SO GOOD :) i LOVED IT AND I WANT THE SEQUEL... HAVE TO SAY I LOVED IT AND LOVED THE TWISTS AND TURNS

SO GOOD :) i LOVED IT AND I WANT THE SEQUEL... HAVE TO SAY I LOVED IT AND LOVED THE TWISTS AND TURNS

City of a Thousand Dolls was an engaging read, though the ending felt rushed. Whereas at first Forester hoarded clues and secrets like a squirrel with acorns, the last quarter was revelation after revelation, giving me very little time to adjust. Some of the secrets were subtly woven in, often buried beneath each new murder so that in the end I was able to look back and recognized the signs. And some became painfully obvious far too quickly.

At first I didn't understand the big deal about Nisha. She alternated between being unbelievably naive and independent. I blame Devan for this mainly. The entire family of his were a thorny manipulative bunch of of jackals, though to his credit I think Devan did genuinely care for Nisha...he was however a spineless coward as well. Nisha rose above her early unlikeableness though. Her interactions with the cats, her investigation and insistence for the truth drove this story.

In some ways I think this reminded me of Avatar: the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. At least what I enjoy most about those shows. This story was about balance in the end. The Empire finding a balance between what was working and what wasn't, the girls of the Houses finding a balance between their wants/expectations and reality, the balance of past mistakes and potential failures in the future and lastly Nisha finding a way to come to terms about where she belongs.

I can't help but think that there will be more books about Nisha and this world, and for that I'm hopeful. While Forester does a good job wrapping up Nisha's story in this novel, there are by far more mysteries and secrets to uncover before I think her story is fully told. ( )

On the whole, I really enjoyed this book -- interesting fantasy world of girls training to be courtesans and mindspeaking cats, interesting girl with a mystery around her family and a murder mystery it's up to her to solve.

The two things that bugged me:

1: the plot is not entirely convincing in parts, and is relatively predictable.

2: The audio book is well read, but I think it might take listening to the book to notice how often the sentences begin with the main character's name. I swear "Nisha" is repeated so often I wanted to make a drinking game out of it.

Anyway, this one is going to be a series, and I can honestly say I have no idea where it's going from here, so I eagerly look forward to the next installment. Nisha! Nisha! Nisha! ( )

A most delightful world, full of wonder and colour, but also built of consequences and history and flow-on effects. And it's southern-Asian in derivation, which gets bonus points from me. The plot was sometimes a little laden with revelation for my taste, but our heroine was a solid, interesting, realistic young lady, and she was surrounded with a wide variety of differently interesting and realistic ladies - the setting of a school for all types of girls really gave an opportunity to show many different facets of "woman", and I feel the author did a great job showing that wildly differing priorities for life can have equal value.

So while this wasn't the best book I'll read this year, it's got more than enough merit to warrant four stars. Even with the talking animals. ( )