Secrets of Dorley Hall

The Sisters of Dorley #2

by Alyson Greaves

Stef Riley worked hard to get into the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, so he could find out what happened to the women who live at the mysterious Dorley Hall.

But now he’s on the inside his plan is falling apart. Because what’s saving his life is torture to the men he now lives with, and he can’t just ignore their suffering.

Worse, he’s growing closer to one man in particular, a man who isn’t, if the Sisters have their way, going to be a man for much longer…

A closeted trans girl successfully infiltrated a secret underground forced feminisation programme. Now she must deal with what comes next.

Book two of The Sisters of Dorley.

Genres: Transgender, Queer, Romance, LGBT, Horror, Fiction, Mystery

673 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 12, 2022

Reviews

[james · Rating 5 out of 5]

me, complaining: it took me two whole weeks to read a book!!

normal people: ?????


Alyson Greaves is really making this her magnum opus and - good for her. now give me more (i do realise the next few chapters are already on ao3 but i absolutely refuse to read anything online please how long do i have to wait for the epub? i'll sell my soul)


if all of you are still not reading Dorley Hall idk what to tell you but you have bad taste. not just in books but everything. awful life decisions. do better.


read as part of 202-Queer 🌈✨

april reading: 15/26

[Aster · Rating 5 out of 5]

*inserts shocked emoji everytime there's a plot twist*

also probably the transest lesbianest book i know

[X · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continued great character work, continued great premise, but unfortunately it kind of disintegrates in that way serial storytelling sometimes does - hitting the same emotional beats over and over again with an ever-expanding cast of characters and no end in sight. That said the very VERY end had an *excellent* twist so I guess I’m still in haha.

Look, the premise of this is fantastic - I would describe the series’ world as a Russian nesting doll of systematic gender-based oppression with a very cute, girly, hopeful center lol. I loved the first book in this series and I think it managed to wrangle this premise in an incredibly successful, nuanced way. However, this sprawling, almost 900-Kindle-page sequel - which doesn’t even wrap up the story! - doesn’t quite live up.

I kept hoping for a *plot* to happen - I had hopes for Lorna (the “normal” trans girl who discover’s Dorley’s secret), Melissa (Steph’s old friend who’s left Dorley and dropped off the map), and Shahida (the cis girl who’s a little too pushy about finding her old crush Em), each of whom COULD have shaken things up. But every time, just when things were about to get really juicy the story undercut it in favor of everyone hugging and talking it out, with all of these outsiders agreeing to go along with the Dorley system so everyone can be friends. And that kept happening… and happening…

This type of writing choice feels very AO3, to be honest. It reminded me a little of Taylor Fitzpatrick, for example, or Victoria Goddard (which… oh god, no one does fifty million versions of the exact same scene until you want to scream in frustration like she does). The fan feedback echo chamber, maybe - the readers who are already invested will eat up any crumb of story if their beloved characters appear in it, so there’s no pressure to actually do something new… and in fact, there’s probably pressure NOT to do anything different than what you’ve been doing, in case those fans don’t like it. It’s particularly frustrating because of all of these authors I’ve mentioned, including this one, are great writers! They have a ton of potential and some really good work! But the format isn’t doing them ANY favors. I will give Taylor Fitzpatrick a lot of credit for keeping her AO3-style sprawling stories on AO3 - I think they work there in a way they just wouldn’t work as well if she tried to publish them as actual books. Part of why I hated Goddard’s The Hands of the Emperor so much by the end (even though I loved the first part!) is when I got it as a thousand-page book, I expected a thousand pages of story - not 300 pages of story and 700 pages of repetitive, self-congratulatory … well I’m trying to think of a classier way to say “circle jerk” but I’m coming up dry lol. (I will say one of the more impressive feats the Dorley Hall series has done so far is get me to really appreciate Aaron, a character who is in the ~gender torture dungeon~ because he was flashing women and sending them unsolicited explicit photos. If anything else, I feel like he would appreciate my current linguistic struggle.😅😅😅)

And it’s not just an AO3 thing, of course - it’s a key issue with serialized storytelling. I compared Welcome to Dorley Hall to Pretty Little Liars in my review of that book, and honestly the comparison is even stronger this time around - because PLL too sometimes felt like it was stumbling around in the dark, throwing out new characters to fill time and see what sticks without really advancing the A plot (pun intended lol). But I guess I am more sympathetic there - I mean, it’s not like they could have held off on releasing episodes until they’re written the story from beginning to end - than here, where I’m reading the story in book form.

I kept thinking about whether there was some way it could have been split up differently so that there would be more of a narrative arc. But I really think the beginning/middle just need to be either significantly edited down OR built up somehow - adding in the Aunt Bea stuff at the end of the first book really took that story to the next level, and I wish those flashbacks and those insights into what the older Dorley women are up to now could have been included consistently throughout this book. As it is, they come back up out of nowhere at the very end. Which was great! But it just made it more obvious how it was missing before. And I understand the urge to want to ~the girls~ to be besties/girlfriends/etc. as the case may be - but I was worried when I started this book that it would end up too complacently pro-Dorley (Dorleypilled, as the characters would say) and unfortunately I was right. Particularly given how dark the flashbacks about old Dorley are, the kumbayah of present day Dorley just started feeling unconvincing.

All of this said, I will say that I LOVED the twist at the end. Like at the end of the first book, I’m not totally sold on whether the author will be able to pull it off, but I’m definitely going to keep reading to find out.

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m sorry WHAT!!! WAS THAT CLIFFHANGER!!??

(Oh goooood I love all these girls and I’m so emotional).

(Okay, ETA just a few more thoughts bc it’s not midnight and I’m not overly emotional anymore)

I’m soo conflicted on the Melissa/Abby/Shahida love triangle!!! I want them all to be happy and become a triad pls and thank.

I was initially kinda bummed at the lack of povs of Steph and Christine/focus shifting to other characters but I ended up rlly coming around to it and I love everyone now. I MIGHT even be slowly warming up to Aaron which is a testament to the author bc I did not think that I was gonna get on board, there. I just actually love them all and I fully thought I was going into what would be a horror novel in the first and now it’s actually like… maybe kidnapping is how you get a found family and it’s wonderful!?? Which is HILARIOUS and wild. I can’t wait for the third book, I’m p sure some of its on her Scribblehub and Patreon and I will be absolutely checking asap.

[tri ܁ ˖ ♬⋆.˚ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this what cis(het) people feel after reading... literally any book??? wow

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

How dare you taunt me like this. A cliffhanger?? And you expect me to cope?? Madness.

Now I have to go read other things. How do I read things that aren't this??

[Quillen]

Do you ever have the experience of laughing along to some skit or joke, and when you look around you, you find yourself surrounded by nodding acolytes, with faces sincere, credulous, and rapt? This slight twist of dislocated dread is what I felt as Dorley moved into its sophomore arc.

What works from the first volume is still here, and remains abundant enough to keep ‘Secrets’ quite the compelling read. The series beats on with its catalogue of the traumas inflicted by and (most germanely) to AMAB people under patriarchy, whether that's the boys' continued petty violences against one another and themselves, or else the emptying out of a stable sense of self as a result of their repressions. One particularly powerful sequence has Will manically unburdening himself to audience stand-in Steph about the misery and self-abnegation that drives his queerphobic violence. Steph, queer herself, recoils from the revelation of humanity behind the brute, abjected by the possibility that Will might be an actual person whose suffering demands witness.

Dorley Hall itself acts as a perfect scale model for the workings of oppositional sexism. The boys in the basement are, by the logic of Dorley, failed men; having followed the dictates of masculinity, they have failed in their duties as people. The path offered up to them (as an alternative to annihilation), is to reverse their failed personhood into femme personhood. Woman and Man, female and male, person and non-person, are presented as dichotomous and necessarily contingent poles of a singular spectrum. How is patriarchal violence undermined? Through the ‘feminine’ violence of castration. But the violences inflicted on the boys are not inflicted by men, and so they cannot be violence, by the logic of Dorley. Instead, the adherents of the cult frame them as acts of caring. Even ‘washing-out’, the polite in-house euphemism for murdering those who failed to conform to their new gendered expectations, is considered a form of loving euthanasia. Gender is coercive violence, Dorley shows us, and identical acts of violence are given completely opposing ontological weight depending on which of the diametric gender lenses we are allowed to view it through. Either way, the initiates of the cult are asked to pass from one authoritarian regime into another that, if they could examine it in a fair light, might look uncannily familiar.

