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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Wooden Dolls Game by Ivonne A. Hoyos follows twins Mary Jane (“MJ”) and Antonia, with a bedroom assignment dispute catalyzing a lifelong rivalry. MJ receives a wooden doll set that each child paints. Later, Antonia also paints MJ’s pink room black. Over time, MJ succeeds in relationships, academics, and love, while Antonia dives into reckless behavior, art, and risky relationships that increasingly isolate her. Events escalate to violent confrontations, family crises, and tragedy. When MJ discovers a method to revisit pivotal childhood moments using the wooden dolls, she repeatedly tries to alter the past to impact present outcomes in her own life and her sister’s choices. A confrontation explodes into further tragedy, and a discovery that could shatter the course set by MJ's prior temporal interventions and her unborn child.
Ivonne A. Hoyos’s Wooden Doll Game is a novel where the supernatural collides with significant personal cost. MJ’s use of the wooden dolls to revisit her childhood room choice shows her willingness to alter reality, but these changes come at great personal sacrifice, as she sees her adult life permanently affected while attempting to protect those around her. The consequences of Antonia’s decisions, like a disastrous older boyfriend and the disabling of a friend, reveal the trauma MJ bears silently. Hoyos handles the supernatural elements elegantly. The ripple effect MJ causes inevitably introduces unpredictable distortions in her life, and moments where MJ witnesses altered interactions that no longer match memory all contribute to the expert storytelling in an exceptional tale that ends brilliantly while still flirting with the potential to expand. Very highly recommended.
