Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

42 reviews

dariusmortee's review

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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waytoomanybooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

3.0

Harrow writes beautiful prose and excellently nails the desperate longing for something more that every young woman feels growing up in a world full of adults who make it their mission to squash their spirits. January, Ade, and Jane are brave and strong in the face of prejudice and heartache, and I can't help but sympathize with them on a rather personal level.

The concept of looking for an escape, a way out, a Door is deeply relatable. There is nothing more appealing to me than a door. Especially when that door is old, secluded, or has a special Something that has drawn me to it. I find it difficult to resist the urge to try to open every door I pass, and then I am left wondering what was behind it, even years after I've passed it by. It was so cathartic to see a character who is just like me in that regard, always asking questions and looking for answers.

If there was anything I'd say against it, it's that descriptions of events, people, places, etc. trailed on for too long until it felt as though I was reading a list of adjectives. She's also quite fond of the words "oil," "greasy," "shush," and "bronze." And the ending was rather abrupt.

Overall, I enjoyed this read. And it hits a lot of bullet points in my reading wheelhouse: female MC, historical settings, time travel, magical realism, secret doors/passages, and women on journies.

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elliebeemellie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-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? No

4.5

This book was terrible and lovely and exactly the sort of bittersweet adventure I wanted so badly as a child. The beginning was slow, but the writing turned lovely, and I loved the exploration of deliciously complicated character relationships. I can't say too much without spoiling bits of the book, but the story explores themes about love and abuse and neglect in really interesting ways.
.
.
“There's only one way to run away from your own story, and that's to sneak into someone else's.”

"Worlds were never meant to be prisons, locked and suffocating and safe. Worlds were supposed to be great rambling houses with all the windows thrown open and the wind and summer rain rushing through them, with magic passages in their closets and secret treasure chests in their attics."

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eruby's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

This is a good book. Interesting premise, beautiful writing, loveable characters, a dog sidekick that doesn't die, the plot coming together nicely at the end. I only wish I had read it earlier in my life. At its core, this is a coming of age story, a story of a sheltered 17 year old embarking on an adventure and finding out the world isn't everything she had been told it was. It is a story of a girl who finds freedom after spending her life chafing against the strict rules, and learning about heartbreak, resilience, and tragedy along the way. These are themes that I know would have resonated very strongly with me when I was in high school and college and that I still connect with at 27 but just not as strongly. There are certain elements of this book that feel like a young adult novel (though I didn't see it billed as YA), aside from the main character being a teenager- mainly that the symbolism and thematic elements are very in-your-face (for example,

the character closing the doors being named Locke

). I also think I've been reading too much high fantasy with hard magic systems and deep lore because I had to stop myself from thinking too deeply about the mechanics of these doors. Like, why doesn't time progress differently between the different worlds? Does our world and The Written have a special relationship in that the people can reproduce, or can all people from all worlds reproduce? Why are there three known doors to The Written but only one for every other world? But these questions don't really matter and explanations wouldn't actually add much to the story, so now I'm just rambling.

All that said, I really enjoyed this book and I think if it existed and I had read it 5-10 years ago I would have given it five stars instead of 4.25.

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isabelmary's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

This book was such a mixed bag for me. The prose was lovely, and the sense of atmosphere the author evokes is wonderful. The path that January takes - from subdued “good girl” to untamed and free - is compelling, but overall I won’t be revisiting this book or investigating the author’s other works.

