Doll Parts

by Penny Zang

The Virgin Suicides meets I Have Some Questions For You in a dual timeline suspense following one woman as she begins to uncover the truth of the death of her estranged best friend and the Sylvia Plath adoring sad girls they attended college with decades ago, all while holding a secret that will slowly unravel her new, suburban dream life.

Some stories refuse to stay buried.

For best friends Nikki and Sadie, college was supposed to be a fresh start, a way to blast Courtney Love from car speakers and leave their youth behind. But along with sadness-obsessed girls and intrusive professors, a dark story plagues their small all-women’s school: the Sylvia Club, a campus legend surrounding the deaths of multiple Sylvia Plath-adoring students, all written off as suicides. Aspiring writer Nikki finds herself drawn to the tragic tales, so much so that dead girls begin to haunt her dark imagination. As she digs deeper, Nikki soon suspects there's much more to the story - a suspicion that will lead to a tragedy of its own, one that will tear her and Sadie apart.

It’s been nearly twenty years since Sadie last saw her estranged friend. Now, Nikki is dead, and when Sadie ends up pregnant by Nikki’s grieving husband not long after the funeral, she finds herself stepping into her ex-best friend’s seemingly perfect life. But the longer Sadie lives in Nikki’s eerily preserved home, the more she sees her appear and soon, she’s convinced that Nikki is sending her clues from beyond the grave. Because it seems Nikki never stopped looking for answers about what happened to the girls of the Sylvia Club, and she may have been its latest victim.

Told in a dual timeline, Doll Parts is an evocative and irresistible debut, at once an exploration of the dark chasms that break apart friendships, an ode to the aching beauty of girlhood, and a sharp portrayal of grief that can physically haunt you.

Genres: Mystery Thriller, Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Dark Academia, Suspense, Adult

400 pages, Paperback

First published August 26, 2025

About the author

Author of Doll Parts

Reviews

[Brittany’sBoundByBloodBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a faded polaroid with something sinister lurking at the edges, Doll Parts by Penny Zang is both nostalgic and chilling. This suspenseful debut unspools a tale of girlhood, loss, and the ghosts we carry, leaving an eerie imprint long after the final page.



Told in a dual timeline, the novel follows Sadie and Nikki, former best friends whose college years were shadowed by the eerie Sylvia Club, a campus legend surrounding the suspicious deaths of Sylvia Plath-obsessed students. While Nikki was once drawn to the club’s mysteries, her own fate is now the latest tragedy. In the present, Sadie steps into Nikki’s life, her house, her relationship, even her ghostly presence, only to find herself unraveling the dark truth that Nikki was chasing up until her death.

I loved the book, it was beautifully written, dripping with melancholy and suspense. Zang’s prose is hypnotic, and she captures the sharp edges of female friendship with a precision that cuts deep. The push and pull between Nikki and Sadie is gripping, and the book perfectly encapsulates the nostalgia and pain of looking back at the past through a cracked mirror.

That said, while the story had me hooked, the final reveal didn’t quite stick the landing. The mystery unraveled with more of a fizzle than a bang, and the subplot involving the dead girls and a sinister professor didn’t fully intertwine in a satisfying way. I was left wanting just a little more meat on the bones of the mystery. The pacing also dragged at times, there were moments where the slow-burn turned into a bit of a slog.

Still, Doll Parts is an intoxicating read, a gothic love letter to the friendships that shape us and the ghosts of the past that refuse to stay buried. It’s to die for, just not quite a five-star read for me.

🔪🔪🔪🔪-4 out of 5 knives for the sharp betrayals, unraveling mystery, and the sinister undercurrent running through the dual timelines.

[Celine · Rating 5 out of 5]

An astonishing debut novel that perfectly captures the razor edge feeling of girlhood - how all encompassing it is to be so young, so completely yourself, so unwaveringly sure of everything...and yet, once you leave (and you always must), you can never return.

I was blown away by the writing in here. The melancholy tone, which never felt overblown or dramatic. The finely tuned mysteries, which absorbed me to the end. All of it was perfect.

I was equal parts unable to stop reading and devastated that I had finished. Thank god I can just start it all over again.

(Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy, in exchange for my honest thoughts)

[Cheryl Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

From what I understand about dark academia I would say this book is a great example of the  sub genre as it contains the following:

●  Dark gothic college campus
●  Depressed students that worship Sylvia Plath
●  Images/ghosts of students who have passed
●  A professor who behaves poorly 
● Professors that students worship
●  Students who conduct seances
●  Messages sent from beyond the grave

As far as a thriller/murder mystery this novel contains:

●  Hidden messages
●  Hidden documents
●  Locked rooms with hidden keys
●  Dead students whose demise is unknown
●  Characters whose parents passed in a heartwrenching way
●  Dual timeline where characters are trying to discover secrets from the past 

This woman's college campus is full of extremely interesting characters.  It is populated with wealthy students as well as struggling scholarship girls who are unjustly held to a much more rigid standards than the others.  The school also has mysterious professors who are not held up to high standards.  The characters are well written and well developed.  They were truly individuals whose stories I wanted to follow.

There was an especially odd campus counseling center which was either closed or staffed with a counselor who only wanted to hand out pamphlets instead of talk to the girls needing help.  It was frustrating to see this at a campus which had a history of student suicides.

The ride or die friendship of the two main characters Nikki and Sadie was so very intriguing. They were two darker “outsiders” on campus.  

If you enjoy novels which include the components I have listed above definitely pick up a copy of Doll Parts.  Pub day is August 26!

Thank you to Jill Zhang as well as her publisher Sourcebooks Landmark for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this intriguing novel.  Thanks as well to NetGalley for facilitating the reading of Doll Parts.

[Angie Miale · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing and creative debut novel with dueling timelines of "sad girls on campus" twenty years ago and another timeline of today.

Sadie has a baby and lives with her child's father, Harrison. Harrison is recently widowed by Sadie's former childhood friend, Nikki. So, Sadie and Nikki were estranged and never spoke for 20 years. Nikki dies, seemingly of suicide, and Sadie sits in the back at her funeral. 9 months later we skip and Sadie is living with her widow and has a baby with him.

If this seems weird and a bit unbelievable, you aren't alone in that thought!

We side with Sadie and see things from her perspective. We don't love Harrison, we aren't sure about Caroline, who is Nikki and Harrison's teen daughter.

Both mysteries are good, the past one is better, it is clever to be following two mysteries in different timelines because it gets away from the typical criticism of slow burn mysteries as that it can drag in the middle.

Why is it called Doll Parts? No idea! I do love the cover, though.

My favorite character was Nikki, the past segments are in her view point.

Lots of open ended things with no conclusion, but it works. I liked this and found i very readable, some of the minor characters didn't have enough characterization so I didn't know them as well. I did love the setting and the writing style.

A fresh new voice in women centered mystery/thrillers!

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks/Landmark for the ARC. Book to be published August 26, 2025.

[mimi (semi-hiatus ‘cause on vacation) · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book about friendship, there was very little of it in here.
And that’s the biggest disappointment of all.

I'll start by saying that the narration and its clear intent of being “edgy” and kinda poetic didn't do for me.
The biggest problem of all: the dual POV, of which dual has very little. Sadie and Nikki are supposed to feel like the same person to underline how much alike they are, but since they are also supposed to draw a line between the before and after, in more points than I could count it felt more like a long, single narration.

Purposely or not, that's also upheld by how little we see of Nikki and Sadie’s friendship, which should be the core of the whole story but, for me, just wasn't.
There’s a plot twist now and before — both of which aren't really twists — and the most prominent character, aka Nikki, is always one step behind (of the reader, too).

As a mystery, being so obvious and lacking any aspect I could have expected, turned out flat.
As a whatever-the-author-wanted-to-tell, I'm disappointed in saying that the only part the two were really friends was when they down-talked one another and explained how well they knew their best friend’s worst traits — I knew I wasn't reading a comedy, but what a friendship.

↠ 2.8 stars

Thanks to SOURCEBOOKS Landmark and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

[Lori Bongiorno · Rating 5 out of 5]

After getting an advanced copy to review - I cannot wait for this debut novel to hit the shelves! Sadie moves into a house with her baby-daddy. Nevermind the fact that Harrison is a widower of about one week before she becomes pregnant and that the neighbors are less than welcoming, Harrison won’t let her move his deceased wife’s clothes, decorations, or ever enter her office.

Nevermind the fact that Sadie was best friends with his deceased wife, Nikki, for a lifetime until they lost contact a decade ago. The tale of their friendship unravels to reveal what Sadie doesn’t want to ever come to light - but as she starts to peel back the layers she finally realizes why some secrets can’t keep and that some ghosts refuse the dark.

You had me at Thriller and Suspense but Zang has added in some twisty paranormal and created a can’t-put-it-down book that refuses to let you close the cover until the final page.

Above all else - this is a love story of the most important kind. Zang has created a masterpiece.

