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A review by midici
Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire
3.0
*3.5 stars
Thus far in the Wayward Children series we have seen a child (Nancy) fall out of their magical world and back into the real one, only to find themself in Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children; full of other lost children looking to return to their magical world.
In the second book we had a flashback to Jack and Jill's adventures in the Moors, which made them into the characters originally introduced in the first book.
In this third book we have a different twist - the child that falls into Earth is not from Earth at all, but from a world called Confection. Rini is on the hunt for her mother Sumi, who Jill had murdered back in the first book. Sumi, who was originally from Earth, had accidentally found herself back on Earth and was searching for a way back to Confection. According to Rini, not only had Sumi returned, she had defeated an evil queen, fallen in love, and had a daughter. Coming from a Nonsense world like confection, Rini does not care at all about Earth's insistence on Logic and would quite like her mother back before she fully dematerializes from existence.
Rini is a fun character but the narrator is a new one, Cora, who fell into a world where she became a mermaid. She has only been back on Earth for a little over a month and has not adjusted yet. She also has not made a lot of friends, besides Nadya. Through Cora we get reintroduced to Kade, Christopher, and Nadya, all of whom knew Sumi and who think a quest to bring her back to life is the best possible news they've had in a while.
The plot takes the teenagers to the underworld Nancy found her way back to (in book 1), and Confection as well. Along the way Kade, in the form of explaining things to Cora, provides a lot more information on the orientation of worlds and how the doors work, connecting to "to" and "from" worlds.
Because we follow through Cora's eyes we see a lot of what made her need to escape Earth in the first place. She's fat and athletic, and she's never been comfortable in her skin at all until she found herself in the Trenches where she as finally fully accepted for the first time.
While I liked this book, especially for its diverse cast of characters (Layla seems awesome), I did not like it quite as much as I liked the first two. That said, I'm still invested in this series. Also, I desperately want one from Eleanor's "sister" school where children who fell into a magical land return and are NOT trying to get back, but instead trying to overcome their trauma and rejoin the real world fully. I can't help but imagine what sort of adventure would lead to that outcome. Kade is currently the only character that has no intention of returning to his world Prism, which threw him out when he realized he was not a girl, but he's determined to be the next person to run the school after Eleanor which makes him uniquely suited to his current position.
Thus far in the Wayward Children series we have seen a child (Nancy) fall out of their magical world and back into the real one, only to find themself in Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children; full of other lost children looking to return to their magical world.
In the second book we had a flashback to Jack and Jill's adventures in the Moors, which made them into the characters originally introduced in the first book.
In this third book we have a different twist - the child that falls into Earth is not from Earth at all, but from a world called Confection. Rini is on the hunt for her mother Sumi, who Jill had murdered back in the first book. Sumi, who was originally from Earth, had accidentally found herself back on Earth and was searching for a way back to Confection. According to Rini, not only had Sumi returned, she had defeated an evil queen, fallen in love, and had a daughter. Coming from a Nonsense world like confection, Rini does not care at all about Earth's insistence on Logic and would quite like her mother back before she fully dematerializes from existence.
Rini is a fun character but the narrator is a new one, Cora, who fell into a world where she became a mermaid. She has only been back on Earth for a little over a month and has not adjusted yet. She also has not made a lot of friends, besides Nadya. Through Cora we get reintroduced to Kade, Christopher, and Nadya, all of whom knew Sumi and who think a quest to bring her back to life is the best possible news they've had in a while.
The plot takes the teenagers to the underworld Nancy found her way back to (in book 1), and Confection as well. Along the way Kade, in the form of explaining things to Cora, provides a lot more information on the orientation of worlds and how the doors work, connecting to "to" and "from" worlds.
Because we follow through Cora's eyes we see a lot of what made her need to escape Earth in the first place. She's fat and athletic, and she's never been comfortable in her skin at all until she found herself in the Trenches where she as finally fully accepted for the first time.
While I liked this book, especially for its diverse cast of characters (Layla seems awesome), I did not like it quite as much as I liked the first two. That said, I'm still invested in this series. Also, I desperately want one from Eleanor's "sister" school where children who fell into a magical land return and are NOT trying to get back, but instead trying to overcome their trauma and rejoin the real world fully. I can't help but imagine what sort of adventure would lead to that outcome. Kade is currently the only character that has no intention of returning to his world Prism, which threw him out when he realized he was not a girl, but he's determined to be the next person to run the school after Eleanor which makes him uniquely suited to his current position.