Description
“A fresh and fun take on Barbie lore…clever and satisfying.” – Shelby Van Pelt, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
She was only eleven-and-a-half inches tall, but she would change the world. Barbie is born in this bold new novel by USA Today bestselling author Renée Rosen.
When Ruth Handler walks into the boardroom of the toy company she co-founded and pitches her idea for a doll unlike any other, she knows what she’s setting in motion. It might just take the world a moment to catch up.
In 1956, the only dolls on the market for little girls let them pretend to be mothers. Ruth’s vision for a doll shaped like a grown woman and outfitted in an enviable wardrobe will let them dream they can be anything.
As Ruth assembles her team of creative rebels—head engineer Jack Ryan who hides his deepest secrets behind his genius and designers Charlotte Johnson and Stevie Klein, whose hopes and dreams rest on the success of Barbie’s fashion—she knows they’re working against a ticking clock to get this wild idea off the ground.
In the decades to come—through soaring heights and devastating personal lows, public scandals and private tensions— each of them will have to decide how tightly to hold on to their creation. Because Barbie has never been just a doll—she’s a legacy.
She was only eleven-and-a-half inches tall, but she would change the world. Barbie is born in this bold new novel by USA Today bestselling author Renée Rosen.
When Ruth Handler walks into the boardroom of the toy company she co-founded and pitches her idea for a doll unlike any other, she knows what she’s setting in motion. It might just take the world a moment to catch up.
In 1956, the only dolls on the market for little girls let them pretend to be mothers. Ruth’s vision for a doll shaped like a grown woman and outfitted in an enviable wardrobe will let them dream they can be anything.
As Ruth assembles her team of creative rebels—head engineer Jack Ryan who hides his deepest secrets behind his genius and designers Charlotte Johnson and Stevie Klein, whose hopes and dreams rest on the success of Barbie’s fashion—she knows they’re working against a ticking clock to get this wild idea off the ground.
In the decades to come—through soaring heights and devastating personal lows, public scandals and private tensions— each of them will have to decide how tightly to hold on to their creation. Because Barbie has never been just a doll—she’s a legacy.
Review
I never knew there was so much history to Barbie.
A novel written based on facts with some fiction to bind it together makes for a great read. I especially loved the parts when they first began to design Barbie and the details to ensure her clothes worked. To take the coldness from what would have been just facts we get the backstory of each of the characters and their life outside of Mattel.
By the author's own admission at the end of the book, it says she had to cut it by 100 pages because it was too long. In my opinion, it is still too long. It flagged at times and I felt we were being taken over old ground. Sometimes reading was like working those long shifts in chapters as the employees toiled away.
I also had my eyes opened to some of the goings on in the toy industry and what happened at Mattel. I looked up some of it as I wasn't sure by this point what was fact and what was fiction. In the main the characters are real. With Barbara Handler and her family and the designer Jack Ryan the main real life people. A character which was invented was Stevie, who was a designer of clothes for Barbie in the book.
The book was apparently in the making before the movie. There are a couple of references to things in the movie that went over my head at the time, and now I understand them. I never got a Barbie and I kind of understand why now!
I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review. This book will be published 21 January 2025.