The Dorley girls can’t, of course, consider their situation fairly. There exists no ontologically neutral ground; any deviation from gendered orthodoxy risks ostracization; and Dorley’s ostracised are exiled “out the back door”. There is one particularly grim indictment, late on in this volume, where a character lists the safe, Dorley-approved narratives she has had to construct to explain even part of her experience to her therapist. Let’s take a moment to really consider the implications of this. To avoid murder by the omnipresent force of Dorley’s rigid gendered ideology, a trans woman is coerced into structuring a false narrative of the patriarchal violence she has only just survived; it is only in doing this that she can begin to approximate and receive actual and sincere care, but at the cost of forming an authentic and sincere therapeutic relationship. To anyone who has had to navigate the British Gender Clinic system, the metaphor could not be more on-point.

Ironically, most of the issues that weaken the effectiveness of this second outing in the toxic-positivity force-fem torture basement stem from a narrative crisis of identity. The series has, as of chapter 26 at least, passed through three overlapping phases. Firstly, as wry shitpost, which clearly defined the early chapters. Then, as Greaves realised the rich potential of what she was working on, the story sharpened itself into a visceral satire. In the first volume, this worked to examine, perhaps subconsciously, on construction of oppositional sexism and a rigid gender binary, and how these patriarchal institutions came to be imposed on contemporary queer culture but well-meaning narratives. It’s probing these ideas, often with wry good-natured pragmatism, that Dorley continues to be at its strongest. Theres is, however, the third phase Dorley has moved through, and it is this phase that takes up the majority of the latter sections of this second volume; Dorley as soap opera.

Look. I’d be the first to argue that the world sorely needs more fluffy soap operas staring trans women. I’d also argue, albeit somewhat more bashfully, that 200,000 of trans girls petting each other’s hair whilst chastely and tearfully kissing absolutely a work of art makes. At time of writing, the word count of the series is set to match the King James sometime in early spring 2024; we are far past the point of calls for editorial guidance. A narrative that begins with so facetious a premise as Dorley can definitely be taken too seriously, and I’d be happy to hear any comments that this is precisely how I’m approaching this. But in a certain way, this volume has started to take itself too seriously, and, perhaps worse, too sincerely. Dorley Hall, the institution, is equal parts Gormenghast and Hogwarts; two of the great institutions of British gendered imperialism. In this second volume, Greaves has begun to lose sight of this fact, in favour of an interest in the character’s romantic entanglements.

The protestations and plights of ethics that haunted the third years in particular have given way, and the result is a flattening of aspect across the board. This is most obvious in the repeated story beats that dog the second half: discovery by an outsider; a brief metaphysical scrimmage ensues; the outsider becomes acolyte of the hall. This formula rings hallow the first time it plays out. It requires the adherents of Dorley to all adopt a similar, therapy-speak singlemindedness that is at odds with the wealth of their characterisation in the first book. It also requires an absurd level of credulity, not to mention blind loyalty, from the outsiders. As above, so below; this bottoming-out of characters’ interesting edges also plays out in the basement, particularly with the harrowing out Aaron. Once a compelling comic, and an essential Greek chorus chirping against the strictures of the basement ideology, Aaron spends much of this volume lost in a quagmire of rote pop-psychology and maudlin self-reproach, which occasionally borders on the dispensable. This is particularly jarring as, at her best, Greaves is a cut-above the genre standard for dialogue. Personally, I’m not familiar with force-fem fiction (if that is, in fact, a genre in and of itself), but I am familiar with both the giddy back-and-forth of 2000s feel good dramas like the Gilmore Girls, and the colourfully camp proclivities to proclamations that defines fanfic. Dorley takes both of these lineages, and pushes them towards the literary. It is because this so often works so well, that It’s particularly frustrating when the dialogue occasionally comes off as toothless and excessively self-soothing here at times.

Still. The story feels good. It feels terribly, deliciously good. And reading trans narratives, even struggling ones, and walking away feeling comforted is so rare a joy that I’ll gladly return to Dorley for every subsequent semester Greaves is happy to convene.

[Seish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aghast and in awe once again at Greaves’ work. My heart aches and swells and warms and despairs with each chapter.

A blistering continuation of Dorley, stitched together by intimately raw narratives of making the choice to change, to grow despite the pains, and to accept ours sins as part of who we are. Just as much an emblem of trans love as it is a reminder that it’s never too late to forgive ourselves and step into someone new.

