This is a raw, heart-breaking and brilliant book, exploring what it means to connect to someone. The writing is beautiful. Wonderful, believable, flawed characters. Highly recommend.

Dolores has a decent life. As a secondary school teacher, she excels at damage limitation for troubled teenagers and offers realistic but supportive advice. She has had a complex relationship through childhood with her mother, now widowed and sliding into dementia, Married to David, their relationship lacks intimacy and genuine connection, but seems functional. Then she accidentally finds an AI sex doll, Zoey, which David has been keeping hidden in their garage. Initially she is furious and humiliated, but soon becomes fascinated by the lifelike Zoey, and begins to talk to and react with her with an openness she has witheld from David. Zoey will be the catalyst that prompts her to come to terms with her past and to look to a different future. This book blew me away! Despite the subject matter, this is no salacious smutfest but a literary and insightful exploration of the difficulties of relating even with loved ones, the buried needs we sometimes have and how secrets can come back to haunt you decades later. I also really enjoyed the depiction of the school where Dolores teaches, the portrayal of the students struggling with the path to adulthood and the way she tries to help them. Unusual and unforgettable, shot through with dark humour but also heartbreakingly raw, this is Sarah Crossan’s best work yet.

“If I told you what it’s like to be in love with you, it would hurt you to hear it, Dolores.”

“All I knew was that we lay back-to-back most nights, willing the other to sleep so the wordless message between us IdonotloveyouIdonotloveyou would vanish along with our shallow, wakeful breaths.”

“I wished I wasn’t strong. Because when you are, no one thinks to take care of you.”

Beautiful prose and powerful story. So much more than the tale of a sex doll.

Hey Zoey is an interesting premise and while at the beginning it felt like a Black Mirror style dystopian horror, you then realise it actually probably is quite realistic. Technology is having irreparable impact on human interaction and of course within relationships and marriages. But the plot fell a bit flat for me - I was expecting more to happen? The dynamic was super interesting about how the wife keeps Zoey for a bit after the husband leaves, but I felt maybe if this book was a bit shorter or something, it would have been a bit more impactful.
Overall very good.

@currentlyreading__
Book 92 of 2023

Thank you to @NetGalley, the author @sarahcrossanwriter and the publishers @bloomsburypublishing for the advanced copy of ‘Hey, Zoey’ due for publication in May 2024. I absolutely loved Sarah’s first foray into adult fiction with ‘Here is the Beehive’ and this, however strange the premise might sound, is just as captivating.

It recounts a marriage under complete annihilation when Dolores O’Shea finds an AI Love Dollz sex doll in her garage whilst husband David is at work. David is an anaesthesiologist and spends his time making sure his patients are prone yet, following his Hippocratic oath, well-cared for and free of harm. But his wife feels she has been neglected for many years and after finding the doll, realises that the doll has been getting all of her husband’s attention. So, David is kicked to the kerb and Dolores spends her time bonding with the doll who she discovers is called Zoey and realises they have more in common than she would have thought.

The narrative moves through childhood, adolescence and adulthood and just how Dolores and her siblings have navigated their lives. With changes in time frame, location shifts between London and New York (where younger sister Jacinta lives) some might think the shifts are chaotic but I think they very much fit in with the frantic nature of the plot and how Dolores is unravelling emotionally.

This is one for you if you have loved Crossan’s previous work, both adult and YA, but also if you like a twisty domestic drama with a marriage in turmoil.

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Hey, Zoey is the first book that I have read by the author, Sarah Crossan.
I found the novel quite interesting and the author's writing was easy to follow. It had a good story line with an interesting cast of characters. Overall an enjoyable read that I highly recommend. I would read more by the author.
❤️ Thank you to netgalley and the author & publisher for my arc ebook copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I came to Sarah Crossan through her YA fiction and I'm so glad that I did.
Her books never fail to impress and this is no exception. I lost half my weekend to reading Hey, Zoey and have been recommending to friends ever since.
Thanks to Netgalley.

This was a very interesting read,using a sex doll to explore themes of sensuality, desire and vulnerability

Sarah Crossan's voice has matured into something that Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy would write and I like it. I was never able for verse heavy books of hers before, and always found them somewhat out of reach, but this was plot driven whilst being hugely atmospheric. You always had the sense of a dark melachony beneath the surface and that of anxiety manifesting itse;f.
Dolores's seemingly perfect marriage ends when she discovers a sex toy in the garage, belonging to her husband. I thought this would be the twist especially as he'd rather just break up than explain it. What the premise of the book is geared towards is the relationship between the sex doll and Dolores once David is out of the picture. Honestly, this part wasn't so good, and the secondary characters at this point interested me more like the school children involved in the distribution of naked pictures, the unwholesome fixation the teacher's had on Oliver and the murky background story of Dolores half brother and step father.
One big problem, and this is more to do with NetGalley and nothing to do with the author or the story is that Adobe Digital Editions isn't working properly anymore and the formatting for the epub was awful so lots of binary numbers appeared, unusual lower casing and subscripts and strange kerning. Once an ARC starts becoming a chore, the reviews are not going to drive sales for new books like they are supposed to.

I struggled so much to keep up with the pace of this book- it was absolutely chaotic- but not in a good way. There is a lot of jumping around and I really did not enjoy it.

A fantastic read, again Sarah is a master at writing about the toughest of topics. Will be highly recommending this all over social media and in the library. Roll on next year!

Well, if anyone was going to make me read about a sex doll, it would be Sarah Crossan!
Delores discovers her husband has a sex doll and confronts him about it, but doesn't let him keep it. Over time, she becomes accustomed to having "Zoey" around, and it stops Delores from being so lonely. There are many parallels with the sex doll to Delores life, and this is drip fed throughout the book.
Told in alternating short paragraphs, the book gives us insight into Delores' life now and also her childhood.
I can't say I really enjoyed reading this one, but it did keep my interest, and I wanted to know the outcome.

This is such an interesting premise - Dolores’ discovers her husbands AI companion doll, her husband leaves while she keeps the doll, over time she starts talking to Zoey (the doll) and learns some truths about herself & her past, using Zoey as a friend and confidant. This books was funny, sad and made me quite introspective of myself. I cannot recommend enough.

Teacher Dolores O'Shea is used to handling the personal problems of her pupils in a matter of fact and down to earth manner as well as the often eccentric behaviour of her elderly mother. While her marriage to David,a Doctor, isn't all it could be she's completely thrown when she discovers a very expensive AI sex doll hidden in the garage. A bit of surveillance proves that David is indeed "spending time in the garage" ,often while claiming to be elsewhere. When confronted he decides to leave rather than even discuss the matter with Dolores.
While shocked Dolores is also fascinated by the Doll, Zoey, and starts to talk to her with life-changing results.

That's the beginning of a story that is a lot deeper and more thought-provoking than I expected. As Dolores spends more time speaking to Zoey and hears the reactions of others who meet the doll she reflects on her life and relationships.

This is an excellent book,insightful,moving,sometimes shocking but ultimately uplifting and despite its very novel concept entirely believable,

A very sad book exploring a woman's life, her relationships and her past. Information trickles out little by little but using a sex doll as confidant is a strange premise. It's well written, as are all Sarah Crossan's books and it's very thought provoking but it's an uncomfortable read.

What a premise! Sarah Crossan has produced another absolute belter. I felt heart sorry for Dolores. 'Hey Zoey' is an inventive and interesting read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the style of writing, the way Sarah Crossan reveals things to us gradually, and the fact that she uses a sex doll (of all things!) to explore universal themes in a way that feels delicate and considered. Brilliant piece of work!