I would say this is aimed at middle grade to young adult readers. We follow Ella, she's a doll and loves to dance and is visited by her beloved professor who looks after her. Ella can walk, talk and dance but she's never been outside and passes her lonely days in a dusty attic. One day the professor introduces another doll, unlike Ella this doll starts questioning their existence and the role of the professor. This starts of quite childlike and all quite a light read but becomes darker as the story unfolds. I enjoyed the story but I'm not it's target audience. I believe this is a trilogy, however I won't be continuing on with the others

Unfortunately I wasn't able to go through with this. I might come back someday.

I would like to thank the publisher and netgalley for providing me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

A story about girls made up of dolls, with all the same type of complex teenage emotion in a tiny body. Ella is trying to get to know new doll Lisa but it's hard when Lisa seems to have a vendetta against her. The dolls have to figure out how to save their creator's granddaughter from being turned into one of them and being denied the life she should lead.

This was....fine. I found the writing a bit simplistic and childlike and I was definitely rubbed up the wrong way at the start with descriptions of Lisa's "gothness" and then comments about how she used to self harm which seemed to be a bit of a stereotype. The book in unique and does keep the reader guessing with lots of different twists and turns but I can't say I really enjoyed it and probably won't recommend it to others.

Broken Dolls was a book that I couldn't wait to read, but wait I did. After seeing a few bad reviews I wasn't sure I wanted to read it. I waited for the hype to die down and read it. I wish I had read it a bit earlier, but I will say the ending was disappointing. I wanted it to end with a bang like the rest of the book did. It's so unique the ending shouldn't have been amazing as well. That's my only complaint about it though. I really enjoyed this book.

This book was strange but I actually really enjoyed it. It definitely isn’t an all-time favourite but I’d say it’s definitely worth a read, as it’s unique and short. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Ella has lost her memory, so that the reader can relate to her in the way that neither knows what is going on, as obviously she is a character that you couldn’t normally relate to, being a doll.

I loved this book for how unique it is, I’ve never read anything else quite like it and it was a quirky read too. There’s a lot of mystery involved, as you don’t really find out what is truly going on until towards the end of the story. I did really enjoy this mystery though, it wasn’t overcomplicated, which was perfect as it is a short book and if it had been too complex it would have been too much and potentially overwhelming.

The characters were quite flat, I will say, but then I guess that’s mainly because Ella is a doll and doesn’t really know herself, so there is not a lot of room for development anyway. In fact, she was probably the least developed of them all, though this may seem to be so because her character is quite shallow and simple anyway. Gabby is the best developed, though I still feel as though there was a lot of room for improvement in terms of character in this book. Then again, it was a short book, so it perhaps wasn’t long enough for this to be included.

The plot was really what grabbed me though with this story - as I’ve said it’s very unique - and I did find myself engrossed in the events and wanting to know what was going to happen. Because all that Ella truly understood was what she felt it did mean that I felt her fear, so to speak, and I’d find myself seeing the characters through her eyes due to the way she’d react. I found this was really interesting as it gave the story a very one-sided view but worked to build up the tension and mystery that I particularly enjoyed.

Overall, I would recommend this book. It’s very short and quirky and definitely worth picking up. It wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read, and there were a lot of places where more development was necessary or could have been included, but nevertheless this is a fun read all the same.