[T. Greenwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am such a glutton for books about teenage girl friendships. And so while DOLL PARTS is a sort of dark academia mystery/thriller about a rash of college girls’ suicides, it’s the friendship between the two narrators that kept me riveted. A must-read for fans of Megan Abbott (and Sylvia Plath, who haunts these pages).

[Tini · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I fake it so real, I am beyond fake / And someday you will ache like I ache." - Hole, "Doll Parts"

4.5 stars rounded up.

Happy publication day to this astonishing debut novel! I am not usually drawn to ghost stories, but "Doll Parts" hooked me from the very first page. It's a haunting, atmospheric ode to girlhood and friendship, layered with nostalgia, grief, and a touch of mystery. Told in dual timelines, the novel seamlessly blends dark academia with domestic suspense, all told in beautifully eloquent prose.

At their women’s college outside Baltimore in the early 2000s, best friends Nikki and Sadie hoped for fresh beginnings, blasting Courtney Love and dreaming of the future. But shadows hung over campus - among them "the Sylvia Club", a grim legend tied to the deaths of multiple Plath-obsessed students. Nikki, an aspiring writer, found herself captivated by their stories, diving deep into research about the “sad girls” who came before.

Decades later, Nikki is dead, and Sadie - estranged from her best friend for years - finds herself entangled in Nikki’s life in an unsettling way. Living in her late friend’s preserved home, married to her grieving widower, and mother to his child, Sadie begins to sense Nikki’s presence everywhere. Is it grief, guilt, or something more? As past and present intertwine, Sadie uncovers the threads of Nikki’s unfinished search for the truth about the Sylvia Club - and realizes that some stories refuse to stay buried.

"Doll Parts" shines most in its atmosphere. The fall campus setting is drenched in melancholy, the Sylvia Club legend like a campus ghost story you can’t quite shake. Nikki’s voice in the past timeline is particularly vivid, lyrical, and poetic - at times the prose felt like reading a beautifully melancholic poem. Penny Zang never wastes a word, and as a result, each page is saturated with mood. Just as powerful is the depiction of Nikki and Sadie’s friendship. It is deep, messy, complicated, and utterly real; when it fractures, the loss feels like a physical blow. This is as much a novel about grief and the painful evolution of female friendship as it is about mystery and hauntings.

The resolution of the Sylvia Club mystery itself was a bit underwhelming, and there are a few loose threads. Personally, I found that fitting. In a story about grief, obsession, and the ache of unfinished lives, not every answer needs to be neatly packaged. The ambiguity feels true to life, where some mysteries will always remain unresolved.

"Doll Parts" is an evocative, gorgeously written debut that will especially resonate with fans of dark academia and literary suspense. You don’t need to be a Sylvia Plath devotee to appreciate it, though readers who know her work will find an added depth.

Haunting, lyrical, and both touching and thought-provoking, this novel lingers long after its final page.

Many thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

"Doll Parts"'s publication day is today, August 26, 2025.

[Lauren D'Souza · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this so badly, and I really gave it the old college try. But there was so much that frustrated me about this book, let me count the ways...

The "back then" plot was incredibly convoluted and implausible. There's a freshman writing professor at an all-girls college who loves Sylvia Plath, and his sycophants run a death-obsessed group called the Sylvia Club - but when six of the girls (seemingly) die by suicide and are all on the same scholarship program the school is just trying to cover it up? And threaten a student who tries to look into it? All of the "dark academia" portions just felt very juvenile and YA - not great if that's not what the author is trying to go for.

The "now" plot is similarly strange: that same girl who got in trouble for investigating the deaths is now dead herself (maybe 18 years later?) and her former best friend is dating and has a baby with her husband (???). There are many other strange details that I could go into here, but you get the point. I was scratching my head trying to wrap my head around the basic bones of the narrative here, let alone trying to follow the drama and reveals.

You know a thriller is not it when you find yourself completely uninvested in the process and uninvested in the characters - which is exactly what happened to me here.

[Jade (has lost the plot) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love everything about this book. It was not a perfect novel but it was messy, chaotic and slightly unhinged. It made me want to be a sad, weird girl. It made me want to listen to 90s grunge and journal in a cemetery. It made me want to read Sylvia Plath while smoking a cigarette.

Nikki and Sadie have always been each other’s whole world. Childhood best friends. Sisters in the absence of family. Co-conspirators in grief.

The novel drips in dark academia: loch raven is a gothic all girls college, haunted by the many suicides that occurred there over the decades. The ghosts of dead girls haunt the grounds. The students call them the sylvia plath girls. Nikki becomes obsessed with them. She relentlessly researches their stories. She starts seeing them everywhere. She starts to believe something isn’t quite right.

The story unfolds in two timelines.
The past belongs to Nikki, who tells the story of a wild friendship and the dead girls.
The present belongs to Sadie, older now, dulled by time and tragedy. Nikki is dead. She committed suicide. Sadie is left to piece together the mystery that Nikki spent her whole life trying to solve.

The writing was beautiful and raw. I felt this whole story in my bones. I loved it.

Were some parts of it weird? YES. Like I said, it’s not a perfect book. But that’s why I love it so much.

5 stars, no notes
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. 📖🎧

[anna ౨ৎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where do I even start with this deliciously melancholic, Sylvia Plath-obsessed fever dream of a novel? It’s like someone took The Virgin Suicides, sprinkled in a dash of mI Have Some Questions for You, and then doused it in 90s riot grrrl vibes with a side of paranormal chills. I’m still clutching my imaginary fishnets and swooning over the prose, but let’s unpack this gem, because this book deserves it, even if it made me work for it at times.

First off, the dual timeline structure—past Nikki and present Sadie—had me stumbling like a newborn fawn in chunky Doc Martens. The jumps between Nikki’s college days, where she’s chasing the dark allure of the Sylvia Club (a campus legend about Sylvia Plath-adoring girls meeting tragic ends), and Sadie’s present, where she’s navigating motherhood and living in Nikki’s creepily preserved home, took a hot minute to settle into. I’d be vibing with Nikki’s angsty, Courtney Love-blaring youth, only to be yanked into Sadie’s suburban unease, wondering if Nikki’s ghost was about to pop up like a jump scare in a 90s slasher flick. The transitions lulled me a bit, like when you’re at a concert and the band takes too long to tune their guitars between songs. But once I locked into the rhythm, I was hooked, flipping pages past midnight under the comfort of my covers.

The story follows Nikki and Sadie, former besties whose friendship frayed like a thrifted sweater. In the past, Nikki’s obsessed with the Sylvia Club, digging into the supposed suicides of Plath-loving students at their all-women’s college. Her curiosity feels like a moth fluttering too close to a flame, and it’s no spoiler to say it burns her—and her bond with Sadie. Fast-forward twenty years, Nikki’s dead, and Sadie’s got a newborn with Nikki’s grieving husband, Harrison, living in a house where Nikki’s presence lingers like a stubborn perfume. Sadie’s convinced Nikki’s sending clues from beyond, and the unraveling of the Sylvia Club’s secrets becomes a haunting puzzle. It’s a story of fractured friendships, the ache of girlhood, and grief that clings like damp Baltimore fog.

Zang’s prose is where I lost my mind—in the best way. It’s hypnotic, dripping with melancholy, like a sad girl playlist you can’t stop humming. She captures the sharp edges of female friendship with such precision, it’s like she’s holding a scalpel to your heart. One scene where Nikki and Sadie try on thrifted clothes, laughing and dreaming, had me nostalgic for my own college days, blasting Senses Fail and pretending I was cooler than I was. I could smell the musty thrift store and feel the weight of their unspoken tensions. But then Zang flips the mood, and you’re in Sadie’s present, where she’s dodging nosy neighbors and Harrison’s refusal to move Nikki’s stuff, like he’s curating a shrine.

The Sylvia Club mystery is a slow burn, but it’s worth the wait. I won’t spoil the twists, but let’s just say Zang knows how to make you gasp and then cackle at your own gullibility. The paranormal vibes add a delicious creep factor, though I occasionally rolled my eyes when Sadie’s ghost-hunting felt a tad too Scooby-Doo. Still, the way Zang ties the past and present together is fantastic, even if some lulls had me skimming like I was cramming for a final.

I read some of this while sipping a Frappuccino in a coffee shop, and I swear, every time Sadie saw Nikki’s ghost, I’d glance over my shoulder, half-expecting a spectral Plath fan to be lurking by the espresso machine. That’s the kind of immersive vibe Zang creates. Sometimes the pacing dragged like a dial-up modem, and I wanted more of Nikki’s fiery spark in the present timeline. But when it hits, it hits. It’s a love letter to the messy, beautiful chaos of being a young woman, to the friends who break your heart, and to the ghosts we carry.

Doll Parts is a must-read for anyone who’s ever been a sad girl, loved a sad girl, or just wants a thriller that feels like a riot grrrl anthem with a side of goosebumps.

[Kristy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The description of this book caught my attention: Childhood best friends go to college together and experience something that tears their friendship apart. 20 years later, one of them is dead and the other somehow ends up pregnant by the dead friend's husband and living in her home.
Curious as to how and why this could/would come to be, I took the clickbait and started reading it.

The story is told from two points of view, that of Sadie in the present day and Nikki in the past. Sadie's story takes place about a year after Nikki's death. She is living in Nikki's home, in a relationship with Nikki's husband and struggling with being a new mother, while also trying to adjust to the suburban housewife lifestyle Nikki was living, something which is not at all Sadie's thing. Nikki's story takes us back to her and Sadie's freshman year of college, the year that their friendship ended. As Sadie navigates the present day and starts to think that there is more to Nikki's death than meets the eye, she is guided by the ghost of Nikki, both in her imagination and in literal clues Nikki has seemingly left specifically for Sadie to find. All the while, as the reader, I was questioning why and how Nikki felt such a strong connection to Sadie that she had left these clues for her to find, somehow knowing Sadie would end up living in her home after her death, even though they hadn't spoken in 20 years. It was very difficult for me to believe in this very deep connection that still wasn't strong enough to survive or overcome whatever had happened to the two in college.

The story from the past unravels very slowly for me and I really struggled to get through it. While the present day story also moved along pretty slowly for me, I found the chapters told from the present day to be a much easier read and more relatable.

As is clear in this book's bio, there is an obsessive focus on Sylvia Plath and her death. And like Sylvia Plath, Penny Zang's writing is poetic and artistic and figurative. In addition to Sylvia Plath's strong presence in this book, Loch Raven College, where Nikki and Sadie attend is a character all on its own. Penny's description of the college campus buildings and the general vibe of the school transports you to what feels like a whole different world. Depending on the reader, you may like or dislike the all girls boarding school vibe, where students clad in all black dresses hold seances and are obsessed with death. Unfortunately, this didn't work for me and contributed greatly to my struggle to get through this book.

I wish that I could say that the answers in the end made the journey worth it, but for me that just wasn't the case. The answers to all the questions I had throughout the book just felt incomplete, like I was told the reasons for everything, but I was unsatisfied with them.

Overall, I think that this book just wasn't right for me. It's simply not a style I enjoyed and I'm not necessarily the right target audience for it, but for the right reader, this might be exactly the kind of thing you'd love. My rating is based solely on my own reading interests and unfortunately, I think I just selected the wrong type of book for me.

With thanks to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this ARC before its August 26th, 2025 release.

[rachel x]

"My Dark Vanessa meets I Have Some Questions For You with a dash of the horrors of Nightbitch"

sign me up

[Mo Reads {Monique} · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Told in a dual timeline, Doll Parts is an evocative and irresistible debut, at once an exploration of the dark chasms that break apart friendships, an ode to the aching beauty of girlhood, and a sharp portrayal of grief that can physically haunt you. ‘

Doll Parts was such an unpredicted, impressive and formidable debut.

There’s so many moving parts here. What with the alternating timelines and POV’s, the details, the intricacies, oddities and happenstances. It could have so easily played out in a stretchy, convoluted and implausible sort of way. But it didn’t.
Zang connected and delineated this very complex story that feels seasoned and almost harmonic for the reader, even with the troubling subject matter, which there was plenty of.

Haunting, puzzling and clenching, the pages don’t stand a chance to be left in peace while being held in any pair of hands.

I genuinely can’t wait to see what she’ll do next.

Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for this arc in exchange for review.

Pub: 8.26.2025.

[Laura Kay Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an Advanced Reader Copy of Doll Parts from Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, VA and am sharing my honest review! It’s been a while since I’ve finished a book in one sitting but Penny Zang knocked this one out of the park. I’m typically quick to figure out plots in advance but this book threw me for a loop towards the end. Highly recommend adding to your shelf when it releases this August!

[Kristy Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesss this one hit the spot. Dark academia, best friends, suicides on a campus across decades, ghosts - I read this book exactly when I needed to.

Such a creepy, captivating debut - truly can’t wait to read what Penny Zang writes next.

There were some parts that felt silly and far fetched, one specific plot point that just didn’t make sense with the character at all that was bothering me, a bit slow to get going into the story - but those are minor critiques for a book I enjoyed so much.

If you’d love a Gothic dark academia book centered around some Sylvia Plath obsessed students, you’ll love this one.

4.5 ✨
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an immersive read—one of those books whose world I feel like I’m still moving through when driving to work and running errands. Weird and unsettling in the best way. A tribute to the messy beauty of friends made when we’re still learning who we are. What a fabulous debut. I didn’t want it to end.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

File this under: a book i wish i liked more. You would think this is my perfect book: dark academia, 90’s grunge, Sylvia Plath, giving Lana Del Rey literature? Yeah, unfortunately, it’s never a phase.