Bonus: this is hands down THE BEST trans lesbian book I have ever read. I would die for every woman in Dorley.

[Cait · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew.

As a serialized novel, I thought I had a reasonable idea of what to expect sixteen chapters in, but Secrets of Dorley Hall ramps up almost every element of the first book in the series. In particular the drama and darkness are *so* much more intense here, and we start to see characters' lives put on the line as the past and present settings begin to converge. Be warned: Greaves starts unearthing details of the grisly early days of Dorley, and in these flashbacks, she again plays with the standard trappings of the forced femme genre, this time taking them to their most twisted and cruel extremes.

There also are a few stumbles here, mostly in the pacing: Greaves spends a good chunk of the book exploring Melissa's tragic past and to be honest, it runs a little long. I think I would have appreciated the character just as much if a few chapters of her life had been more of a montage with a little less specificity. There's also a noticeable amount of retreading with several different iterations of the "yes, we're kidnapping and mutilating people, but it's okay because..." scene one after another that might have been less grating delivered in serialized installments but feel unnecessary in the standalone novel format - I'm two books deep, I don't need convincing of the premise at this point.

That said, after tearing through the first book, I was just happy to have so much more time with the core characters, and it's hard to complain too much. Everything that drew me into the first book is still there, and Greaves seems to have settled in for the long haul, going back to color in little details here and there and taking time to lay foundations for future world-building. There's plenty of Greaves' trademark snappy dialogue and adorable character interactions here as well, but I again found myself highlighting a ton of lines just for their straight-up insightfulness; like all good forced-feminization stories, Dorley Hall doubles as a rough guide to navigating the trans experience.

[pareidolia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in the force fem factory of the terrible mugs - and don't forget the movie piracy!

I appreciated the addition of new POVs, especially Aaron's no-filter stream of consciousness, and Melissa. Although I'm coming to this whole gender business from a different direction (I'm agender) and have never been suicidal, her struggling with ED and body-image issues while not realizing why everything feels so wrong was very familiar.

[Red🏳️‍⚧️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly delightful hall of mirror neurons, reflecting back terror, love, tragedy, kindness, and delirious whimsy. (As well as some delightfully appalling coffee mugs.)

[May · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, quick disclaimer: This is a sequel, and you really need to read Welcome to Dorley Hall to have any idea what's happening. This review will reference the events of Welcome to Dorley Hall, if you're sensitive to spoilers please don't read this before reading the first book. There will also be some light spoilers in this review, although, I've tagged the bigger reveals so you can avoid them if you're curious about the book, but haven't read it yet.

Secondly, this is a sequel. If you've read through all of Welcome to Dorley Hall, then chances are you already know whether you want to continue reading or not. You're either on board with the concept, or you aren't. So, tl;dr: Secrets of Dorley Hall is a very good book. It's a thrilling read, one that goes much more in depth on the concepts introduced in Welcome to Dorley Hall.

The end of Welcome to Dorley Hall shifted the status quo in a few pretty major ways, and Secrets of Dorley Hall delights in exploring each of those shifts as much as possible. Now that Stef's transness has been exposed, she suddenly finds herself significantly more complicit in the programme, all while slowly exploring her newfound freedoms. There's so much to love here. Steph finally getting the opportunity to discover herself; trying on clothes, picking out a name, figuring out who she wants to be, is all absolutely delightful. Her core conflict, her newfound complicity in the programme, especially in light of her rapidly growing feelings for Aaron, is absolutely wonderful.

Gaining more context into the hall's history, learning that the original version of Dorley was – in essence – your standard trashy, transmisogynistic forcefem setting (though portrayed with the appropriate amount of horror) further complicates any discussion of the hall's operations in some delightfully interesting ways. Secrets of Dorley Hall provides much more specific insight into how old Dorley operated, and they do a great job contextualizing Dorley, particularly when viewed through any moral lens.

