City of a Thousand Dolls

by Miriam Forster

The girl with no past, and no future, may be the only one who can save their lives. Nisha was abandoned at the gates of the City of a Thousand Dolls when she was just a little girl. Now sixteen, she lives on the grounds of the isolated estate, where orphan girls apprentice as musicians, healers, courtesans, and, if the rumors are true, assassins. She makes her way as Matron's errand girl, her closest companions the mysterious cats that trail her shadow. Only when she begins a forbidden flirtation with the city's handsome young courier does she let herself imagine a life outside the walls. Until one by one, girls around her start to die. Before she becomes the next victim, Nisha decides to uncover the secrets that surround the girls' deaths. But by getting involved, Nisha jeopardizes not only her own future in the City of a Thousand Dolls-but also her life.

• ISBN10: 0062121308
• ISBN13: 9780062121301
• Publish Date: 5 February 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperTeen
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.com.au/9780062121301

Reviews

"Sometimes, Nisha, people are not who you expect them to be."

I don't know when last I had so much fun reading a book. 

City of a Thousand Dolls is not a perfect read. 

[nannah]

Book content warnings:
slavery
ableism

The City of a Thousand Dolls is a place where unwanted girls are raised to become wives, trained apprentices, healers, musicians, or at worst: sold as slaves. The MC, Nisha, was dropped off at the city gates by her parents when she was small, to be raised without a specialty and protected by the spotted cats under the city's protection (whom she communicated with telepathically). However, before the ceremony in which girls are spoken for, girls start to die under suspicious circumstances, and it's up to Nisha to figure out who's responsible.

The setting is lush and lovely, inspired by the cultures of South Asia. I'm white, and the author's white, so I can't say how accurate or respectful this is. In any case, I love the characters. They (and their emotions) feel very real and relatable. Especially Nisha, the MC. I found myself really drawn into her personal story and conflict.

The mystery, though. City of a Thousand Dolls tries to present itself as a mystery (when it feels more like a fantasy dystopian drama?). I'm not sure how successfully it came across, at least to me. Farther into the book, I began to get a little sick of someone crying, "Something terrible has happened!" preluding a death. Every. Single. Time.

The ableism also stung: "No one is physically imperfect in the Imperial Court. No one. It is the worst sign of weakness." "Only common people are cripples."

I get it. Dystopiaaaaaa. But it feels like disabled people are being targeted unfairly somehow? The last 5 books I've read have been so filled with ableism it's starting to make me worry that this is a new YA trend or something . . .

On the bright side, Nisha in the second half and one other secondary character have disabilities, and they are treated with respect and sensitivity by the author. It makes me believe that Miriam Forster herself is not ableist, but just the world the story takes place is. Anyway, I'm excited to see what Nisha does next.

[ladygrey]

This story drew me into the characters pretty quickly. But then I had a hard time really diving into the story - in part because of how busy my life was when I tried to read it and also, I think, in part because the story unfolds kind of slowly. While there's things happening and questions being asked by the characters and as much as [a:Miriam Forster|5054179|Miriam Forster|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1333061992p2/5054179.jpg] puts a time limit on it to create tension... it didn't feel like there was a driving force to the plot to keep me engaged. Which, I mean more as an observation than a criticism because it's still a good book and because my books certainly don't have driving plots. But as I type this I realize that the reason the plot felt kind of languid is because it's a murder mystery but the heroine spend the first half of the book convinced it's not actually a murder. So, she doesn't really care. So, I didn't really care.

But again, that's all more observation than criticism. I liked that since it is a murder mystery, she got to it quickly. I liked that there are a lot of other unknowns in the story, even if I knew the answer to those within the first few chapters (or as soon as they were introduced). The revealing of the "bad guy" was (almost) a surprise, except about 15 pages before the reveal I thought, "What if it's [redacted]? haha." Just like that time I was talking to my sister when we were in the first half of [b:Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows|136251|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7)|J.K. Rowling|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1370023538s/136251.jpg|2963218] and I said, "What if Harry is a horcrux!? haha." So, yeah, you know how that turned out. But the last act of the book was big and exciting and fast paced and really good.

The good thing is that I was really drawn into the characters immediately, which I think was even more important than being drawn into the plot - even more important because of the languid plot. Nisha is such a sort of timid character for most of the book that I kept imagining her as being 12 years old instead of 16. Yet, I still liked her and I loved her friendship with the cats. The cats were actually really great characters.

The world building is also really solid and intriguing enough that I wanted more of it. I liked that this is a self-contained book but I also am glad it's part of a series because I'd like to read more in this world and see what other adventures Nisha and Jerritt get into.

[Amber]

The plot contained a lot of mystery and very little action. The mystery was good, someone was killing girls in the City of a Thousand Dolls, and Nisha was trying to find the culprit. I had no idea who the killer was going to be up until the reveal, so Miriam Forster did a great job with that. Unfortunately there were some other twists in there that I saw coming from a mile away. So while the novel was a bit predictable, the major plot was rather surprising!

Full review here: http://www.booksofamber.com/2013/02/city-of-thousand-dolls-by-miriam-forster.html