Title: Every Heart a Doorway
Series: Wayward Children #1
Author: Seanan McGuire
Genre: Portal Fantasy
Trigger Warnings: Transphobia, blood/gore, death, death of children, body mutliation
Back Cover:
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere…else.
But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back, and enrolled at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. Darkness lurks around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new schoolmates to get to the heart of things…no matter what it costs.
Review:
This was … weirdly beautiful.
The main character is Nancy, a girl who went through a door in the cellar and ended up in an Underworld, where she learned to be as still as a statue for days on end and the Lord of the Underworld fell in love with her. Sent back to her world to make sure she was “sure,” her parents send her off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, where she meets other children who desire to return to their own fantasical worlds. Then someone starts murdering the children and stealing parts of their bodies.
This book is really short. It’s more of a novella than a novel. But that actually really works for it. The characters are more sketches than fully-fleshed characters, but that was actually okay. I found Nancy super compelling, even without a lot of character development, and the rest of the cast was enjoyable, too. Each of them was a new concept – Nancy who loves monochrome and stillness because of the underworld she went to; Sumi who loved color and ridiculousness because of the nonsense world she went to; Jack and Jill who ended up very different despite going to the same horror-esque world. They were all unique and, while not well-rounded as people, enjoyable as characters.
The whole story was a lot more dark and morbid than I expected. There are several murders and mutliated bodies. This did not bother me, but if it would bother you, be aware of that. Despite the characters who die, though, the story did end on a pretty positive note.
What I loved most about Every Heart a Doorway was the feel of it. Despite the fact that, excepting a few flashbacks, the entire story takes place completely in the real world, where there is no magic whatsoever, it felt magical. Darkly magical at times, sure, but beautiful and fully steeped in magic and desire and something that made it seem amazingly compelling and more than what was on the page.
That’s … really all I have to say about it. Like I said, it was short. But even though I’m pretty sure Nancy isn’t in the rest of the series (unfortunately), I’m excited to read the next book.
Bluejay Reads 