Some pros:
- Gorgeous prose - describing the Doors and the other worlds etc
- it was nice to have race actually play a realistic role in a historical fantasy
- the ending was satisfying
- the work itself is clearly well crafted with a lot of love
- the premise is great
- the interweaving of the stories works overall

Some cons:
- it took the protagonist a LONG time to realize things that felt very obvious to me, and that was frustrating
- the interpolation of the two different first person narrative accounts felt contrived (For the middle half of the novel, January ends every chapter picking up a book and reading a chapter of it. In some ways this must’ve taken a lot of clever planning to pull off, but it ended up getting a little unlikely and irritating)
- both narratives were written from the character’s future, and both of them take multiple moments to decry the decisions of the past eg “if only I’d been fast enough”…. That stressed me out
- the love interest has no personality of his own and seems to have a totally improbable attachment to her
- the ending confrontation was actually pretty anticlimactic to me

Locke was clearly evil from day 1, and January’s shock at realizing that did nothing for me. It was realistic for her, sure, but annoying as a reader. There was no real explanation for how she withstood his will and so his death felt unearned to me

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mikaelaandherbooks's review

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While the premise of this book sounded great, I wasn't pulled into the story and felt it could've been executed better. I didn't find the MC lovable or even dislikable in a good way. For how much occurred within the 78 pages I read, reading it still felt slow-paced.

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ijustreallyliketrees's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious 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

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prettyfunctional's review

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adventurous challenging mysterious slow-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? Yes

3.5

I read this book after loving The Once and Future Witches. They were wildly different and I appreciate the author for that. I love the mix of plot twists you can see coming and the ones you can't

However... I'm not sure about the depictions of race in this book. Awkward at best. I'll be thinking on the topic for a while before I know how I feel

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salomecanread's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective 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

I hadn't read anything in a while and I'm glad I started again with this book. It was emotional, heart-wrenching, and beautiful. If you like Studio Ghibli films, the story carries a similar energy; stunning visuals, a girl on a perilous journey, fitted with a satisfactory yet ambiguous ending. It's definitely worth your time.

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keen's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I started this book with an intensely negativity mindset for several reasons. 1) I do not like historical books. I find them to be either boring or painful to read. 2) Connecting to 1, historical books that address racism and sexism can be triggering for me, as a trans-masc black person. 3) I simply found the start of the book to be interesting, but boring, disappointing me based on talk about it being adventurous portal fantasy.

I've just finished reading and my heart is tight in my chest. It hasn't made me cry, but it was right on the edge of it. I don't have good words to describe why I liked the story overall. It's more several small parts that built up into me caring deeply about the story. But to summarize:

The racism aspect of the book was what made me immediately connect to January. Both of us struggle with our race being ambiguous, causing people of all races to be unsure of how to approach us. I would've preferred to not focus on it at all, but that would have significantly changed the story. Honestly, I was surprised the author is white. Her depiction of racism was so natural. Better yet, characters of different skin tones are described, not only dark or unnatural skins. I've seen it be far too common that only dark and alien skins will be described, implying that the default skin tone is white and doesn't need to be mentioned for a character description. This was immensely refreshing.
Similarly, the way mental health and abuse was handled was so realistic that it was actually triggering. I had to put the book down to recover a few times. This was an awful experience for me, but I think this is a bonus to the book. I rather be hurt by how accurately a book portrayed a toxic relationship, causing me to further relate to a character, than to see it handled badly.
I was pleasantly surprised to see a prominent LGBT character in the story. It's not lingered on long, but it's made explicitly clear. There's also a small mention of a two old men holding hands.
I can't say that I found Samuel particularly interesting as a character, but I enjoyed him. I wasn't expecting much for a story that's not focused on romance, anyway. Him and January have a nice dynamic, with their relationship not developing in a straight line. Also, he's not Prince Charming. January gets a lot of agency in what she wants. This story has a strong focus on women being courageous and powerful and how those are attractive qualities.
Above could be said for a lot of the characters in this story. I appreciate that relationships in the book are explicitly complicated. I'm very happy that a story about family and your place in society didn't make relationships one-dimensional. Friendships and family in this book feel so grey that there's not a lot of room on how to handle a situation in a "good" or "bad" way.

Aside from my issue with the slow start to the book, the only had bad thing that stands out to me is how impulsive and reckless January can be. At the same time, that could be said for a few characters, and in the context of the book, it makes sense. Also, she's a teenager, so shouldn't expect some ground-breaking planning skills when going through a terrifying situation.

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