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lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
fast-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
4.0
I read this as part of a book club with a friend. "Every Heart a Doorway" has been on my radar for a while now because of how much I enjoy BooksandLala's content, and I was not disappointed! Children find doorways all the time that lead to magical worlds, sometimes they are sweet and full of fairies and candy, sometimes they are dark and better left forgotten. This book follows Nancy; a young girl who has just returned from a different world. Nancy's door led her to a dark realm, but she very much wishes to return. Her parents have sent her to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, a place where these temporarily displaced children can find their footing in reality once more.
This book has a beautiful message about belonging and how necessary it is to feel valued and important. These lost children so desperately want to find their doorways again because these alternate worlds are where they feel the most at home. Life can be so challenging when you feel like you do not belong, and I loved seeing this as a message, but not done in a way that is so heavy handed.
This is a very short, quick read, but one that definitely leaves an impression. I am excited to continue in this series and see what the next child's doorway was like!
This book has a beautiful message about belonging and how necessary it is to feel valued and important. These lost children so desperately want to find their doorways again because these alternate worlds are where they feel the most at home. Life can be so challenging when you feel like you do not belong, and I loved seeing this as a message, but not done in a way that is so heavy handed.
This is a very short, quick read, but one that definitely leaves an impression. I am excited to continue in this series and see what the next child's doorway was like!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture and Murder
victorianvalkyrie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Torture, Blood, and Body horror
Moderate: Transphobia and Bullying
marisa_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
First of all, if the premise is interesting to you, go ahead and give it a go! It’s short enough that I think it’s worth the read. This is a well beloved book and I seem to be of unpopular opinion. So go for it and come to your own conclusions.
What I liked:
-the premise,
-the inner thoughts of the characters. (BEAUTIFUL writing here. So many good lines.)
-the (attempt at) diversity.
What I didn’t like:
I’m gonna get pretty critical here because this book has gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback.Therefore, I don’t think the negative aspects of this review will have much impact on a book that is not BAD and doesn’t deserve hate. I don’t want this review to dissuade anyone to read it. I just think that it could have been better executed.
(Spoilers)
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The murder mystery:
This didn’t work for me. It didn’t add any character development, and it wasn’t suspenseful or thrilling. It almost felt like the author just wanted to make the book more horrifying and gory because she likes horror and gore. I don’t know what the purpose was. Maybe it was to show how these twisted worlds affected the minds of the children who inhabited them? If that’s the case...did we really need a WHOLE murder mystery plot? Wasn’t there a shorter, less time consuming way to show the wickedness of some of these worlds? I’m not against horror or gore, but the whodunnit just didn’t work for me in this story. The book simply wasn’t long enough to do it well AND tackle the other themes the author wanted to address.
The mystery was solved like and read like a middle grade mystery. It didn’t fit at all with the gore and horror and (minor) sexual content that was included. This kind of juxtaposition of writing style and content COULD be interesting... but for me, the execution was lacking.
The dialogue:
The dialogue between characters felt very contrived. I never felt like I was reading real dialogue. I was always hyper aware that the author was the one manufacturing these conversations. Another reviewer said it well: “it read like a diversity PSA”. I would add that it also read like a sex positivity PSA. It didn’t feel like the characters were talking to each other. It felt like the author was talking to the readers and educating us about feminism and gender/sexuality identity.
The racial diversity:
There was one Latino character and one Japanese character. They were both a little token-y for me.
A Latino whose fantasy world is Dia de Los Muertos? If he doesn’t feel at home in this (our) world, why would that be a world he would have been attracted to? It seemed like an excuse to use the aesthetic of dancing skeletons.
And the Japanese girl was a bit of a caricature as well. As another reviewer described her as, “a (literal) manic pixie dream girl”.
Other thoughts:
(I’m not gonna speak on the ace rep because I read the author is on the ace spectrum so I don’t feel like it’s my place to speak on that except to say it’s great that we have an ace character. There’s definitely not enough in our media and I appreciate it and think it’s important.)
I did like the way that kade talked about his own trans identity and the way that it connected to his experience in his Prism world. However I found the discussion that Nancy and Sumi had afterwards fell victim to that diversity PSA writing.
I don’t want to be over critical because I think the intentions were good. More authors need to be making these attempts at including a diverse cast of characters and tackling these issues (and improve and learn from the feedback they get from reviewers).
I don’t fault the author for the attempt, but for me, it was sloppy and...a little heavy handed and on the nose. The diversity was explained to us, rather than weaved into the story.
(But perhaps there are many people who still need that direct textbook explanation. I feel like I am personally beyond that necessity in my own journey of self education, but can admit that society as a whole isn’t there yet.)
I think this would have worked for a middle grade novel, or even YA; but this book is categorized as adult fiction. So I would have appreciated a little more nuance. Perhaps if there hadn’t been the unnecessary murder plot, there could have been time to do these characterizations more gracefully. I think the author tried to put too much into too such a short book. They either needed to strip it down, or write a longer book.
Another specific thing I want to address was the explanation for why more girls are pulled into these worlds than boys.
The author’s explanation was that “boys will be boys” is a self fulfilling prophecy and that its easy for girls to disappear because society cares more about what happens to our boys.
While I appreciate the commentary the author was trying to make here, this explanation fell flat for me. It just didn’t make sense and having Nancy say “oh that makes sense” didn’t make it make more sense to me.
My friend pointed out that it would have been more powerful (AND make more sense) if brown and black children were the ones who got lost more easily.
My Rating System:
1. DNF*
2. I didn’t like it, but I finished it. Don’t recommend.
3. I liked aspects of it, would recommend to some.
4. Great book, would recommend to most.
5. My favorites**
* I don’t rate all DNFs
** subject to bias and not necessarily something I would recommend to others
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Medical content, and Violence
Moderate: Bullying, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Torture, and Transphobia
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Deadnaming, Dementia, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Sexual content, and Vomit
leahrosereads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
January 2021
No matter how many times I read this story, I always discover something new. This time it was all the foreshadowing. Every Heart a Doorway is brilliant, beautiful, and my favorite of the series (I think). The characters are some of my favorite in any fantasy (YA or otherwise). They're written so exceptionally well. Each character feels important to the story, and when there's under 200 pages, that's an impressive feat!
December 2018
Why'd you all let me wait so long before reading this? It was fantastic! The characters were well thought out and had genuine growth in such few pages that it actually caught me off guard. The plot was good and the setting was something I hadn't read before.
I thought for sure something would be lacking, but it all just worked so incredibly well.
And of course because I loved this one so much, I bought the others and have pre-ordered book 4. I'm pretty obsessed with these worlds that Seanan McGuire has created and am now planning on reading her entire backlist because of it!
New favorite author discovered?
No matter how many times I read this story, I always discover something new. This time it was all the foreshadowing. Every Heart a Doorway is brilliant, beautiful, and my favorite of the series (I think). The characters are some of my favorite in any fantasy (YA or otherwise). They're written so exceptionally well. Each character feels important to the story, and when there's under 200 pages, that's an impressive feat!
December 2018
Why'd you all let me wait so long before reading this? It was fantastic! The characters were well thought out and had genuine growth in such few pages that it actually caught me off guard. The plot was good and the setting was something I hadn't read before.
I thought for sure something would be lacking, but it all just worked so incredibly well.
And of course because I loved this one so much, I bought the others and have pre-ordered book 4. I'm pretty obsessed with these worlds that Seanan McGuire has created and am now planning on reading her entire backlist because of it!
New favorite author discovered?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Transphobia, Violence, Torture, Grief, Death, Child death, Body horror, and Bullying
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