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A review by plantybooklover
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I'm fairly sure I am not going for the series. I read this book from the libby app using an audio book. I didn't like the narrator very well- she tried to do the voices and a few failed miserably (for me) and it did affect my enjoyment of the experience. Every time she would do a certain voice I would just be like, no, that is definitely not that character's voice.
This story tells the tale of a boarding school for unusual children, who have all slipped away through a doorway to a different world for a period of time. Once returned the children tend to want to return to the other worlds so desperately that parents - at their wits end- send them hopefully away to have their child returned to the prior, pre-doorway state. We follow Nancy, recently returned from the world of the dead, as she enters school. Immediately after she enters several gruesome deaths occur and she and her new found friends- all from different "door" situations join together to find the murderer.
I really didn't enjoy this book that much, it is well written and certainly sets a mood and tone, and the story moves along at a good pace. There is a comforting message- about how it is difficult for children to be "fixed" when they aren't actually broken, an as such parents may do well to accept their children for who they are, rather than who they used to be. The author includes a lot of diversity within the characters- without making them seem as if they were planted there to be the "diverse character" -- there is so much to love about this book. Despite that, I still didn't love it, unsure still if it was the irritating narrator, so I may give book 2 a try in print or... if the narrator is different...
This story tells the tale of a boarding school for unusual children, who have all slipped away through a doorway to a different world for a period of time. Once returned the children tend to want to return to the other worlds so desperately that parents - at their wits end- send them hopefully away to have their child returned to the prior, pre-doorway state. We follow Nancy, recently returned from the world of the dead, as she enters school. Immediately after she enters several gruesome deaths occur and she and her new found friends- all from different "door" situations join together to find the murderer.
I really didn't enjoy this book that much, it is well written and certainly sets a mood and tone, and the story moves along at a good pace. There is a comforting message- about how it is difficult for children to be "fixed" when they aren't actually broken, an as such parents may do well to accept their children for who they are, rather than who they used to be. The author includes a lot of diversity within the characters- without making them seem as if they were planted there to be the "diverse character" -- there is so much to love about this book. Despite that, I still didn't love it, unsure still if it was the irritating narrator, so I may give book 2 a try in print or... if the narrator is different...
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia, Vomit, Child death, and Animal death