#6 Welcome to Dorley Hall + Secrets of Dorley Hall, Alyson Greaves
i ended up reading the books one after another, so it felt appropriate to group the blog entries together... they can definitely stand on their own and have satisfying conclusions to each story arc, but the fact the story was originally serialized chapter-by-chapter online is quite noticeable, so writing two blog posts would feel kind of silly. i considered reading whats currently released of the third book too, but i dont feel the need and would probably just end up frustrated if i caught up on a cliffhanger or something.
i have to admit i liked kimmy more, considering it is a self contained story with a small cast and the overall premise was more up my alley. dorley hall really feels like it suffers from an overabundance of characters, the cast already starts off somewhat bloated since the premise requires several generations of groups of 5-10 people who are more or less active in the continued existence of the organization, and who all have complicated inter and intra-generational relationships with eachother. fundamentally this is a me problem though since im horrible at remembering names so i keep mixing up people who have similar ones. lol. it is just kinda what you have to contend with when you try to make a believable university environment where you want to show that the characters are improving as people because they have such a large support network of like-minded individuals who went through similar traumas, both pre-dorley and during their 'reeducation'. the core cast are well characterized and fairly distinct despite their similar circumstances, but it is kinda funny that everyone has a convoluted reason to have a phd in trans studies even if i get that itd be annoying as hell to read a trans book where that isnt the case
the first book is well conceptualized and slowly develops its world and themes, expanding both our knowledge of the world as well as the characters, both christine and steph feel like natural POVs with their own view of the world, but at the same time it takes place over such a short period of time that we only get to see the 'point' (forcefem) of dorley in flashbacks and conversations. the second book sped up the story somewhat to get on with it but because of the fact it needs to create a believable sense of time passing and events going on it ended up feeling like it was dragging on with some of its plot points and restating things that were already said, considering there were multiple moments where characters had to have the whole 'forcefem rehabilitation of bad men' spiel to unaware participants who reacted in more-or-less similar ways. this also fundamentally feels like a sin of the serialized publishing context, it feels repetitive reading it over several days but probably not while waiting for days/weeks between chapters.
despite my complaints it is a very engaging series with quite good characters and a refreshingly thoughtful setting. i will always and forever love a writer who can look at a setting thats been codified to hell and back and whose readers suspend their disbelief in the name of escapism lolol/jerkin' it, and decide to actually explore what would happen if this shit happened to real life human beings and how they would deal with it. and the economic logistics of having an underground forcefem jail where you kidnap misbehaving 20year old university students.
at the end of the day im more interested in the 'backstory' of beatrice+co and the events happening outside of the confines of dorley hall itself but its definitely a series i will continue following, maybe not religiously, but still. theres something special about a work that can have a trans woman and forcefem woman bond over having a beautiful non-normative gender experience and still ending up in the same place and happier than they were before.
"honestly i feel like my main problem with lgbt fiction is that the whole story either revolves around struggling to come out and find themselves in the world, OR the characters identity is absolutely irrelevant outside of them going 'btw im transgender/gay/bi/etc' either at the beginning of the novel or 3/4ths in so the fact that dorley does neither makes me actually able to read it without cringing the entire time so if you feel the same way this book might be for you" - nikola oiyum, glowing recommendation, 2025