REVIEW: Monster High Ghoulia Yelps

Kudos to Target for being like Amazon and making sure their exclusive was readily available. Walmart has yet to come through. Ugh. 

I honestly was least excited for Ghoulia. She's the one whose changes I don't like. I don't mind what they did with the other characters. Some are even improvements. But they already have Deuce as the green character, so why not leave Ghoulia gray? We didn't need a mint green one just because Frankie no longer is. She's not exactly Frankie's mint though. She's a bit lighter. I might not have minded the skintone change so much if it wasn't alongside a complete change to her face. She used to have this gorgeous angular face with awesome full lips. Like if you took the Ghoulia mold from the original and cast it in a human skintone, it wouldn't look right. But if you took this new head and cast it in a human skintone, she would easily fit into a human doll line. There's nothing otherworldly about her and she lost that lovely expressiveness her old face had. And that's really disappointing. 

But if there's one thing this new line is really good at, apparently it is winning me over in person. Can she do it?

The art is pretty cute. Thank the dolly gods they changed those boots to silver. Gah. That brown is gross. 

The absolute highlight is Sir Hoots-a-Lot. 

ADORABLE. 

Love him. 

Her game. 

We've skipped the sadly brief phase where Ghoulia was more geek chic and gone right into fully embracing her gore phase. I'm not really thrilled about this. 

Like this. This phone is just ugly. All the other ones were cute. 

Okay, now here I don't mind the little brain. It's cute. 

Good to see Dead Fast again. 

Cute. 

Here I don't mind the brain molding. 

It really is hit or miss with me and the more gory nods. Sometimes I like. Sometimes I hate. I do think they're overdoing the brains though. This is a lot of different brain motifs all on a single doll. Mix it up a bit. 

I cannot tell you how angry I am that these were packaged on her face. There is some protection, but mine still has a dent in her face from them. Everyone else got their glasses off to the side. Why not her? UGH. 

No gel once again. Love that they're skipping the hair gel. 

I like the tombstone earrings. There's a death nod that isn't brains. Good job, Mattel. 

I like the brain on the shirt, too. 

The jacket I initially didn't like, but the stripes on the sleeves say "braaaaaains" over and over and that's pretty funny. 

The dark pink blood skirt I'm mixed on. I like the material and the zipper. The belt part is too many brains. That's what I mean about there being just plain too many of them on one doll. I'm not a huge fan of the dripping aspect. Drips are not my favorite motif. 

Her hair is overall a much darker blue this time. There are lighter strands but not many. 

The boots have a brain platform, which is yet another brain reference, but also another time when I think it's well-done. 

She has what I think I'm going to start calling the standard body. 

Smaller boobs, flatter lower torso, smaller thighs, regular height. 

So basically like Clawdeen and Lagoona minus their monstery touches. 

The back. 

No jacket. 

She is a cute doll, but that's it. She does keep growing on me, but she's like a lot of other dolls I own. She's cute. She's missing the personality that the other dolls in the MH line have. 

I really thought I was going to put this on for this pic and stuff it in my G3 storage bag.

But no. 

Okay, it came off because I was able to put her glasses on better by lifting up her hair. 

I love the shape of the glasses, but I wish the lenses were more transparent. Ghoulia goes through unlife really needing to clean her damn glasses apparently. How can she see her game?

Eeyeah, I do not hate it at all. 

The hat kinda makes the outfit and keeps her glasses from moving around, too. 

Yep, yep, this is working. 

Backpack on. 

Game on. 

I think this is when I realized how much I liked her. 

Still dislike the phone. Into the backpack it went. 

Sir Hoots can perch on her arm if you push up her sleeve. 

So cute!

Yep, you win, Ghoulia. You totally won me over even though I had been very vocal against your changes. Congrats. 

So yeah, final thoughts: I like her a lot more than I ever expected. The key was just to embrace her changes and really let her ride with the skater thing. I figured I'd be ditching the jacket and the hat, maybe finding her a different bottom from my old MH stuff, but no. If I'm going to like new Ghoulia, I can't make her look like old Ghoulia, because she never will. I gotta love new Ghoulia for who she is and I think I can. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.