18 April, 2025 | keystroke
Welcome to Dorley Hall is the first book in an ongoing forcefem webfiction that is being now physically published by Alyson Greaves. As seems to be a theme with small published trans books, it takes the absurd premise of a forcefem cult and uses it delightfully seriously.
I’ve taken a few gender studies classes, and while I’ve been present for a lot of discussions of what Toxic Femininity is, and if it even exists, I think I can confidently say I’ve found it right here. Dorley Hall explores a program (or programme because this book is British) that takes extremely toxic men, and feminises them, while an innocent closeted trans girl gets caught in the mix.
Stef is one of the characters we follow stuck in “woke jail” (the basement) and is a lovely person deeply strugging with their gender identity. Despite their cell-mates being objectively pretty horrible people, the book managed to endear me to them as well. Together they manage to be human (and occasionally very funny) despite the other’s crimes, and being able to watch their slow character growth and bonding as Stef looks after them and ties them together was always my favourite sections to read.
The book also doesn’t shy away from the questions of gender raised by its absurd hypothetical. What is the gender identity of women who were forced to be so? Outside of the basement we follow hacker Christine (she just like me frfr) and delve into the above-ground politics of Dorley Hall.
The hall itself is a bit silly conceptually, and if the book was focused on anything other than its characters I doubt it would work. Thankfully that is exactly where the focus is: Each girl has their own story and struggles to deal with what happened to them. The way this is explored and navigated is done carefully and wonderfully, making the novel a clear stand out.
On a meta level, the cover for this book is gorgeous. I also respect Greaves a lot for her willingness to leave the original work up on Ao3 even when formally publishing the story. A lot of authors remove the original source of the works when physically publishing, which is understandable from a monetary perspective, but some go so far as to erase their existence as a webfiction author entirely.
It does make it frustrating to wait for the next book’s release however, knowing there is so much more online with a gap of almost a year between physical instalments. Makes me wonder what the point of such a gap between publications accomplishes, unless they really want to make sure the first book sells before doing the rest.
I want to study all the characters like bugs.
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