I got a little nostalgic about the blog this week. As I was writing today's review, which features Gywnn Tan, a 14-inch American Girl doll, I thought to myself, "I should reference the WellieWishers review I wrote not so long ago." Well, "not so long ago" turns out to be six years ago. I was struck by my commentary at that time; I mentioned being caught up in our town's high school musical, which was, indeed, a big part of my life back then. But both of my kids were in high school six years ago...and now they're done with college and interviewing for jobs. Ack! And I know from the wonderful letters that I've gotten over the years that many of you were little when you first started reading this blog (some of you even wrote guest reviews!) and are now in college or working at jobs of your own. It's crazy. The doll world can slow time in funny ways (the WellieWisher kids are the same age they were six years ago, after all) but real life forges ahead.
Enough about that, though. Let me tell you a little bit about why I'm bothering to revisit this style of doll six years later. The first reason is simply that I'm excited about Corinne, American Girl's Girl of the Year for 2022. I'm excited about Corinne because she's the first Chinese Girl of the Year, and I'm also excited because she has doll siblings--like Gwynn! Corinne herself will make an appearance on the blog at some point in the future, but for now I'm focusing my attention on her little sister.
I'm focused on Gwynn because of the larger purpose of this review. I've noticed a variety of 14-inch dolls on the market over the past few months, and, because I tend to get obsessive about certain ideas or styles of doll, I bought five of those different varieties. These five dolls aren't different enough to each need long, complicated reviews, so I had the idea to run a series of shorter, interconnected reviews that will take a more comparative look at the five brands. Every comparison series needs to start somewhere, and with some benchmark, so I figured where better to start than with one of America's most popular doll brands? With all of that in mind, here's Miss Gwynn Tan to kick off this 14-inch doll extravaganza:
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| Gwynn Tan by American Girl, $65. |
