holly away by trying to keep her close?
This is the kind of book where the protagonist should lead the story. I don’t mind that Kaye saved Holly with the power of love and sisterhood; it was actually nice. They united by acknowledging their grief over their last grandfather. My objection is the 75% of the book Kaye spent observing.
Overall, the book has a pretty high rating on Storygraph and Goodreads, so I guess I’m in the minority on this one. It errs on the side of Gothic, and that’s not a flavor of horror I’ve ever cared for.
If you like your horror vibe-heavy and don’t mind a main character who doesn’t realize she’s the protagonist, you might enjoy this one. I mean, I didn’t. But I also didn’t foresee the death of Axis360. And I’m still subscribed to Audible.
Trigger warnings: Grief, death of grandparent, minor body horror, evil dolls
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