City of a Thousand Dolls - Miriam Forster

Nisha has lived in the City of a Thousand Dolls for almost as long as she can remember. Abandoned at the city gates with nothing but a mysterious tiger mark and no distinguishable caste mark, she is raised in a secretarial  role to the Matron of the city. As an errand runner, Nisha has limited access to all of the training Houses in the city: Pleasure, Beauty, Music, Jade, Combat, and Flowers. Although she's not technically part of any of them, she is given permission to train in Combat and Music so that she may be considered at the Redeeming, when all of the eligible girls are showcased to be bought for their various skills and inducted into a caste. Her past isn't the only secret either; Nisha is able to mind-speak with the local tribe of spotted cats, said to bring good luck to the city. They are that and more for Nisha, especially Jerrit, her closest confidant outside of Tanaya, a House of Flowers trainee who has been selected to be the wife of the Prince. She has also cultivated a relationship with Devan, the city's messenger, even though his higher caste could cause serious trouble if anyone ever found out. Although she lives in fear of discovery, she continues to sneak out to meet him, hoping that he will claim her at the Redeeming as his wife. However, all of her plans are pushed to the back of her mind when the body of one of the initiates is found on the city grounds.

The first girl's death could have been suicide, but soon after, another girl is found floating in the maze fountain, poisoned. Tension starts to build as people start to realize that there may be a murderer on the loose. Meanwhile, Nisha discovers that the Council has plans to sell her instead of letting her attend the Redeeming, thinking they will get a better price for her. Desperate to avoid becoming a slave, she offers to gather information and try to track down the murderer, realizing that her unique position in the City could help her discover things that would remain hidden to others. Soon, she is deeply embroiled in a plot that could have national consequences, not to mention potentially fatal ones for her and her closest friends. As she searches for clues, she uncovers secrets about herself and the City of a Thousand Dolls that have remained buried for years. But can she catch the murderer before she becomes a victim herself?

Let me start off by saying that this book seems to have really negative online reviews. There's not enough character development, the world-building is lacking, the plot is boring... and so on and so forth. While I agree with some of the points reviewers made, I actually really liked it. The culture is kind of a Chinese/Indian hybrid and I thought it was interesting, but I also enjoyed the plot itself. The combination of mystery and the new culture were enough to keep me reading straight through the book and the ending was surprising. The fact that I seem to like books that are generally un-liked by the online reading community is somewhat worrying as it seems to reflect badly on my reading tastes and maturity, but oh well - what can you do?

As I said, there are some things I didn't like. For starters, Nisha's relationship with Devan is super shallow; they basically seemed like make-out buddies with no real emotional attachment, and the ending reflects this. However, we do have to take into consideration that she lives in what is essentially an all-female city and has little outside interaction with men, so we can't exactly expect her to have this amazingly deep relationship with the first male she happens to come across. The other thing that really bugged me was the founding principle of the city itself. Historically speaking, it's not exactly far off the mark, but the idea of girls being trained for certain skills and then sold off to the highest bidder is very irksome to me, especially for skill sets like those learned in the House of Pleasure (and I'm sure you can guess what those are). In addition to that, there's no secret made of the fact that many of the girls are to be wed to men many times older than themselves, and it's even intimated that one of the girls commits suicide to avoid this. The Matron saw the City as a way to rescue unwanted girls from worse fates, but it still made me feel uncomfortable. Despite these two main flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and would probably recommend it. (Plus, the cover art is pretty nifty!)

Pros:

• Fantasy murder mystery (three words that should be in the same sentence more often)
• Fascinating cultural aspects
• Unexpected plot twists

Cons:

• Shallow, unrealistic relationships
• The premise of the city may be disturbing (or, at the very least, moderately irritating), albeit historically accurate
• Some of the notions and plot mechanisms seemed a little cheesy, e.g. talking cats that know more about your past than you do and guide you to your destiny (or what-have-you)

And, because I am all about that trailer life (and some people hate reading long digressions when they can get the gist in under a minute), here's one for the book: