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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
2023 Update: Idk what 2019 Thomas was on. This was fantastic.
This was a very interesting book, albeit with a lot of flaws. First off, the pacing was all over the place, with the first 100 or so pages being at a relatively slow pace, and then the last 70 being very fast. The problem with this is that the ending in almost entirely glossed over. However, I really enjoyed the concepts and the characters, and the world-building was very well done. I feel like the length was its biggest weakness. The world wasn't fleshed out as much as it could have, and neither was the mystery. Overall, I'm gonna read the next installment, as this was a very quick and engaging read, but it was nothing special.
This was a very interesting book, albeit with a lot of flaws. First off, the pacing was all over the place, with the first 100 or so pages being at a relatively slow pace, and then the last 70 being very fast. The problem with this is that the ending in almost entirely glossed over. However, I really enjoyed the concepts and the characters, and the world-building was very well done. I feel like the length was its biggest weakness. The world wasn't fleshed out as much as it could have, and neither was the mystery. Overall, I'm gonna read the next installment, as this was a very quick and engaging read, but it was nothing special.
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What happens to children after they come back from their visit to a magical.world? That's what Seanan McGuire asks in her novella, “Every Heart a Doorway”. In this work, many of these children end up at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. There, their families hope they will find healing and be able to live in the real world again. But really, there is something else going on.
This was a remarkable book. McGuire has layered a murder mystery over her take on the "children find" a magical world trope. Although the work is short,the world building is strong, and the characters are well drawn. I really enjoyed this and already have the second one on my TBR.
This was a remarkable book. McGuire has layered a murder mystery over her take on the "children find" a magical world trope. Although the work is short,the world building is strong, and the characters are well drawn. I really enjoyed this and already have the second one on my TBR.
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I know I’m late, but I’m officially a fan now. The setting is a school for wayward teens, who according to their parents need therapy but Eleanor West knows they’ve actually all travelled through doors to wacky worlds and just want to go home. Book 1 is like an episodic murder mystery in the real world. I immediately went to book 2.
2.5 stars.
I'm absolutely in love with the premise of this book, but literally everything else about it fell short for me. Most of my frustration comes from the pacing, which is quick to the point of whiplash at times. I wanted to learn so much more about the characters and the worlds they had gotten to explore. I really think this story would have benefited from another 50 to 100 pages. As it is, the plot races by without giving us any time to examine what's happening. By the time we start to suspect who/what has been at the center of the story's mystery, the whole thing is over and the answer is more or less dumped unceremoniously at our feet.
I'm thrilled to see queer representation here, but there were a couple places where I felt the explanations for a character's identity bordered on a kind of shoe-horned "wokeness" that comes from awkward language on the author's part and is *not* a criticism of the inclusion of a diverse cast. As someone on the ace spectrum, it was really cool and unexpected to see someone that I could relate to take on a major role.
I had heard such amazing things about this book before I picked it up, but I think I might have been a victim of the hype in this instance. With such a cool world to read about, I'm still going to pick up the next installment in the series in the hopes that it delivers in a way this one didn't quite manage.
I'm absolutely in love with the premise of this book, but literally everything else about it fell short for me. Most of my frustration comes from the pacing, which is quick to the point of whiplash at times. I wanted to learn so much more about the characters and the worlds they had gotten to explore. I really think this story would have benefited from another 50 to 100 pages. As it is, the plot races by without giving us any time to examine what's happening. By the time we start to suspect who/what has been at the center of the story's mystery, the whole thing is over and the answer is more or less dumped unceremoniously at our feet.
I'm thrilled to see queer representation here, but there were a couple places where I felt the explanations for a character's identity bordered on a kind of shoe-horned "wokeness" that comes from awkward language on the author's part and is *not* a criticism of the inclusion of a diverse cast. As someone on the ace spectrum, it was really cool and unexpected to see someone that I could relate to take on a major role.
I had heard such amazing things about this book before I picked it up, but I think I might have been a victim of the hype in this instance. With such a cool world to read about, I'm still going to pick up the next installment in the series in the hopes that it delivers in a way this one didn't quite manage.
It's been a while since a book has made me feel Seen, Perceived, Known... whatever word you choose, Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire has done that for me. It's not quite what I expected - it's a bit darker, a bit more disturbing than the description led me to believe, but I absolutely love it for that (I'm a simply spooky girl who likes spooky things - sue me).
Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children is really just a ruse. She isn't hoping to "fix" the children who come to her school - she wants to help them find their way home. Every student at her school went through a door, a portal, into a world that welcomed them or wanted them, a world where they were themselves wholly and completely. But for one reason or another, they had to leave these worlds, and when they did, they found themselves unceremoniously dumped back into the "real" world, trying to adjust back to a life they left behind (and never wanted to return to).
I'm not sure where to place this book. It's light but also macabre. Disturbing but whimsical. Easy to read yet poignant. I've seen people classify it as YA, and I think that makes sense, and it probably resonates strongly with that demographic, but I also think it defies that sort of categorization. Barely 20 pages in, McGuire hits us with this line from Sumi: "Because hope is a knife that can cut through the foundations of the world...Hope hurts. That's what you need to learn, and fast, if you don't want it to cut you open from the inside out. Hope is bad. Hope means you keep on holding to things that won't ever be so again, and so you bleed an inch at a time until there's nothing left."
