{"id":4584,"date":"2025-10-27T01:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T01:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=4584"},"modified":"2025-10-27T01:00:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T01:00:28","slug":"review-wooden-dolls-game-by-ivonne-hoyos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=4584","title":{"rendered":"Review: Wooden Dolls Game by Ivonne Hoyos"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Synopsis:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a game of life and dolls, Mary Jane Crowell struggles to find a peaceful life for everyone, free from chaos and drama. The Crowells raised her non-identical twins, Mary Jane and Antonia, in a fair way with no distinctions or preferences. Somehow, even when kids come from the same family they can grow with opposite personalities.<\/p>\n

Moving to a new place means to make many decisions like the color of a room wall, a simple game of chance makes Mary Jane victorious for the pink room. This triggers a dark feeling in her sister, and she decides to give a touch of black in revenge. As teenegars they grow appart and are too different. Mary Jane is a good example at school, with good grades and the student who will give the graduation speech. On the contrary, Antonia doesn\u2019t have a chance to graduate, consumes drugs and is an agressive girl.<\/p>\n

An unusual set of wooden dolls comes to Mary Jane and she discovers the magic of dolls, and that by recreating the last episodes of her life she can rewind time and fix all problems triggered by her sister. A series of travels in time teaches her a final lesson that is not in her hands to change destiny and that clock hands don\u2019t stop actions triggered by peoples\u2019 intrinsic nature. They always detonate heaven itself or irrevocable chaos.<\/p>\n

Favorite Lines:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTime is an inexistent physical dimension; it is well used by ones and wasted by others. Nevertheless, time is not as dangerous as human nature. It is so powerful that even if time could be rewound, clock hands won\u2019t stop actions triggered by peoples\u2019 intrinsic nature. They always detonate either heaven itself or irrevocable chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow, it is being said that hard lessons are not always a way to strengthen character, but to trigger frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n

My Opinion:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.<\/p>\n

What begins as a tender domestic tale\u2014a family moving into a new home, twin sisters finding their first sense of individuality\u2014slowly evolves into something darker, stranger, and impossible to forget. Wooden Dolls Game<\/em> is a haunting psychological thriller about childhood envy, love, identity, and the\u00a0kind of family wounds that don\u2019t fully heal, even when everyone pretends they have.<\/p>\n

Hoyos captures the fragile tension between innocence and obsession through Mary Jane and Antonia Crowell, twin sisters whose bond fractures over something as simple\u2014and as symbolic\u2014as the color of a bedroom. The early chapters feel deceptively calm, filled with family rituals, cardboard boxes, and small joys, until the wooden dolls enter the story and turn playtime into prophecy.<\/p>\n

This is a novel that thrives on atmosphere. There\u2019s an eerie domestic stillness beneath every scene: a family dinner, a fairground, a painted wall. Hoyos writes with cinematic precision; you can feel the weight of the paintbrush in Antonia\u2019s hand, the splinters of the wooden dolls, the tension building between sisters who love and resent each other in equal measure.<\/p>\n

While the dialogue at times leans simple\u2014true to its child narrators\u2014the psychological undercurrent is chillingly mature. The novel\u2019s real horror is not in the supernatural, but in how jealousy and love can coexist in the same heartbeat. The \u201cgame\u201d isn\u2019t just about dolls; it\u2019s about control, inheritance, and the ways trauma rewinds time in our minds, forcing us to relive what we can\u2019t forgive.<\/p>\n

Readers who enjoyed Sharp Objects<\/em> by Gillian Flynn will find echoes here: the fragile domestic world turning on itself, sisterhood as both salvation and curse. This book lingers\u2014not because of what it shows you, but because of what it makes you remember.<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overall, at its heart, Wooden Dolls Game<\/em> is about the things families try to hide \u2014 the arguments, the comparisons, the moments when love feels unfair. It\u2019s a story for readers who like their fiction a little unsettling and deeply human.<\/p>\n

Fans of psychological dramas, dark family fiction, and slow-burn suspense will connect most with this one. It\u2019s not a horror story in the traditional sense, but it\u2019s full of dread in the quiet, ordinary moments. Happy reading!<\/p>\n

Check out Wooden Dolls Game<\/em> here!<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Synopsis: In a game of life and dolls, Mary Jane Crowell struggles to find a peaceful life for everyone, free from chaos and drama. The Crowells raised her non-identical twins, Mary Jane and Antonia, in a fair way with no distinctions or preferences. Somehow, even when kids come from the same family they can grow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}