Yet, this missed the mark. I wish it didn’t, but it did :(

[Lizeth A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doll Parts is an atmospheric, haunting, and emotionally rich debut that absolutely consumed me. Told in a dual timeline, this novel follows Sadie, who finds herself drawn back into the life of her estranged best friend Nikki after Nikki’s sudden and mysterious death. When Sadie moves into Nikki’s eerily perfect suburban home—while pregnant by Nikki’s grieving husband—she starts to suspect that something about Nikki’s death isn’t right.

Back in college, Nikki and Sadie were part of a sad girl sisterhood orbiting the Sylvia Club—a campus legend centered around the suicides of Sylvia Plath-adoring students. Nikki became obsessed with uncovering the truth, and that obsession never left her. As Sadie digs deeper, she begins to wonder if Nikki's death was just the latest chapter in a much darker story.

This book absolutely nails the blend of literary suspense and psychological horror. The writing is sharp and evocative, and the tension simmers in both timelines. The portrayal of complicated female friendship is raw and unflinching—intimate, toxic, and unforgettable. I especially appreciated how it tackled themes of grief, guilt, and the romanticization of female suffering without ever feeling cliché or shallow.

It reminded me of The Virgin Suicides in tone, but with a much darker bite. The mystery kept me hooked, but it was the emotional undercurrent that truly broke me. This is a story about how the past never really stays buried, and how some friendships leave marks you can’t scrub clean.

Doll Parts is haunting in every sense of the word—and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Huge thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this early in exchange for an honest review.

update: I think this book was meh after thinking about it after a few weeks 😂

[Christina Hyun · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW I did not know I was waiting for this 2025 ARC to inspire me to improve my own writing at line level. I got about ten pages into the first chapter of DOLL PARTS by Penny Zang and was so taken by the writing style and quality of the prose that I was immediately and thought-provokingly drawn in. DOLL PARTS is a compelling, sensory, smart, specific, and very atmospheric read, but also relatable because so many of the emotional beats could be taken from my own friendships and ordinary life as a mom and wife. And yet the depiction is also like that certain slant of light…where it causes you to see everything completely differently.

Dang, this woman can WRITE. 🙌🏼 I am very inspired, impressed, and thoroughly enjoyed this dark academia/thriller combination. The music references are great and really well incorporated. Also be ready to shiver in parts of this story. 👻✨

(Thank you NetGalley & Sourcebooks for the ARC.)

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

~ thank you to sourcebooks landmark & NetGalley for giving me a chance to read and review this book ~

I love a book that draws me in from the first page. When you’re hooked right from the beginning, you know it’ll be a page turner. This was sooooo good. 4/5 stars only because I felt like it dragged a little bit in the middle. But overall, it was great. The main character was very like-able, and the story itself was interesting. The back and forth between past and present wasn’t confusing like some books are. I was so interested in finding how how it ended & I loved it. Will read more by this author !!

[Stephanie Avila · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

I wanted so badly for this book to work for me but sadly it did not.🙁 The way Doll parts described I was predicting a 5 star read. Dark Acadmia? 90s grunge? Best friends dynamic? Ghost? Sylvia Plath? "Sad girl lit" SIGN ME UP!

Unfortunatly, this book fell very flat for me. For a book that was heavily revolved around Sylvia Plath I was expecting a lot from the writing but in all honestly it was easily forgettable and underwhelming. I just wanted more.You can't just tell us the girls are sad and call it sad girl lit. You actually have to explain and give us something to work with for us to also feel that sadness. TW but this books theme is heavily based on sadness and suicide and for the life of me I can not give you own reason why these girls committed other than they were "sad girls".

And as for the "best friends" Sadie and Nikkie , and the story line itself, I think that's was a complete mess. Our 2 main girls (best friends) had no connection whatsoever. In our flashback scenes they were almost never even together. And later Sadie they haven't seen eachother or spoken for 20 years, and now with one of gone, we're suppose to believe their connection is so strong that Sadie was able to figure out the big mystery? 😭 i just couldn't fully believe it lol

and lastly, the ending/motive was underwhelming, predictable and cheesy. :(

I feel like I'm being too mean so I'm just going to stop here.

However, what I did like was all the 90s music references and all the Sylvia Plath fun facts!

Thankyou sourcebooks for the arc copy in exchange for my honest review!