Even more so than the first book, Secrets of Dorley Hall is extremely interested in exploring the intricacies of Dorley Hall's operation. Greaves slowly introduces us to additional perspectives beyond Steph and Christine, giving so much more insight onto how each of the girls view themselves, and their experiences at the hall. In my previous review of Welcome to Dorley Hall, I touched on the idea that while the Dorley Girls might not fit a standard trans narrative (i.e. figured out their gender on their own before pursuing medical and/or social transition), they are still mechanically trans – capable of transitioning without experiencing dysphoria, and benefitting from being treated as a woman. It's an absolutely fascinating idea – one that personally lines up with my own experiences regarding transition and dysphoria – and one thoroughly explored by multiple characters here. Watching girls like Christine and Jodie come to terms with their transness, seeing Lorna realize just how similar their experiences were to her, a more traditional trans girl, is all super fascinating and engaging stuff.

I want to talk a little bit in depth about Chapter 9 (24 in the web version), Everything Must Go, but bear in mind that everything in this section is going to contain some pretty big spoilers. The chapter is fairly standalone, and in many ways is the series at its' absolute best. It's not my personal favorite chapter, but it is the one most worth talking about in isolation.


Everything Must Go is an extended flashback, showing Melissa's backstory. It's absolutely heartbreaking, the story of a trans girl who doesn't have the tools to figure herself out, suffocating in a miserable environment. Shahida is a wonderful addition; delightfully messy, weird, and assertive, she pushes Melissa towards happiness, all without the final piece of the puzzle.

Melissa acts as a wonderful contrast to Steph's experiences – Dorley having failed Melissa where it's currently able to help Steph – and her addition to the plot helps add some much appreciated chaos to the book's climax. As a big fan of Greaves' When You Fell From Heaven series (which you should also read; it's generally much lighter than Dorley, but still delightfully trans), Melissa's experiences also contrast with Maxine's. Where Maxine has Taylor, someone who stumbled her way into figuring her out, Melissa has Shahida, someone so desperate to do the same, but who wasn't able to put the pieces together.

Where other chapters balance multiple plot threads and perspectives, Everything Must Go remains extremely focused. Only a tiny section of the chapter – a brief conversation in which Aaron learns about Maria's past, followed by a cut to Melissa discovering that Steph is at Dorley – is laser focused. There's a stark contrast in tone; while there are lighter moments, Melissa's melancholy is all encompassing, and does a great job setting the mood. The small details – the steps she takes to purge safely, the ways in which she is (and isn't) able to conceptualize herself as someone other than Mark, sympathizing with Steph without being able to properly diagnose their shared symptoms – go such a long way in painting an absolutely vivid portrait of her life. Melissa's been a shadow looming over the series since Chapter 1, and her experiences add so much to the themes and concepts that Alyson was already exploring throughout the book.


I've seen people call Dorley slow paced, and while Secrets of Dorley Hall is a pretty substantial read, I'd be hard pressed to call it slow. So much happens in every single chapter, and while most of these developments are character driven, the concepts and themes that Greaves touches on are consistently interesting. But the various plot threads that are building throughout the book all converge near the end in one of the most exciting chapters I've ever read. Watching all the major unresolved plot points converge into one moment is absolutely captivating. While this isn't my favorite Alyson Greaves book, it is (at time of writing) her best written, paced to provide the perfect level of tension at any given moment.

There's so much I could say about Secrets of Dorley Hall because it really is an excellently written book. It expands on every single idea introduced in Welcome to Dorley Hall while remaining a tightly focused, excellently paced read. Greaves is clearly writing with such love for trans people and trans experiences, drawing on deep knowledge of trans fiction to deliver what I believe to be the most important piece of trans fiction of the early 2020s, an absolute zeitgeist of transness.

[K. Nagle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think any chapter in any novel has ever gutted me more than "Everything Must Go" did.

There is no one universal trans experience, but that chapter does the impossible to nearly portraying it anyways. It reminds me why cis literature often falls flat. It misses out on much of the human experience in a way that's so pervasive, you almost forget that books don't have to be that way, that stories can actually reach in and tear out your heart (in a good way).

Also, Faye is now my favorite character.

[Izzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

while the plot still has me in its claws, and i need the next book like water, (maybe not water, actually, maybe just caffeine) this book Dragged, partially because of how long it focused on exclusively melissa's backstory. frankly, my interest lies pretty exclusively in aaron and steph, and everyone else are just set dressings. and i wish we weren't taking 200 page tangents on set dressings

[Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

deeeply shocked that every single outsider (lorna + shahida) who learns about dorley is just like ok. i suppose i'll keep your secret for you. i guess it does work. and then keeps the secret. like they have qualms for a couple paragraphs and then theyre fine. the end of chapter 26 was SOOOO crazy though....also im really enjoyinh the silly novelty mugs

[han · Rating 2 out of 5]

lost it’s pacing and instead of being dark and interesting it’s just become kind of … gross? not fun gross, just why are they all saying the same things over and over this is horrible gross.

