Reviews with content warning for Self harm - Le diecimila porte di January

This book was so enrapturing. The world that Harrow creates is complex and exciting. There were many points where a new element was introduced and I was completely caught off guard. January is a girl who was raised by a wealthy man, Mr. Locke, who employs her father to find rare treasures. This book covers a good part of her life and her discovery of the doors to other worlds. When her father goes missing, her adventure begins as she attempts to find him. Her journey through worlds and finding out about her father is one of many trials. She is accompanied by her protective dog Sinbad, Bad. Given to her by a childhood friend Samuel, Bad is her one companion in the Locke house, until her father hires Jane to be her companion. I loved the way that January evolved throughout the story. She discovered who she was and took back the power taken from her by those in her life who just saw her as a dark-skinned girl. Her story had adventure, mystery, and romance, but it all centered around January finding out who she was and who she wanted to be. This was a dynamic story that had well-developed, complex characters. I love Harrow's writing style and can't wait to read more of her work.

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dariusmortee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious slow-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

5.0

Holy shit why haven’t I read this book sooner. It’s so good and magical and exactly in my alley.

I would compare this book to The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern in vibes.

Alix managed to write this book in a way I start to believe there may be actually Doors hidden in our world. It makes me want to go and explore, see if I can end up in different worlds, without minding the risk of ending up in a shitty one. I love how stories are woven through this book it makes it so much more magical.

The Once and Future Witches was my first book by Alix E Harrow and I will absolutely read more if she decides to publish them.

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freyjajok's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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szuum's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful medium-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? No

4.25

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le3713's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I loved this one! From the very beginning I was marking favorite sentences, like “I ought to introduce Mr. Locke properly; he’d hate to wander into the story in such a casual, slantwise way.”

The book has many heart wrenching moments, and I really didn't know what kind of ending to expect, but I was captivated by January and her companions as well as the concept of Doors and the way they worked in the book. The particular power the written word was given was so appealing to me. It started a bit slow, but I soon couldn't put it down, and wanted to give the book a hug by the end.

Before reading, I saw a lot of comparisons to The Starless Sea, which is a book that didn't work at all for me. I can see the ways in which they are similar, but I found this book much more straightforward in style, while still fantastical, adventurous, and mysterious.

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izzybell's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

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gmalmquist's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-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

5.0

This story spoke to my soul. An adventurous portal fantasy that shatters all the genre tropes in the best ways, a story of overcoming adversity and prejudice, strong female characters, lovers fighting impossible odds to be together, arcane secrets lost and found again, myth and fairy-tale come-alive, wonder and pain and oppression and hope, complicated parent/child relationships... this book is a masterpiece and Alix Harrow is a gift.

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fauna_n_fiction's review against another edition

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slow-paced

3.5

Firstly, just some quick thoughts:

1. There is a major trigger warning for self-abuse in this book.

2. These chapters were hellishly long. I think we can all agree that the pacing wasn’t spectacular but a lot of the problem could have been forgiven if things were broken up into easier-to-digest chapters.

3. Although this is a portal fantasy, we do not explore a lot of worlds in this. There’s nothing innately wrong with that but I would have loved more of the other worlds than the few brush-away descriptions we got.

4. I really don’t like that name “Bad” for a dog. I know it’s so essentially not important to the story but I didn’t like the name and it bothered me. Why speak bad behavior over your dog for his whole life?

5. This has to be the most beautiful book cover in the whole world. My aesthetic tied up in a beautiful bow!

Some books with similar themes:

The Starless Sea – To compare this story to the Starless Sea is unnecessary. The stories are completely different. However, the same beautiful idea of love is present in this story as well, there are doors and the writing is beautiful. There is also the same slow-pacing and the lack of world-hopping.

The Wayward Children Series – A child who has found a door to her own world and then loses it. It is similar. The writing is vastly different and FOR SURE, the pacing is worlds apart. However, McGuire gives us more about the other worlds than Harrow does and a lot more “rules” on how doors do and don’t work.

Characters

January – I enjoyed January as a main character. I loved her wavering sense-of-self, her morals and motivations and the decisions she made. I really felt for her and I rooted for her success. She was strong and resilient and I enjoyed reading about her story.

The other characters in the story were very well written as well. Everyone had their part to play and played it well, however, that is all they did. Other than our four MAIN characters, the others fell flat. And I feel inclined to say that only two of our main characters were 100% fleshed out as even Ade and Julian, along with the rest of the cast, were reduced to how they played a role in January’s story. And for a novel all about one’s story and how they choose to write it, I feel like we could have dived a little deeper into the supporting characters.

In terms of antagonists, this book is the epitome of “were they really the bad guy?” and “they believed what they were doing was the right thing to do” and “can we REALLY call them a villain?” and if delivered that beautifully and spectacularly.

Atmosphere

Once again, we don’t get a lot about the different worlds behind doors. We get a lot about America in the early 1900s and although this book follows characters who explored the entire world and others, we didn’t really stray away from two main areas.

I enjoyed the areas we did explore and Locke House definitely felt foreboding and mysterious and impossibly grand and large but somehow like a tiny cage at the same time.

Writing

In terms of descriptions and general writing style, I really loved it. I knew what everything looked and felt like and I followed along very easily. I loved the mention of how letters resemble symbols of the things they refer to and the “grand-ness” of capital letters.

I loved the “you are part of the story” vibe that was in this story. I felt truly connected to the characters as I was always brought into the story and asked rhetorical questions and begged to reconsider how I feel about certain things, or to re-look at some details to figure something out.

As for pacing, I genuinely feel the beginning of the book could have been reduced to a few short chapters and the end of the book had 4/5 places where it could have satisfyingly ended.

As for the ‘looming threat’ this book offered, I wasn’t all too scared of them. They weren’t as deadly as they were made out to be and I never felt like I was looking over my shoulder and worried for the character as much as I would have liked to be. Assholes, yes. Terrifying, not really.

Spoilers from here on out:

I did enjoy what the epilogue said that January would be doing with her life. I LOVE the idea of a mansion with doors leading to different places and the idea of returning all those stolen items and righting her father’s wrongs.

When it comes to Mr Locke, I genuinely enjoyed him as a villain. I will say that I was very on the fence about him the whole book, as we were meant to be, but the plot twist wasn’t all THAT shocking. I found him to be more of a villain at the beginning of the book than at the end. However, I LIVED for the concept that he truly believed he was doing right by the world and by January. He wasn’t sinister and evil, just very powerful and aggressive towards what he wanted. I genuinely think he did love January and perhaps he felt he loved her too much. I enjoyed the ending of his part in the story.

I am not 100% happy that all the endings we got were happy. It did feel very “happily ever after” and I would have loved a little bit more mystery like ending off the story with January and her mother going out to look for Julian.

I thought they were going to leave Jane’s story completely open-ended and possibly introduce another book following her journey and honestly, Jane was one of my favorite characters. I want to know so much more about her world and her story. I don’t think I can agree with January’s decision to leave them, especially because she didn’t leave to rid them of the threat hanging over their heads (that is there because of her) but she left them to run away to her own world and finish her story before helping to finish theirs.

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