[Abby Rogish Bodin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advanced copy of this book.
Rating: 5/5

I'm not gonna lie.. this was a harder one for me to hype myself up to read once I got a couple chapters in. Knowing the premise of the book and my aversion to subjects that have affected my personal life, I was nervous about this. (Losing friendships, growing pains, etc). I am so glad I pushed through it, though.
At the heart of this book is friendship, and the things we do for the people we love. I love how Penny really made Sadie and Nikki's voices differ, and having the two timelines: the current one where Nikki is gone, and the year before Sadie and Nikki are no longer friends. It's haunting, moving, and it made me frustrated in the best ways, because I would think I was on the right path only for Penny to blow that one out of the water. I'm grateful for Bad Bitch Book Club having this as one of our monthly reads, because this is a phenomenal book. I cannot wait to talk about it with others and see their perspectives on it!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

#ad much love for my advance copy @bookmarked #partner

🅳🅾🅻🅻 🅿🅰🆁🆃🆂
< @pennyzang >
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𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑉𝑖𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑛 𝑆𝑢*𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑆𝑦𝑙𝑣𝑖𝑎 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝑣𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘.

Welcome to Hidden Harbor - a place where every neighbor knows your business, and they’re not the least bit shy about peeking out from behind their curtains to watch you. What a fabulous place to live and breathe.

Sadie has just had a baby, but her seemingly picture-perfect life isn’t quite as picture-perfect as some would think. She’s with Harrison now - but he was married to her best friend, Nikki, first. Nikki is gone - dead under circumstances some call suicide and others who suspect it was anything but.

Sadie and Nikki hadn’t spoken in nearly two decades, yet their connection never wavered. Their bond, born of tragedy in college, runs deeper than most friendships ever could.

Dark and emotional this book will consume you. Doll Parts by Penny Zang is a fast-paced darker thriller that had me hooked from the first page. The writing is lyrical and flows so seamlessly, and honestly - I’M OBSESSED!

Told in dual timelines - Sadie in the present, Nikki in the past - the story conquers grief, friendships, and mystery creating an unforgettable story. Both timelines kept me invested, pulling me deeper and deeper into Sadie and Nikki’s world.

If you love dark academia laced with all the sad girl vibes, this book is for you. The friendship, the unraveling mystery, the haunting atmosphere - oof! I’ll def be reading anything Penny Zang writes next. Hooked. Obsessed.

[Jessica Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had the honor of reading Penny Zang’s debut, DOLL PARTS. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect going into it, but WOW, it’s a dark, suspenseful book with mesmerizing characters. Told in dual-POV and dual-timeline, it follows the story of two friends, one unraveling the death of the other, set in both suburbia and a dark academia-style Ivy League. I’d call this mystery and thriller with a twisted touch of horror—this sort of book you start and can’t set down until you’ve gotten to the end. One of my favorite books this year!

[Ashley Gillan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just an FYI: Trigger warnings for suicide, mental illness

Every college has that one urban legend - that creepy building or supposedly haunted place everyone avoids or uses to scare the freshmen. But what if your college had an entire history of tragedies? And nobody wanted to talk about them? That’s what happened at Loch Raven College, where Sadie and Nikki attended for one year, and at various times at least nine girls, deemed the “Sylvia Club,” due to their supposed fixation on Sylvia Plath. Now, 20 years later, Sadie is a new mom, having gotten together with Nikki’s husband shortly after her death. The pair hadn’t talked since college, but now, Sadie begins seeing Nikki everywhere and finding clues Nikki left for her to complete one final project, which will make her confront the ghosts of Loch Raven.

This book is told from both womens’ perspectives, along two timelines: during their time at Loch Raven; and then in the present day, with Sadie trying to piece together what is going on.

Wow. That’s all I can say about this book. It’s one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a while, even though it’s low on action, because it just has such a huge amount of creepiness that pervades every page. There’s so many spooky angles, from a professor obsessed with dead girls, to the ghosts that roam the campus of Loch Raven, to Sadie seemingly slowly losing her mind in the present day as she sees Nikki’s ghost and dives into the mystery of her death and final work.

There’s a lot of focus on the girls as unreliable narrators and whether they are really experiencing what they are seeing, or if they are just depressed (Nikki had just lost her Mom) or overtired….the normal excuses. But it adds another layer to the story. It’s another creep factor.

There’s also some interesting discussion about what you should or should not have to give up for “happiness” or security. And what’s the price of that security. I’ll leave you to discover that one. It makes you think.

But even with all these threads, I had no problem keeping everything straight in my mind. The author does a great job of making everything fit together and organized so that it doesn’t become overwhelming. I had a clear picture of what was going on the entire time.

