"The Dollhouse" by Fiona Davis. Magnificent! I loved this so much! I had planned to go to art school in the city and went to look at The Barbizon Hotel. Change of plan. This book made me realize how much I wished I had lived there! I wonder if there was a floor for art students...

This is *The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis* - her debut novel.

Published *2016* - set in the famous real *Barbizon Hotel for Women* in New York City. The Barbizon really existed on Lexington Ave - it was where Grace Kelly, Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath all lived. Men called it "The Dollhouse" because it was packed with pretty young women waiting to get married.

Here is a summary in English:

*Two timelines, same building:*

*1952 - Darby McLaughlin:*

Darby is 19, from Ohio. She is plain, shy, self-conscious. She arrives in NYC with her enrollment for *Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School* and moves into the Barbizon Hotel for Women.

She feels totally out of place. Her floor is full of stunning models from the Eileen Ford agency who are cruel to her.

Her only friend becomes *Esme* - a bold, charismatic, Puerto Rican maid who works at the Barbizon. Esme is everything Darby is not: confident, street-smart, big-city.