I was intrigued by the premise of this, particularly drawn in by the female friendship that evolves over the years, the mysterious deaths, dual timeline, and school setting, but it ultimately didn’t work for me.

Here’s some of the reasons why:

The characters felt flat.
Modern day Sadie’s voice didn’t feel distinct enough from young Nikki’s.
I felt like I was constantly being told the character’s motivations but couldn’t buy it because I wasn’t being shown it.
The school setting wasn’t fleshed out—It felt like there were only 5 people on the entire campus?!?
The Sylvia Plath stuff was too on the nose.
The “who done it” reveal wasn’t satisfying or believable.

I’m disappointed because this has all the perfect fall vibes on paper!

There's something unique about childhood friends, the people who see you through adolescence and into adulthood and know your secrets and struggles from that time with an intimacy that platonic relationships down the road usually can't accomplish. That's not to say childhood friendships always, or even usually, last with the same power as lives diverge, but the love and connection often linger. That's the case in Doll Parts, the debut novel from Penny Zang.

Doll Parts is a novel made up of two genres blended together. First up is Sadie, who, in a domestic thriller sort of plot, finds herself, twenty years after college, raising a baby with her ex-best friend's widow. Despite not having seen or heard from Nikki in almost two decades, Sadie came to her funeral and ended up sharing more than grief with Harrison. The pregnancy might have been accidental, but her baby turns out to be a great distraction from how much Nikki's adult daughter, Caroline—and what seems like all the women in this upscale neighborhood—hate her guts for being the interloper. On top of that, she's started seeing Nikki's ghost around the house. Postpartum psychosis? Seems less like that when she starts finding some pretty big clues from Nikki for Sadie to pick up where she left off. Which, of course, she does. Nikki's death was an accident, or suicide, but it doesn't take long for Sadie to figure out there's more to the story.

Meanwhile, twenty years in the past, Nikki's story is one of sharp dark academia. At the private all-girls university where Nikki landed a scholarship, professors might be life-changing mentors or wolves in sheep's clothing and someone or something's been killing the girls in this so-called "Sylvia Club," named for the entire campus's obsession with Plath and other beautiful dead women. Alarmingly for Nikki, most of those girls are just like her: from underprivileged backgrounds, on scholarship, drowning under the weight of the requirements for keeping that crucial funding. The last few victims of this supposed curse or club is Dr. Weedler, the classic deeply invested professor who hides rampant misogynism behind a thin veneer of allyship. His, uh, hands-on approach to mentoring is known to many of the girls, and to Dr. Gallina, a female professor who seeks out and mentors struggling girls with promise, but who might herself be a little too invested in their struggles. To make matters worse, Nikki, already emotionally haunted by her mother's recent death, sees the ghosts of the dead girls everywhere she goes, and they demand she find answers for them.

Two types of plots, two very different voices, and putting them in concert is a little rocky, until it isn't. When the clues start coming together, it feels like a satisfying and cohesive two-lens story, though until then Sadie and her post-birth isolation can be stifling. It's much easier to get into the familiar stress and excitement of campus life through Nikki, and the biting quality of her voice (and her well-earned grievance) help propel the story onward. There are clues early on that not all is well, and that's before anyone starts talking about dead students or ghosts. But in the same way that generations of people (mostly women) have had to bend under the will of powerful people (mostly men), that tension, too, is familiar. Sadie and Nikki were well matched as teenagers, but both as a younger voice and at the margins of Sadie's story, it's clear that Nikki is the one with all the momentum for the pair.

That said, it was gratifying seeing Sadie awake from her stupor of grief and radical life changes. She may be the one seeing ghosts, but she's also living like one when we meet her, hardly taking up space in her ex-bestie's house with her ex-bestie's ex surrounded by her ex-bestie's things. It's only through the needling of Nikki's ghost, and Sadie tumbling through memory and the mystery Nikki left behind, that she begins to come back to life.

But friends can do that, sometimes. Even when two people have grown apart at some point, life may bring them colliding back together, and memories made during a formative time have a habit of sticking around. The mysteries and deaths and drama in Doll Parts are merely details to that time-worn tale of lasting, if not always active, friendship.

This book has a lot going on, and I’m not sure that it tied all its threads together successfully, but it was an entertaining enough ride. It was frankly kind of unbelievable that Sadie would go to her estranged friend’s funeral and immediately get pregnant with the dead friend’s husband. I found the suspension of disbelief required there kind difficult to get over. Maybe Sylvia Plath lovers will get more out of this than I did. Ultimately this was just meh — not bad, but definitely not good.

