Book Review – The Doll Factory | Smitten For Fiction

The cover for The Doll Factory caught my eye (It reminds me of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), then I read the synopsis and knew I just had to request the ARC from Netgalley. This is an exquisite debut from Elizabeth Macneal.

About The Book 📚

Publication Date: August 13, 2019

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Gothic

Goodreads Link

My Review

› The Doll Factory is a fantastically dark, odd, heart-breaking tale that takes place in Victorian London, around The Great Exhibition of 1851. The Exhibition displayed the triumphs of industry, culture, and art.
• Thirty-eight-year-old Silas Reed runs a Shop of Curiosities. He supplies taxidermy to artists to use as models and is seeking a remarkable oddity to display at The Great Exhibition which begins in six months. Ten-year-old Albie, expert pick-pocket, brings Silas weird, dead animals in exchange for money. Silas is overjoyed when Albie brings Silas a dead two-headed puppy.
• Albie, who only has one tooth left, is saving money for a new set of teeth, so he works as many odd jobs as he can. In addition to helping Silas, he also sews tiny skirts for Mrs. Salter’s Doll Emporium. Mrs. Salter is a mean woman who employs twenty-one-year-old twins Iris and Rose. Iris has a twisted collarbone (broken at birth) and Rose is scarred by smallpox that she contracted when she was sixteen-years-old.

• Iris has an adventurous spirit and wants to escape her life that feels like a prison. Rose was once perfect, however, smallpox has left her with scars everywhere, feeling ugly and unable to have hope of escaping their confined living with Mrs. Salter.
• Albie introduces Silas to Iris, and the man obsessed with oddities becomes immediately infatuated with Iris and her twisted collarbone.
• While having a drink at a pub, Silas learns that the dove he stuffed for a well-known painter, Louis, has rotted, and his model for his newest painting walked-out. Louis is attempting to create a painting masterpiece to submit for the Exhibition. Silas suggests Louis ask Iris to be his model.

• Louis is a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (a real-life group of English artists founded in 1848). Iris refuses his model offer but agrees to check out his studio. Louis is a determined, charming man, and eventually, Iris agrees to model BUT in return, he must give her painting lessons every day. He pays her a good wage, which allows her to leave Mrs. Salter’s Doll Emporium and move into her own apartment. Iris unsuccessfully tries to convince Rose to leave too. Outraged that she would work as a model (which was no better than being a prostitute at the time), her parents refuse to speak with her.
• Louis and Iris develop a romantic relationship, while Silas becomes completely obsessed with Iris. People are killed, hearts get broken (including my own), but there is a small amount of hope – even the smallest ray of sunshine can cut through shadow.

› Likes 😻
• The writing style is perfection. Macneal writes amazing characters full of personality.
• The setting! OH…the atmosphere. I felt like I was right there in Victorian London.
• Iris is a strong young woman. She’s willing to push the boundaries of women’s roles to chase her dreams.
• Silas is a psychopath, but I still rooted for him! He’s such an amazing character who begins in a morally gray world and slowly drags us down into the deepest depths of darkness.
• Macneal highlights the class division, poverty, gender roles and the social norms of the mid 19th Century. The title is not just about the Doll Factory that Iris leaves, but about the arbitrary societal rules imposed upon women. Women at the time were confined to rules that made them live a certain way, unable to make their own choices. The title is also about the “Doll Factory” that Silas creates with taxidermy and the way in which he views Iris as simply another oddity to collect. I just LOVE it when a book title has so many different meanings.

› Final Thoughts
• Macneal has created a gritty, gothic historical tale about friendship, love, taking risks, fulfilling dreams, and obsession. If you like character-driven thrillers with a setting that you can smell, and a slow-burning, spine-tingling story then you simply must check out The Doll Factory. One of the best books I’ve read in 2019! FIVE STARS!

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for the complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.