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athryn's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Moderate: Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Self harm, Sexism, Misogyny, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, and Confinement
Minor: Grief, Alcohol, Pregnancy, and War
tangleroot_eli's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
But I struggled with the pacing, especially in the first 2/3. While January is an interesting character, her story kept me less engrossed than Ade and Yule Ian's, even though she's ostensibly the main character. For me, the story really starts in the last third, when everyone's threads come together.
Ultimately, my biggest disappointment with the book is the the conventionality of Harrow's other worlds. They're "completely different from our own," but in very limited ways. Where were the worlds with people but without capitalism? Where were the worlds where people weren't "somewhere in between [men and women]" but just people? The refuges in Arcadia clearly include same-sex couples; were none of them looking for a world where that was the norm, or did the idea of such a world not occur to Harrow? It often seems like, in Harrow's mind, the best a queer and/or BIPOC character can hope for is a world where their identity is ignored or, at best, tolerated, rather than one where it's celebrated.
In 2001, astronauts carry paper notebooks because Arthur C Clarke, however vast his imagination, couldn't conceive of computers so small they fit in the palm of our hands. In The Ten Thousand Doors of January, all worlds, no matter how superficially different from our own, at core are quite similar, because Alix E Harrow, however vast her imagination, couldn't conceive of what real, fundamental difference looks like.
Graphic: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Racism, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Death, Death of parent, Medical trauma, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Classism, Medical content, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Pregnancy, Gun violence, and Racial slurs
Minor: Police brutality and War
carolined314's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Confinement, Abandonment, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Self harm, War, Xenophobia, Violence, and Racial slurs
Minor: Pregnancy
tak_everlasting's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Self harm, Gun violence, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Abandonment, Racism, and Gore
Minor: War and Colonisation
marioosa517's review
- 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
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Blood, Classism, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Racism, and Self harm
Minor: Death, Stalking, War, Cursing, Body horror, Alcohol, Child abuse, Gore, Grief, Animal cruelty, and Cultural appropriation