American Girl's First Adult Novel Reads Like YA, Critics Say

On February 11, 2026, American Girl announced its first book aimed explicitly at adults: Samantha: The Next Chapter, a novel by Fiona Davis starring Samantha Parkington, one of the original three dolls created by Pleasant Rowland in 1986. The announcement landed during the brand's 40th anniversary year—and, according to critics who have read the available excerpt, the book does not remotely read like adult fiction.

The novel is set in 1920. Samantha is 25, working to educate New York women about suffrage ahead of their first presidential election. When her inheritance, including her childhood Mount Bedford home, is stolen, she goes, in the publisher's words, "from socialite to shopgirl overnight and experiences a very different side of New York City."

What does the early excerpt reveal?

American Girl has kept the book under tight control. No advance reader copies appear to be circulating; only the first four chapters are available, via Cosmopolitan.com. Davis, who has written seven bestselling historical novels about New York City and its architecture, delivers prose that reviewers describe as indistinguishable from the original middle-grade texts. The opening pages mention Samantha's heart-shaped locket, her dark brown hair, and—"for good measure, what exactly a suffragist is."

Critics point to hard formal evidence. The chapters run 1,450 to 2,000 words—precisely the standard range for a young adult novel. Samantha's age of 25 places her well outside the twelve-to-eighteen range typical of YA protagonists. The book is also the sole title on American Girl's "Books for Adults" page without an age rating, even as the brand rates everything else on that shelf, from the American Girl Character Encyclopedia (Ages 6+) to The Official American Girl Cookbook (Ages 21+, for its alcoholic recipes).

One Reddit reader captured the reaction: "I guess I don't necessarily mind being pandered to, but I found this KIND of pandering…annoying."

Why is American Girl doing this now?

The publisher is chasing a documented adult fanbase. During the early COVID-19 pandemic, admissions to American Girl's "doll hospital" surged as grown women excavated dolls from childhood closets. In 2021, the brand brought back its original six-doll lineup—Samantha, Kirsten, Molly, Josefina, Felicity, and Addy—alongside a short book promoted "for adults" that is rated Ages 8+ on the website. Adult engagement now includes alcohol sales at American Girl Place cafés and meme accounts with hundreds of thousands of likes.

Samantha was the logical choice for the project, scholars argue: she is rumored to be American Girl's best-selling doll of all time, and the company says its 2026 Doll of the Year, Raquel Reyes, is Samantha's direct descendant. Samantha also appears in the current catalog for $175.

What does this mean for fans and for the brand?

The authors of An American Girl Anthology: Finding Ourselves in the Pleasant Company Universe (2025), including Dr. Tara Strauch, argue that Mattel, which owns Pleasant Company, would never allow meaningful adult complexity. There is precedent: Disney killed the Lizzie McGuire reboot after insisting the character's life at 30 stay within a PG rating, and Laura Ingalls Wilder struggled to render adult experience for readers who knew her as a perpetual child.

The context sharpens the critique. The release arrives as many Americans struggle to read above a sixth-grade level, and as the adult romance genre—driven largely by women readers demanding character growth and explicit "spice"—undergoes a major shift. American Girl, critics note, historically positioned its books as stepping stones toward more challenging reading. The new novel inverts that promise.

There is also a cost to fans who practice "restorying"—imagining off-script futures for characters. An "official" update to Samantha's story doesn't preclude headcanons, the anthology's editors write, "but it does narrow the scope of possibility, just a little." They predict plenty of readers will embrace the book for exactly what it is: "a bone, thrown on the occasion of the brand's fortieth year in business."