Penny Zang’s Doll Parts is a beautifully melancholic, atmospheric thriller that blurs the line between memory and the supernatural. Hypnotic prose, eerie gothic imagery, and the haunting push and pull of Nikki and Sadie’s friendship make this an unsettling yet irresistible read. It’s a story of grief, obsession, and the ghosts—both literal and emotional—that shape our lives.

Read if you like:
– Female friendship that cuts deep
– Gothic, dark academia suspense
– The nostalgia + ache of The Virgin Suicides
– Paranormal chills woven into mystery

I really wasn’t sure what to expect going into this book. I loved that this book took play in the 90s, i definitely felt the nostalgia. This book was beautifully written and touched on some sensitive subjects, but I was fine with that. This is definitely a book that will stick with you long after you finish it.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this ARC!

Aesthetically, I enjoyed this debut. I love a dark academia book that promises hauntings and complicated female friendships. However, I feel it failed to deliver on substance.

The storytelling itself was disjointed between the two plot lines, though it was tied together well in the end. The characters were fun, though a bit predictable, and I enjoyed a lot of the descriptions of the MFCs’ time in college together, performing seances and just being girls!

I think my biggest problem was the hyper fixation on suicide, especially female suicides, that didn’t provide the necessary critique to validate using such dark symbolism. It came across as actual fetishization rather than a social commentary on the fetishization of female struggles - if that makes sense. I think I’m also a little over the using of Sylvia Plath as the only dark female icon.

All in all, this novel felt like it wanted to be the next Virgin Suicides but lack the needed depth. The characters were solid and I felt the storyline kept me hooked to the end, but left me with a weird taste in my mouth. I think this author has a lot of potential however, and I would read work she puts out in the future to see how her writing develops!

I feel like this book has an interesting take on showing friendship. Sadie and Nikki we're best friends growing up but grew apart. Until one of them dies. Along with the spookiness of the school they went to and the strange deaths that occurred there. This would be like the virgin suicides but 2025 addition.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Doll Parts by Penny Zang.

Listen, I just can't with this creepy/gross sad white girl college cult stories anymore. The next time I even get a hint of one, I'm running for the hills.

You're gonna tell me that the main character married her dead best friend's husband after her friend dies in a string of "suicides" in their college days. And now, surprise surprise, shit's getting weird for the main character? Omg, at the very least, I'm fine with karma coming to get her, let alone her friend's pissed off ghost, I'm done.

I mean, don't write this off just because I'm crusty, and jaded and have read too many of these, but for me and my house, no more spooky sorority dead girl clubs.

Holy junior high grunge flashbacks! Doll Parts by Penny Zang had a dual timeline that was on part modern suspense and one part early-90s nostalgia. The early timeline follows Nikki and her best friend Sadie dealing with a pervert teacher at their fancy private school, the latter shows Sadie (as an adult) dealing with the unexpected suicide of Nikki- whom she hasn't talked to in decades. What really happened in that school? Why did the friends stay apart? And was Nikki's death really a suicide? Truth always has a way of surfacing and Zang's prose have you anxious to know what happens next. While I did catch on to one of the twists, the other left me SHOOK. And bonus points for the grunge playlist the story basically insists you make. This was an emotional thriller that is going to capture audiences.

I feel like this was dark academia meets virgin suicides. Loved it. It’s a gritty one, but I loved the era and all of the Plath references.
It’s eerie and mysterious and I honestly some times had no idea what was actually happening.
If you need some layered fiction, this is the one.
Doll Parts lives up to its name, and the hype on this book is so dang real.
Thank you netgalley!

This a creepy book. That’s not saying I didn’t like it, because I did. It does remind me of the Virgin Suicides in some ways.
The writing is good, it’s a slower paced psychological thriller and mystery that takes awhile to get going. The characters are all a bit damaged but I found myself rooting for them. It was a sad story but I would recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for a honest opinion. 4⭐️

A strong entry into the dark academia canon. Told in interwoven narratives, the book tells the story of two friends from their college years to the time when one friend is gone, leaving the other with a mystery to solve. The book explores the long impact of trauma and why people are drawn to it. There was some lack of character depth in the Sadie character and I felt we knew her less but overall this is a fast-paced read with a few surprises along the way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the arc!

This book did not do it for me. The writing lacked depth for how dark the subject matter isband I couldn’t take it seriously or get behind the dual storyline.

