Book Review: Hey, Zoey by Sarah Crossan

For the month of August, I read a few books that featured teachers as the protagonists, as many people turn their thoughts to the ‘back to school’ mindset while summer gears down. Hey, Zoey by Sarah Crossan is about a woman named Dolores; she’s a teacher whose marriage begins to fall apart after she makes a strange discovery in her garage. Even though this book isn’t about Dolores being a teacher, many of the plot points would not exist without the discussions she has with her students, so her career is a critical part of her characterization. These interactions were my favourite parts of the book, which definitely kept me turning the pages quickly, even when Dolores herself seemed like an unknowable and far-fetched character.

Plot Summary

Dolores and her husband David have been married for over 10 years, living a steady, stable life together. They don’t have any children, and no pets. They don’t share many hobbies, and at the age of 43, Dolores is settled into her teaching job where she’s reached a management position, comfortable with her quiet life, and happy to keep going as it is. David is an anesthesiologist, and plays alot of tennis. One day, Dolores discovers a body in her garage, zipped up in the bag their Christmas tree is typically stored in. For a few tense hours, she suspects it may be a dead body, but quickly realizes it’s a sex doll. After polling a few close friends and family members she confronts David, and he admits he hasn’t been happy in a long time, and moves out. She keeps the doll who is named ‘Zoey’, and begins to reexamine her relationship with those around her while she lives her life next to this doll, adjusting her daily habits to include this mannequin that possesses limited AI capabilities. As she speaks to Zoey, she remembers things from her childhood, and Dolores’s behaviour (normally quite predictable) turns somewhat erratic. The questions she begins to ask herself unearth things she preferred to never examine, which leads to her upending her life in ways she previously never thought possible.

My Thoughts

Almost immediately, we are faced with the fact that this protagonist is not an average person, with average reactions. Who doesn’t immediately react to finding a dead body in their garage? Instead, she zips it back up and thinks for awhile, rather than really testing to see if it’s a person, doll, etc. This ambiguity sets the plot on an uneven trajectory, signaling to the reader that Dolores may not be a trustworthy, or even typical person. Her future relationship to Zoey is foreshadowed when Dolores recalls that she played with dolls much later into her childhood than most girls, and could only invite one friend over at that time in her life, concerned that others would taunt her at school if they found out. These occasional flashbacks to her childhood gave us further insight into Dolores as a person, but never really ‘explained’ her strangeness, instead they just served to remind us that Dolores has always been different, and even though she’s now a middle-aged woman, not much has changed in her life.

As Dolores’s behaviour begins to shift, the plot begins to veer into places that threaten to upend her life permanently, yet at the last minute, practicalities prevail and the crisis is averted (in most cases). Crises are suggested and occasionally touched upon in the lives of those around her, but it all seems to remain below the surface for Dolores, even when a death or violence does occur, she never ‘overreacts’. She resents this characteristic in her Mother, but of course, she mirrors it herself. Because these instances only threaten the plot, the result is that it feels like not much happens in this book, and the reader is never given the satisfaction of a big climax or conflict. Although this may be more realistic, it doesn’t prove to be the best kind of reading, so I was left with a feeling of disappointment by the end of the book, hoping for a bigger reveal or ‘aha’ moment that never came.

On an entirely different bookish note, my family was recently travelling around the Sunshine Coast of BC, and I made a stop into a local bookstore in hopes I may run into Karissa from the book blog Karissa Reads Books so we could meet in person. In a twist of luck she was working, and my daughter took this photo of us together (I wore my books and cat shirt of course) outside of the store. When I was chatting with Karissa, I said ‘our book blogging buddies are going to love this, I know Melanie from GTL will certainly get a kick out of it!’. Bookish people unite!!!! And for those who aren’t familiar with Canadian geography, Karissa and I live around 12 hours plus a ferry ride away from each other, so my family and I had taken a lengthy road trip for our summer vacation; I likely won’t see Karissa again, but meeting her in person was definitely a highlight to my trip.