Review- City of A Thousand Dolls by Miriam Forster

City of A Thousand Dolls

Miriam Forster

Release Date: February 5, 2013

Hardcover: 368 pages

Publisher: HarperTeen

ISBN:  0062121308

Source: ARC from the publisher

Rating: Really Liked!

Goodreads/Amazon/Barnes & Noble/The Book Depository

From Goodreads.

The girl with no past, and no future, may be the only one who can save their lives.

Nisha was abandoned at the gates of the City of a Thousand Dolls when she was just a child. Now sixteen, she lives on the grounds of the isolated estate, where orphan girls apprentice as musicians, healers, courtesans, and, if the rumors are true, assassins. Nisha makes her way as Matron’s assistant, her closest companions the mysterious cats that trail her shadow. Only when she begins a forbidden flirtation with the city’s handsome young courier does she let herself imagine a life outside the walls. Until one by one, girls around her start to die.

Before she becomes the next victim, Nisha decides to uncover the secrets that surround the girls’ deaths. But by getting involved, Nisha jeopardizes not only her own future in the City of a Thousand Dolls—but her own life.

City of A Thousand Dolls was a really good read! I will admit that I had a hard time getting into it in the beginning; and I’m not sure if it was the pacing of the story or the huge cast of characters that I had to keep referencing at the beginning of the book. But once I got about halfway through it changed and flowed and I felt myself being wrapped up in Nisha’s story. Oh and btw Nisha was a pretty badass heroine!

I will admit I didn’t like the love interest at all, and there wasn’t an insta love thing going on either they had a backstory that started before the book. But I didn’t like or trust him. There was another fellow that caught my eye though and he was handsome and mysterious and I loved him. Oh and there’s these cats who play a huge part in the story and Nisha can talk to them it distracted me at first but by the end I couldn’t see the story being the same without them!

Overall this was a very enjoyable High Fantasy read and I will be definitely be picking up the companion novel when it comes out.

I chose a passage between Nisha and Tac since I loved him ;)

Josei’s assistant rose and hung the word on its proper hook. He looked at the lati stick Nisha was holding and grinned. With surprising grace, he pulled a shorter fighting stick of dense ebony off the wall and held it one-handed, twirling it slowly. He raised one eyebrow at Nisha, a clear challenge.

Nisha knew she should refuse. The City allowed few men within its walls, and the girls were forbidden to socialize with them.

But she was tired. Tired and angry and scared down to her bones. And today she didn’t care about the City or its rules. The idea of fighting someone who wasn’t testing her sounded even better than beating the stuffing out of a practice dummy.

So instead of shaking her head and walking away, Nisha put down her long staff and picked up a matching fighting stick. She moved to the center of the open floor, muscles ready and knees bent.

‘Come and get me. I’m not afraid of you’

The attendant’s grin widened, and he attacked.