Other moments were just as quotable. This line, also from Sumi, on growing up and growing old: "Old enough to know what I'm losing in the process of being found."
And this little speech from Jack that simply makes me cry: "That's the thing people forget when they start talking about things in terms of good and evil...For us, the places we went were home. We didn't care if they were good or evil or neutral or what. We cared about the fact that for the first time, we didn't have to pretend to be something we weren't. We just got to be. That made all the difference in the world."
What is good or evil? Who defines that? Why are skeletons and ghosts bad but rainbows and unicorns good? Why can't we decide that for ourselves? Obviously, McGuire is alluding to more than these surface-level examples. She's asking about sexuality and gender, the things we enjoy, the way we face the world and the people within it.
This book is perfect for people who feel a bit out of touch with the rest of the world, especially especially in terms of sexuality and gender.
The protagonist is Nancy, a spooky girl who travels to an Underworld, prefers moving slow to rushing through life, dances with a Lord of Shadows, and is an asexual romantic. Truly everything I want in a protagonist (and more!).
Kade is Nancy's friend and sort-of love interest, a trans boy who was taken to a Fairy realm, fought a Goblin Prince (and won!), and always watches out for Nancy.
Jack and Jill, identical twins who traveled to an Underworld, Jack apprenticing a Frankenstein-esque mad scientist and Jill becoming close with a vampiric ruler.
Christopher! My spooky son who also traveled to an Underworld, fell in love with Skeleton Girl, and plays a bone flute to make skeletal remains dance... I will protect him at all costs. If a man ever told me he could commune with the dead via a bone flute I would simply be delighted.
The ending was a bit anticlimactic, but I'm okay with it because this is just the first in the series, and I'm expecting the sequels to pick up where this leaves off and fill in the gaps and give me more of this world.
I'll definitely be reading the next books in the series (I may have already requested them from my library...), and I'll also be checking out the rest of McGuire's work. The writing was lovely yet easily accessible, disturbing or funny in just the right places, surprisingly tender so suddenly you don't know you have tears in your eyes until the words are wobbling across the page. <3
Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children is really just a ruse. She isn't hoping to "fix" the children who come to her school - she wants to help them find their way home. Every student at her school went through a door, a portal, into a world that welcomed them or wanted them, a world where they were themselves wholly and completely. But for one reason or another, they had to leave these worlds, and when they did, they found themselves unceremoniously dumped back into the "real" world, trying to adjust back to a life they left behind (and never wanted to return to).
I'm not sure where to place this book. It's light but also macabre. Disturbing but whimsical. Easy to read yet poignant. I've seen people classify it as YA, and I think that makes sense, and it probably resonates strongly with that demographic, but I also think it defies that sort of categorization. Barely 20 pages in, McGuire hits us with this line from Sumi: "Because hope is a knife that can cut through the foundations of the world...Hope hurts. That's what you need to learn, and fast, if you don't want it to cut you open from the inside out. Hope is bad. Hope means you keep on holding to things that won't ever be so again, and so you bleed an inch at a time until there's nothing left."
Other moments were just as quotable. This line, also from Sumi, on growing up and growing old: "Old enough to know what I'm losing in the process of being found."
And this little speech from Jack that simply makes me cry: "That's the thing people forget when they start talking about things in terms of good and evil...For us, the places we went were home. We didn't care if they were good or evil or neutral or what. We cared about the fact that for the first time, we didn't have to pretend to be something we weren't. We just got to be. That made all the difference in the world."
What is good or evil? Who defines that? Why are skeletons and ghosts bad but rainbows and unicorns good? Why can't we decide that for ourselves? Obviously, McGuire is alluding to more than these surface-level examples. She's asking about sexuality and gender, the things we enjoy, the way we face the world and the people within it.
This book is perfect for people who feel a bit out of touch with the rest of the world, especially especially in terms of sexuality and gender.
The protagonist is Nancy, a spooky girl who travels to an Underworld, prefers moving slow to rushing through life, dances with a Lord of Shadows, and is an asexual romantic. Truly everything I want in a protagonist (and more!).
Kade is Nancy's friend and sort-of love interest, a trans boy who was taken to a Fairy realm, fought a Goblin Prince (and won!), and always watches out for Nancy.
Jack and Jill, identical twins who traveled to an Underworld, Jack apprenticing a Frankenstein-esque mad scientist and Jill becoming close with a vampiric ruler.
Christopher! My spooky son who also traveled to an Underworld, fell in love with Skeleton Girl, and plays a bone flute to make skeletal remains dance... I will protect him at all costs. If a man ever told me he could commune with the dead via a bone flute I would simply be delighted.
The ending was a bit anticlimactic, but I'm okay with it because this is just the first in the series, and I'm expecting the sequels to pick up where this leaves off and fill in the gaps and give me more of this world.
I'll definitely be reading the next books in the series (I may have already requested them from my library...), and I'll also be checking out the rest of McGuire's work. The writing was lovely yet easily accessible, disturbing or funny in just the right places, surprisingly tender so suddenly you don't know you have tears in your eyes until the words are wobbling across the page. <3
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
It just wasn’t very good. I don’t feel like it was fast paced and it was kinda boring