And the ending - OMG. I was blown away. It was amazingly perfect for the storyline. And I didn’t see it coming at all. Just great. That’s all I’ll say.

If you love thrillers or ghost stories, pick this book up. You won’t regret it!

[Sacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

This is a strong debut featuring one creepy tale told over the span of multiple timelines. Folks of a certain age will have very particular songs playing as they read, and they'll be able to welcome a knowning chuckle when they get to a recommend playlist of exactly those songs. This book? It's vibey.

In the contemporary timeline, Sadie is in a spot she never expected. Her former best friend, Nikki, who became a famous author and wife and mother after college, has died. Though the two have been estranged for a long time, they reconnect in a truly unusual way when Sadie finds herself pregnant....with Nikki's widower's baby. You read that right. Though they're not married (it made me laugh that this was some kind of pain point, but whatever), they do live together. Now, Sadie is surrounded by her deceased former friend's husband, daughter, and things...in her former home.

All of that is weird on its own, but the real chills are associated with the early tiimeline from when the women were in college. There's some really bizarre dark academia action happening by way of a thing called Sylvia Club, which is exactly what every person who has ever been to college or walked by a creative writing class thinks it is. One added feature of this group? Suicide. This motif comes up fairly frequently, so sensitive readers should be mindful of this before proceeding.

What makes this book memorable is the ways in which the past and present collide. Sadie is a little, hmmm, sad in some ways, but it's so intriguing to read about her when she was someone else almost entirely. There are an engaging mystery, a fascinating friendship, and some strange characters at the core of this novel. I enjoyed this wild ride and I'm looking forward to discovering what Zang puts forth next.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

[Keta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I fear this review might come across as one big insufferable, convoluted, obnoxious, etc., etc., etc., back-and-forth, but take it at face value: I’m just a girl, and this is just my opinion!! Jeez!

I think this book is great (and I definitely wished I’d read it in the fall—ugh, great vibes). I just don’t think I was the target demographic. Let me explain.

Right from the get-go (legit the first page), the narrative is heavy on baby talk. No, like, actual talk about babies. As a 26-year-old (16 in my own mind, as it goes), I learned so much about childbirth, childcare, and postpartum while reading this book. I can see how certain people might love those details and find them relatable—but I am, unfortunately, not that demographic. That said, I now know what “pump and dump” means and, trust me, I will never forget! A lot of the lingo is also… very millennial core? Again, not inherently a bad thing! I just struggled through those Annie Minx newsletters a bit, cringe-wise.

Which brings me to my next point: is this dark academia? I definitely see elements of it, especially in the flashback chapters, maybe even a little in Sadie’s chapters later in the book. But overall, it felt more like a mystery/intrigue/grungy novel. Which is a vibe! But I went into this with certain expectations that weren’t quite fulfilled. Then again, maybe I have a misconstrued understanding of dark academia and live in a constant secret history brainwash state (Let’s all remember: I’m just a girl!)

ANYWAY! The writing is beautiful. It flows wonderfully and is incredibly evocative. That’s one of the main reasons I said, way back at the start of this logorrheic babble of a review, that this book is great. I truly felt like I was there, in dive bars, abandoned dorms, rich neighborhoods, and stuffy house parties. I could picture everything so vividly (even the pump and dump!).

Byeeeeeeeeee

[CozyCreepyCo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was captivating—beautiful, nostalgic, and layered with depth. The 90’s setting pulled me right in, making the darker themes all the more striking. It’s unsettling at times, but I couldn’t put it down.

Two best friends start college together and quickly learn their campus hides a dark legacy of student deaths, grimly nicknamed The Sylvia Club. As they dig into the mystery, they cross paths with a professor obsessed with the deaths of women—and particularly Sylvia Plath—whose presence is just as unnerving as the rumors.

Told in dual timelines and POVs, we follow Nikki in the past and Sadie in the present—two very different perspectives that slowly reveal the bigger picture. The flashbacks of Nikki and her best friend navigating college life felt so vivid they made me miss my own best friend. The playlist woven into the story brought me right back to my teenage years, and the ending delivered a satisfying close to such a dark journey.

At its core, Doll Parts is a story about friendship, overcoming trauma, and fighting for justice for young women whose lives were cut short. With its raw emotion, literary nods, and haunting themes, it sits perfectly in the realm of sad girl literature—dark, disturbing, and unforgettable.

💫 Huge thank you to the talented Penny Zang, Sourcebooks Landmark, and NetGalley for the ARC.