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Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children, #1)

Seanan McGuire

Start date: October 1, 2023

Finish date: October 31, 2023

Discussion: BOTM Lengthy Discussion Space

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What Members Thought

Jun 18, 2017 Beth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, giveaways, wobble, towerv

Creepy but well put together. And I knew whodunit before the main characters!

Read again for my Friday book club. It was fun to relax about the mystery (because I remembered the killer) and just observe the characters.

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Mar 24, 2017 Heather rated it really liked it

Shelves: borrowed-books, fantasy, fiction

Every Heart a Doorway, set at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, is a novel (novella?) that I felt was more about the allegory than the story, though Cory Doctorow feels that it's the other way around. Not that I didn't like this (beautifully-written) book: I did, a whole lot. It just felt less about the plot or even the characters and more about the ideas. There's a fairy-tale feel to Every Heart a Doorway, which is appropriate, given its subject: the Home for Wayward Children is a schoo Every Heart a Doorway, set at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, is a novel (novella?) that I felt was more about the allegory than the story, though Cory Doctorow feels that it's the other way around. Not that I didn't like this (beautifully-written) book: I did, a whole lot. It just felt less about the plot or even the characters and more about the ideas. There's a fairy-tale feel to Every Heart a Doorway, which is appropriate, given its subject: the Home for Wayward Children is a school for teenagers who have traveled to other realms via magic portals but had to leave, for whatever reason or non-reason, and now find themselves back in our world, each yearning for the place they left, the place where they felt right/understood/at home.

Near the beginning of the book we meet Nancy, a new student at the school: she's been to the Halls of the Dead and wants to go back. Her roommate, Sumi, tells her she should know better: "You can't go back. Once they throw you out, you can't go back," Sumi says, but others at the school share Nancy's hope (26). As the book progresses we get to learn bits about where other students have been: the other worlds they've traveled to are roughly divided into worlds governed by Logic and worlds governed by Nonsense, with Wickedness and Virtue as the other main "compass points" by which the worlds are categorized, though there are other characteristics too, like Rhyme and Linearity, or Whimsy and Wild. A pair of twins went to a world with wild moors and vampires and a Doctor-Frankenstein-ish mad scientist; another girl went to a place with "boys made of glass whose kisses had cut her lips"; when someone else tells about the world she went to, it's "a majestic, epic tale of spider princesses and tiny dynasties"; a boy who turns out to be able to make bones dance went to a world of "happy, dancing skeletons" that he describes as "pretty sunshiny, but sort of sunshine by way of Día de los Muertos" (56, 95, 110).

There's a lot in this book about the tensions of growing up, about parents like Nancy's who say they want their "real daughter back," parents who want the children they knew and can't/won't figure out how to let those children be the people they're becoming. There's a lot, too, about identity and self-determination and belonging/not-belonging, and kids/teens figuring out who they are: Nancy is asexual and talks about the challenges of explaining that to her peers; there's also a trans boy, Kade, who talks about how his trip to a Fairyland was the first time he was properly seen as himself, rather than as a girl. Every student ended up in a realm that was right for them: as Jack (short for Jacqueline), one of the twins, puts it, "for the first time, we didn't have to pretend to be something we weren't. We just got to be" (57). All of this worked for me, moreso than the other aspect of the story, which is a horror-inflected mystery plot, though it wasn't bad, just not what I found the most appealing (and hard to talk about without being spoilery!).

If you're curious, you can read an excerpt of this book over at io9.
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Aug 15, 2015 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned, favorites, fantasy, kindle-books, past-challenges-280-in-2024

I have to say this is one of my favorite books ever. It was such a wonderful, unique way to explore the pain of not belonging. I love how she treated all the characters so compassionately, and it made me as the reader really empathize with them as well. The ending practically had me in tears, I was so happy. I highly recommend this book.

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Sep 15, 2017 Chérie rated it it was ok

I... really wanted to love this. It was a quick read, and I enjoy the concept SO much, but the storyline was incredibly predictable. At times, it bordered on trite.

Tons of points for diversity of character sexuality -- I wish there had been more ethnic diversity (is Christopher latino? that would have been dope to work in).

And why. the. hell. did McGuire need to include that little jab to Narnia? It felt like unnecessary bashing of a magical world that, while not right for everyone, is dear to s ...more

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Jan 18, 2017 Vanellope rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pub-this-century, series-to-finish, mystery-thriller, lgbt-plus, the-feels, relatable, magic, cool-covers, e-books, creepy

Actual Rating: 4.5 ish

That was so good!!! It was definitely not perfect- the writing could be better sometimes, and they could have gone more into the worldbuilding - but there were so many things that this book did that I hadn't seen before, and it was super cool. The characters are really diverse, and they all felt unique and important. The fact that there was an actual ace character was sooo awesome, and it's such a little detail but I appreciated it 'cause I had never seen a book do that. Al ...more

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