Title: Welcome to Dorley Hall: The Sisters of Dorley Hall
Author: Alyson Greaves
Genre: TQIA+, Mystery, Contemporary, Adult Fiction
Publisher: Independently published
Publication Date: 25 July 2024
Comments: I received a physical copy from The Write Reads and the author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and in no way influenced by the patriarchy.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61098513-welcome-to-dorley-hall
Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Welcome-Dorley-Hall-Alyson-Greaves-ebook/dp/B0D4FFLKKZ/ref=sr_1_1
Synopsis
Mark Vogel is like the older brother Stefan Riley never had, until one day he disappears, and Stefan has to adapt to life without him. But, one year later, Stefan becomes obsessed when he runs into a girl who looks near-identical to Mark. He discovers that other boys have disappeared, too, dozens over the years, most of them students of the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, many of them troubled or unruly before their disappearance.
What is happening to these boys? Who are the handful of women on campus who bear a striking resemblance to some of those who went missing? And what is the connection to the mysterious Dorley Hall?
Stefan works hard to get into the Royal College for one reason and one reason only: to find out exactly what happened to the women who live at Dorley Hall, and to get it to happen to him, too.
A closeted trans girl attempts to infiltrate a secret underground forced feminisation programme.
Content note: this story engages with some reasonably dark topics, including but not limited to torture, manipulation, dysphoria, nonconsensual surgery, and kidnapping. While it isn’t intended to be a dark or dystopian story, the perspective characters carry a lot of baggage, and the exploration of the premise might be triggering for trans readers.
Review
I really hate it when I get an ARC or promotional book and I just can’t get into it. Not just can’t get into it, but genuinely dislike it to the point of DNF.
I was initially tempted by the gorgeous gothic dark academia vibes of the cover and the blurb promising that it was a sci-fi horror: think Frankenstein for trans people, and I feel sadly let down. (Although not by Dave of the WriteReads because he knows all he has to do is ask and I will bend over backwards to help- although not literally because of bad back issues.)
So what went so wrong?
I think it started to fall apart for me after two chapters (I know!) Stef was friends with his best friend’s big brother- Mark- who went missing.
A year later, he is shopping in Tesco and sees a girl who looks exactly like Mark did. Now, he has a moment of thinking- “Hey could she be related to Mark?” but then skips very quickly into “Hey, what if this was Mark all along and he went to a special campus where they helped him become a transwoman?”
I honestly had to pause and check several things. 1- Was this the second in the series and I’d missed a whole host of backstory. Nope.
2- Did I accidentally skip chapters and Stef’s logical process to reach this conclusion? Nope.
3- Am I the problem? Did I read it wrong? Nope.
So after a truly impressive, let’s almost say occultish leap of logic Stef then decides to research the school Mark disappeared from and finds that over 20 years more than 6 men go missing every year from the same campus.
Let that sink in. 6 EVERY YEAR. Over 120 students have just vanished and this doesn’t somehow alert police, conspiracy theorists or any of these boys’ parents? No one has raised enough of a fuss of their missing kid to see a pattern?
Even if Dorley Hall sends suicide notes to parents or “gone travelling”, surely someone would have clocked these statistics sooner?
Aren’t there journalist students at this school? Normally those kinds of things become campus myths and are the bread and butter of media students.
Back to Stef who has researched this intensively and rather than think “serial killer” or “human trafficking” he’s memorising faces and then checking to see if there are girls that look like them.
How?
I went to a UK University. My picture was never up on any website, they don’t take class pictures in the UK. If you are down for extra-curricular activities maybe you’d be mentioned in the Student Union brochure. But since the graduates from Dorley Hall want to keep a low profile they wouldn’t advertise their presence. Where does he find the 5 or 6 girls who look alarmingly similar and how does he prove he isn’t just seeing what he wants to?
Is Stef stalking social media 24/7 to see if someone happened to look like one of the missing boys?
Is he hacking databases to see student ID card pictures?
Is he wandering Campuses staring at girls? Does he require a restraining order?
Surely Dorley Hall has safeguards in place against that level of cyber intrusion given their level of activity.
So then we get to the crux of the matter when he decides to join that Uni and go looking for himself.
Spoilers from here on out.
Stef lets his theory leak to someone from Dorley Hall and they set him up to be taken inside the building.
In the basement are men who have been jerks. Whether they have beaten up their wives or girlfriends, or been toxic misogynistic a*holes, they have all perpetrated some sort of attack against women. In revenge, these men are brainwashed and tortured and then given ‘re-education’ about the horrors of the patriarchy and toxic masculinity and made into “women” against their will. They are castrated and forced to live life as another gender.
Stef is, of course, entranced by the idea of being able to transition to female without the huge bill that the surgeries would require. Because Stef is secretly trans, of course.
So, Stef decides to stay with the program to get his/her transition done this way despite being a nice person and having guilt about being male to start with.
Aaaaaannnddd this is where I DNFed. 7 chapters in.
I am not transgender, I have never had gender dysphoria. I have body issues and body dysmorphia but I can’t identify with the characters and to be honest, I don’t want to.
Most of the other reviews have pointed out how warm and sisterly the relationship between all of the post-op survivors and how that is empowering. They’re so Brady Bunch and consent is key it’s bordering on twee and it feels performative. “Look at those of us who accept the transition, we’re so affirming and loving to each other.”
What I can say is that forcing a whole bunch of men, who didn’t want to be women, into being women to teach them a lesson is barbaric. Whether or not they end up accepting their new body is not the point. I thought trans rights were all about giving people the option to choose to transition or choose their gender assignment. Laying out this procedure as somehow altruistic or beneficial is counter-productive and blind.
There is also the underlying agenda that insinuates being a man is somehow bad and must be punished.
And then there’s the constant poking at the NHS who, yes are still behind with everything, but are doing their best in really unfavourable circumstances. They have no money and are all exhausted.
I’m going to stop now because I could go on a rant about this topic alone.
Safe to say I didn’t like it, it wasn’t for me and I won’t continue.
The cover, however, is really pretty.
About the Author
Alyson lives in a very small flat in a very large city, and writes fiction with trans themes and characters. Her Twitter is twitter.com/badambulist
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