[Phoebe S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am so frigging Dorleypilled right now.

The first book had compact enough writing that you could pretend, perhaps, that it wasn't written on AO3. But this one has numerous issues. Hitherto background characters are given center stage with little to no lead-in, which feels jarring. The pacing is all over the place, and sometimes things feel like they happen because they need to and in a way that punctures suspension of disbelief. I feel like Melissa was kind of underutilized and her current issues downplayed, and it all just seems a little off kilter.

But, screw it, the characters are still so good and I want to root for these insane force-fem kidnappers and their dark humor mugs or whatever. Granted, I think that the larger cast means some people's arcs suffer in this book- Christine in particular- but it's clear that this is written in a "ongoing webcomic with no set end date" kind of way and not a "graphic novel where the author never wings it" kind of way. It's Dykes to Watch Out For not Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, and dang it, I'm in a DTWOF mood. I like the characters we're introduced to, the truly insightful musings on gender/masculinity and the weird little camaraderie Dorley has going on.

But I don't know, while I genuinely enjoy it (and really this should be a 3.5, but I gave the last one four and don't feel like I should round up), I just can't bring myself to ignore its glaring flaws. This installment of Dorley is great- you just have to be in the right frame of mind and know what you're getting into.

Ending this review before I start sounding even more like a sponsor. Like I said, Dorleypilled.

[Tara Bhephel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this book has cis women now as more than just scenery. There's even cis gay men mentioned if you lean to the side to peer around the trans men.

Graduating from the dual narrative to a rotating cast is nice, but it would work smoother without constantly trying to squeeze an "aha" moment in every time about who the fuck I'm even following the narration of.

The reveal at the end of the last chapter would hit harder if the book wasn't CONSTANTLY making use of the writing device known as "burying the god damn lede 5 paragraphs deep every time the perspective shifts".

The synchronicity is done well, foregoing the namedrops often for that purpose. I just do better with names than I do with having to reverse engineer who the subject is every time like it's cheeky and not meant to make me feel like I have undiagnosed dyxlexia and no short term memory.

This series does some safety well and some not well like with "handing out" too much bullimia tips, but I tend to just be critical of the "hormone glorification" stuff. Any height shrinking on estrogen should come with an understanding of chronic pain and perhaps the need for physical therapy. It's inevitable within a lifetime as mentioned, an elderly thing, but it comes with minor discomforts, and those must be taken seriously, not pathed over for the fantasy of being less tall, even in the context of internal narrativd of someone who isn't dysphoric, it can be outwardly glamorized by the writing.

Melissa's youth dysphoric chapter rife with ideation and eating disorders hit me like a ton of bricks. Well done to that and also to the "old guard" scenes, like with Valérie.

Really pushing themes of rehabilitative justice to its limits by bringing Declan back into the fold as payback for Karen. We'll see if his claims get retconned or if he's made to actually reconcile with his heinous actions I guess? Could definitely go over poorly.

[Lilia Dement · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vibrant, terrifying, and endearing

Secrets of Dorley Hall escalates the dramatic tension and the reader's investment in the characters even further than book one did. I can't stop reading. I eagerly await book three.

I'm a transgender lesbian. I identify strongly with most of the characters in this series. Some kind of compulsory transition is a fantasy I held for a long time because, like the main character, I was afraid to do it on my own initiative. The author dedicates a lot of the word count to exploring the ethical problems with it, and this is certainly no endorsement of reverse conversion therapy. I don't enjoy it for that reason. I enjoy it because the characters are so relatable, and I care about what happens to them. I love that they form a sisterhood. It's what I want.

The cruelty and wastefulness of the antagonists are depicted gratuitously, in my opinion, but not implausibly. I think there's a meta-narrative here about how anti-LGBTQ+ bias exposes innocent people to abusive, cruel treatment by bigots and criminal organizations, and even escalates the brutality of such organizations because of the secrets they must keep to maintain their business model and lifestyles. People who make it less safe for LGBTQ+ to be ourselves openly create a favorable environment for perpetrators of that abuse, and Secrets of Dorley Hall explores in intimate detail the consequences of requiring survivors to keep secrets.

[Ava · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I wanted to say about this installment was already perfectly said in some other reviews, so I'm finding it hard to put my thoughts into different words!

Look, the concept, the themes and the characters are all still amazing and refreshing and fascinating. But this time the pacing suffers even more... I know this was written serially and then just gathered up into a book, it shows, but even so... there is such reluctance to involve any real danger, consequences or stakes for the beloved characters. Every conflict gets resolved immediately, everyone just accepts what they hear and becomes dorleypilled in a span of one conversation 😭 and there is so. much. hugging. I would honestly wish for a book this long to cover more in-story time than a couple of weeks, especially when those pages are filled stuff like... someone explaining a conversation that happened before and that we, as readers, already witnessed (this happens many times).

I truly don't mean to sound negative, I think it's just the first book in the series set my expectations so high and there is so much to love about it and so much potential as well that I desperately want to be fully realized.

The backstory of Dorley revealed slowly and the twist at the end are extremely promising!

[Rhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a good continuation, but the structural issues that I suspect started in the first book did grate a little. There are only so many scenes of discussing the possible merits of Dorley Hall with an outsider while holding a novelty mug that I felt I needed to see.

Taking some of the focus off of some of the characters that carried the last book for me made sense. I think I'd have enjoyed getting a better sense of how the house is different while Beatrice is away, even she's not too involved in day to day operations in the basement and she does this every year she was such an important presence in everyone's lives in the first book and then that was mostly resolved and she was gone from their minds most of the time as well as the Hall.

It's obviously hard for book two to ask as interesting questions as book one, and those questions are still in the air and hopefully will colour a future entry, but I did feel the lack. Lorna's perspective was welcome, and many of the new characters that took focus here brought a threat to existing relationships rather than a point of view I was excited to see on the Dorley Hall operation.

So overall: fun, good dialogue, maybe not as standout as the first book but still worth reading.

[Sky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the published edition of book one, and liked it enough that I went straight to AO3 to read the rest of what the author's released. I'm writing this after I've reached the end of what is to be book two.

Once again, the story is bizarre and brilliant, horrifying and wholesome. The author takes the weird premise seriously enough that it has emotional weight, while still acknowledging how inherently silly it is. You get incredibly powerful descriptions of dysphoria, the shame of abusers forced to reckon with the harm they did, lots of compelling drama, but also all the members of Dorley hall drink from novelty mugs altered to be about kidnapping and castrating men.

[Nia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is still as captivating as in the first book, but felt heavier (of course the classic 90s-feminization-tropes and the resulting interesting "morals" are still there but) on the social side. The tragic backstories of most characters and etc.
I rushed through it as fast as the first book and am now absorbed in the third book, though I am trying to escape its grasp as I am no longer on holidays but need to go back to studying.
Melissa and Steph meeting again <3333333333 finally, quite funny how it happened though
Nah I don't want a Declan redemption, hate that guy; there has to be some really good writing to start liking that character

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scrambling to collect my jaw off the floor after that one. What is really a bit dizzying with this iteration in the series is that there are such long spells of slow growth and love and friendship, and then the narrative curveballs come in red-hot at frightening speed.

Secrets revealed, and certain lines of inquiry come full circle in a way deeply moving.

[Kirsty Craig-Colquhoun · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t think I could like this more than the first Dorley Hall book, but I do! The writing of suicidal ideation and Mark/Melissa’s story spoke to me, I feel such reverence for this character and all that she’s been through, experienced and it profoundly affected me. Love love love!

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever yearned for there to be more of world to read about, this has consumed my every waking moment and I don't really know what to do with myself now I'm done

(That's a lie, I'm going to read the additional chapters that are online)

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't really tell how much literary cache this series is going to land with once it's all rolled out, but there's a lot going on under, and before, the sort of cozy utopian social progression of the sisterhood and its orbit. A lot of torture in the basement, one might say.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 Forced 2 Feminization. Too much plot even compared to book 1, nothing has time to settle in or breathe before it's crowded out by the next event. I thought this was a completed duology but apparently theres like 3 more books of this on ao3.

[Alexia Tripp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this brick if a novel in 3 days. I was unable to put it down.

[Aoife · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emotionally devastating