The Dolls by Kiki Sullivan
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal
Published by: Usbourne
Pages: 410
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

Oh gosh. How do I describe this book? It’s basically an alternate universe Beautiful Creatures where Emily Asher and Savannah Snow have the powers. Do not give materialistic girls powers. It’s not a good mix. Just no. I was so disappointed with this book! The beginning was so intriguing, and I was really hyped to get sucked into this world. But then it took a completely different turn! Basically, the insta-love was unbearable, the characters unlikeable and the plot totally predictable.

Eveny is our main character. She’s from New York and she moves back down to Carrefour where her mother committed suicide. But then strange things start happening and my goodness there are a lot of murders in this town, I wonder what could be behind them? Eveny finds out that she’s part of this witchy coven called the Dolls / queens of Carrefour and she’s sucked into a world where things aren’t what she’s been led to believe. Literally everyone is keeping secrets from Eveny, which means every fifty pages we’re forced to read this repetitive scene where Eveny gets all offended and forces her Aunt to explain everything – well, blatantly not everything as this happens about a million times. Although sometimes it’s Peregrine or Chloe (the other queens) that let her in on the secret. BUT ONLY 1/8 OF THE SECRET. WHY.

Eveny wasn’t very good at making her own decisions. I get that she’s loyal to her heritage – good for her! – but, no offence, girl, your Aunt knows a lot more than you do, so maybe you should listen to her advice and book it out of there?

Peregrine and Chloe were like the Plastics. They’re part of this little cult thing where everyone is shockingly beautiful and the whole town fawns over them. Turns out they use their super awesome magic to make themselves look prettier, have bigger breasts and make boys fall in love with them. Seriously, there’s a plant for making your chest get bigger, but not for world peace or something? You’ve got to be kidding me. I didn’t like either of these girls. What this book promotes about body image is totally convoluted. So you can’t be confident unless you’re inhumanly beautiful and have a large chest? And you’re a nun if you don’t like to wear short skirts. There was so much girl on girl hate in this book which is the most ridiculous form of bullying ever. Why do girls do it, and why does this book seem to promote it? Overall, this book was not promoting feminist views at all, and was rather offensive at times. Out of the dolls, I’d say Chloe was more tolerable, but Peregrine was the absolute limit, I really hope she shows some heart and selflessness in the rest of the series – if I can bring myself to read them.

Caleb was the love interest, but he couldn’t be black. Oh no, he had to be a ‘light skinned black guy.’ Again, WHY?! At first, I thought this was going to be a nice, calm romance where the characters actually get to know each other first, but no. As soon as Eveny sees Caleb she falls madly in love with him and they’re saying ‘I love you’ even though they know nothing about each other. Also, the dialogue was really unrealistic as a whole.

As for the magic and the actual plot, it was intriguing to begin with. I liked learning about the world, although I’ve read some other reviews that say how watered down it is compared to the history of casting and voodoo. There was also a mystery surrounding the killer and Eveny’s mother’s death and her father and literally every aspect of her life. Some parts were predictable, but it was fun to piece together what we knew and it was pretty easy to guess who the killer was. Not really a big surprise or anything. The ending felt rushed and I’m not sure whether I’m interested enough to continue the series.

As you can probably tell, I gave this book 1 star and I definitely will not be recommending it. Read Beautiful Creatures or Rebel Belle instead if you want a fun book set in the south.