Book Review: Welcome to Dorley Hall by Alyson Greaves

There’s never been a better time to read queer books, so let me tell you about this great bit of trans fiction I read recently, Welcome to Dorley Hall by Alyson Greaves. This book was originally self-published (although it appears to have been re-released by a small press last year) and the rest of the series is apparently currently being published on AO3. I’m really glad that my library had the ebook available, and I hope my local libraries will continue to purchase self-published and indie queer books.

After Stefan’s best friend’s older brother (who is also like an older brother to Stefan) disappears, everyone eventually gives up and assumes that Mark is dead. When, a year or so later, Stefan runs into a woman at the grocery store who looks oddly like Mark and knows Stefan’s name, he begins to think that maybe his beloved friend didn’t die, but rather, transitioned and felt it was safer to let her family believe she was dead.

Stefan falls down a research rabbit hole which leads him to believe that a dorm at the local college is helping trans girls with unsupportive families get access to gender affirming care and new identities. And Stefan wants in, because he’s pretty sure he’s trans, and he’s very sure he can’t afford facial feminization surgery on his grocery store paycheck.

Note: Stefan/Stef continues to use he/him pronouns throughout the duration of this first book, so that’s how I’ll refer to him in the review.

When Stefan discovers that he was wrong about what exactly is happening at Dorley Hall, he’ll have to decide what he’s willing to put up with to have access to a better level of care than he can get through the NHS. At the same time, another resident of Dorley Hall, has to decide how best she can help Stef, and other characters will get drawn into the web of deceit.

Welcome to Dorley Hall can feel like a commentary on a lot of things. It is clearly, first and foremost, a statement on the difficulty of accessing gender-affirming healthcare in the UK. But it also seems to have a lot to say about how trans people are expected to perform gender in a very specific way (cis people are too, especially cis men, but we can get a little more leeway in most instances). And it can also be read as commentary on the carceral state, and crime/punishment/justice. Maybe a little bit about generational trauma in communities.

My biggest complaint with the book was that like so many, it suffers from a saggy middle. A lot of chapters felt repetitive. Stef and Christine both spend a lot of time in their own heads going round in circles about how they feel about what’s happening, and while that’s probably an accurate reflection of how people would react in this situation, it didn’t always make for compelling reading.

My favorite thing about this book is that it didn’t feel like anything I’d read before. In a way it feels speculative, despite not having any fantastical or science fictional elements; it still has that spec-fic trait of asking “what if?”. My spouse read Welcome to Dorley Hall a month or two before I did, and I really enjoyed our conversations about what we thought the author was saying, and what we thought might happen next in the series.

It remains incredibly important to read diverse books and support marginalized authors. If you’re looking for a unique and thought-provoking read, I’d definitely recommend either buying a copy of Welcome to Dorley Hall or checking if your library has it.

CWs and TWs: There’s a whole lot. Dysphoria; transphobia (including misgendering and deadnaming); homophobia; kidnapping/involuntary confinement; involuntary medical procedures; violence; references to (but not on-page depictions of) sexual assault, domestic violence, and harassment; self-harm; character backgrounds that involve parental death, abuse, and bullying.

Source and Format: I borrowed the ebook from Sno-Isle Libraries.

Reading Challenge Prompts

Nook & Cranny (Card 2): Keeping Secrets. A whole lot of people are keeping a whole lot of secrets about what’s happening in the basement at Dorley Hall.

Book Riot: Complete a 2015 Read Harder Task. I chose the task “read a book by or about someone who identifies as LGBTQ” and this book is both.

World of Whimm: Queer Main Character. I mean, most books that I read will end up counting for this, but this book is especially queer.

Reading Challenge Progress

Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 2 of 25, no bingos.

Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 3 of 25, no bingos.

Book Riot: 2 of 25.

Physical TBR: 0 of 12.

Brick & Mortar: 7 of 25, 0 bingos*.
*I’ve already completed several of the non-reading prompts, hence the mismatch with the number of reviews!

World of Whimm: 2 out of 24, no bingos.