Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

     I receive newsletters all the time from publishing giants like Simon & Shuster, Penguin (all variations), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and more.  Rarely do I go so deep that I read more than a chapter or two in one of their announcements for a book.  For some reason, the cover of Every Heart A Doorway, by Seanan McGuire called to me - and I now know why.  The book bewitched me!       ... then it let me fall flat.

     Sometimes the things that want to snatch you beneath your bed aren't hungry for blood.  The pathway found at the back of your wardrobe really does lead to a snowy place with speaking forest animals.  Or it's to a dark, hellish underground.  No matter what, children have disappeared.  Into the shadows they've gone, but some... sometimes they come back.  And then they want to go back and can't.  Hard as they try and try, they simply can't find that fracture, that minuscule doorway, and they can't deal.  So they're sent away.  They find themselves at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children.  Here is where Nancy finds herself.

​    Nancy had been gone, into the Underworld, for a long time and wished for nothing but her return.  The problem was, she couldn't find a way back, placing her in a sort of discord.  She wasn't adapting to her loss very well, so she was sent away -- to a place where bodies were piling up by the day!  Who was killing the youth and why?  Would any of them find their doors before they perish?

     I was so let down by this book, it took me forever to write the review.  It seemed so magical, so amazing and I thought adventurous.  It turned out to be a sort of abstract Scooby-Doo/Wonderland bunk of a tale!  I was so let down, I had to force my way through to the ending.  What happened to the magic that drew me in?  What happened to the mystery of where they'd all traveled?  It was dropped- kaput!   I felt nothing was truly explained, other than the murders.  The entire story, with its nonsensical talk, made it feel so unreal, I found myself not caring.

​     I may try McGuire again, but right now, I'm not looking for it.  Next read!