Review: "The Dollhouse Academy" by Margarita Montimore

The Dollhouse Academy by Margarita Montimore
Published February 2025 via Flatiron Books
★★★

For Ramona and her best friend Grace, an invitation to join the Dollhouse Academy is a dream come true. The Academy has created some of the biggest stars in the entertainment industry—entry isn't a guarantee of success, but success at the Academy is a guarantee of succeeding outside the Academy.

Meanwhile, Ivy is one of the Dollhouse's biggest success stories. She's been acting with them for almost two decades, since she was a teenager—she knows more of the Dollhouse's secrets than most. And she knows what Romana doesn't want to see—that it might be hard to get into the Dollhouse, but once you're in, it's even harder to get out.

They make it so easy to stay, surround you with a beautiful town, beautiful people, beautiful words. And once you taste success, you get hungrier for it, and you give away more of yourself to them without even realizing it. (loc. 2688*)

This is a twisty little story with perhaps something of a Black Mirror sense. It's clear early on that something is not quite right, but Ramona doesn't want to listen; initially, at least, she's too desperate for the promise of success. It's clear also that she's struggling at the Dollhouse, and it will take more than the skills she comes in with to deliver on that promise. I love the premise—this is sort of a boarding school story, but the setting is more ambivalent than that, as many of the characters are fully fledged adults. In a way more of a college story, I suppose, as they can (eventually) choose to move elsewhere if they like, though...if they're successful, they generally don't. The Dollhouse sees to that.

There were fewer surprises than I expected, though. The climax in particular feels more whimper than bang, but the "here is how the denizens of the Dollhouse are being controlled" was visible a mile away. Though I kept waiting for some kind of reveal about surveillance tactics, anytime Ramona ran off to have a secret conversation about the Dollhouse being sketchy (or, once, to share all of someone else's secrets with people who had given her no real reason to think they were trustworthy), any sense of danger turned out to be all in my head. I suppose I wanted something both more subtle and less subtle, if that makes any sense!

Ultimately a mixed bag for me. I'm curious to try something else by Montimore—her work seems quite high-concept.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.