The ending was kind of satisfying but unfortunately I just couldn’t get past the cringe of the “unaliving” obsession. Please read the trigger warnings! There was too much levity for how dark the subject matter is.

It just fell flat for me. I kept going because it was definitely engaging and I wanted to know what happened in the end. But overall it left me uneasy.

Doll Parts is a haunting dual-timeline novel that weaves grief, friendship, and mystery into something unforgettable. In the ’90s, Nikki and Sadie dive into radical art and a dark campus subculture, while in the present, Nikki’s own death drives the search for truth. With ghosts, secrets, and a chilling thread of suicides, this story blends atmosphere and emotion in a way that lingers long after the last page.

DOLL PARTS by Penny Zang has so much going for it: the 90s, deep friendship, gothic elements, a mystery. Based on the book's description, I could not wait to read it and began reading it the moment I was approved for the title. But then it took me a very long time to finish it; I kept putting is aside for other novels. I appreciated how morally gray all of the characters were; it's a strength of the novel. However, where I struggled was with the two timelines. The timeline with Sadie and Nikki (the past) is so compelling and vivid that when the book moved to to the present timeline, I didn't want to go with it. I wanted to stay with the two characters in the past. It can be so difficult to pull off dual timelines that each keep the reader equally engaged and turning the pages and DOLL PARTS definitely encountered that difficulty. I will keep an eye out for Penny Zang's work in the future; I'm so curious what she'll bring her readers next.

Doll Parts is an eerie, atmospheric story that blends dark academia with a chilling ghost tale. Sadie moves into her late best friend’s house, but soon realizes Nikki’s presence may not be gone. With whispers of the Sylvia Club and the mysterious deaths surrounding it, the story takes on a haunting, layered quality that pulled me in.

There is strong themes of friendship, grief, and secrets. While it leans a bit slow in places, the unsettling atmosphere kept me turning the pages. A compelling and beautifully haunting read!

I really enjoyed this debut novel, but kept thinking to myself: this again...? That again? What I meant was that there was a lot of repetitive telling of the story. Perhaps it just needed a little tightening, streamlining, something to weed out the repetition because the story was really entertaining. I was convinced of the friendships of the before, and didn't need to constant reminder of that.

This was creative and fun, for sure, especially you can tell the author's appreciation of Sylvia Plath. She had me even more curious about who Assia Wevill was and her fate. Of course, Sadie paralleled with Assia Wevill, moving in and having a baby with Nikki's grieving husband Harrison. But I never truly understood how Sadie and Harrison even had any sort of connection. I think it was too convenient for that to happen just so Sadie and Assia can be linked.

But there was a baseline of a great friendship and a crime that happened. I really like her structure of how she built the mystery, just wished I wasn't too bogged down with all the repeats. But still, this was a great read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Told in a dual timeline, this is a story of two best friends from childhood who go to college together and then lose touch after an ~incident~ on campus. One friend then dies and the other friend finds herself basically slotting herself into her life - living in her house, dating her husband, raising a child - while trying to figure out what happened.

The before timeline was much stronger and much more compelling in my opinion - whenever we would go to the present timeline, I'd secretly be wishing I could read about the college timeline. I think that the characters were all morally grey, which was a strength - like, why was I rooting for a character who slept with her dead best friend's husband after her funeral?

The prose was really compelling, and the setting was also great (yay, Baltimore!), but I wish the story had just taken a few extra steps in terms of endings and also characterization.

Penny Zang’s atmospheric and claustrophobic debut novel has it all: suspicious deaths, a fractured female friendship and a Sylvia Plath suicide club set in the angsty, grunge-driven 90s. So let’s dive in…

Twenty years after a mysterious rift ended their friendship, Nikki commits suicide, and Sadie becomes involved with Nikki’s husband, Harrison. The plot unfolds across two timelines: the present, where Sadie navigates a new life, and the past, when both women were college freshmen in Baltimore. The present-day story, from Sadie’s perspective, shows her life one year after Nikki’s death. She’s now living with Nikki’s grieving husband, Harrison, and their baby, trying to adjust to the perfect suburban lifestyle. But Nikki seems to be everywhere, haunting her from beyond the grave.

Link to full review: https://westwordsreviews.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/doll-parts-penny-zang/

This book was so many things. It was dark, it was nostalgic (the 90’s) and gothic. It is not my usual genre but I wanted to try something different. It is based around two best friends, one dies and the other get together with her man. There are secrets, shady characters and a subtle twist at the end. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.