Every Heart a Doorway

I loved the setting and the concept of this book -- the idea that the thousands of stories of children going to another world and then coming back either like no time had passed, or like years and years had passed in a day are all true. And then exploring what happens, psychologically to those kids. I always love it when a book takes a well-known trope and turns it on its head by asking the questions we all should have been, but took for granted. I also really like books that exist in a dialogue with other books and only really make sense to prolific readers.

Multiple people recommended this to me, and one of them talked mostly about how the main character actively sought to understand and develop empathy for people who were different from her. I don't appreciate that theme as much as she did, but I did like that there was a co-mingling of characters from a bunch of different genres and an exploration of how that works, and how it works if two people both went to The Underworld but it wasn't the same.

Where this fell down for me was the plot. The murder mystery just wasn't super compelling and I felt like the social contract of the book was broken twice, which really broke the metafictional spell for me. The first was when magic turned out to work all along in the real world, when the boy played his bone flute and then again when it turned out that Jack would be capable of resurrecting Jill, kind of making the whole murder mystery thing a little shallow.

Overall, though, I found this a beautiful and atmospheric novella.

I almost read this entire book in one sitting. The only reason I didn't is because I was tired enough that my eyes were hurting. I read the first ~140 pages at once and finished the final ~30 the next day. It's a short book, and a quick read. And I absolutely ate it up.



It was an easy read, and the writing was a mixed bag. This book gives us amazing quotes such as "we notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women", yet it seems like every other page the lines "'oh,' she said" or "she said nothing at all" were used. I think there could have been some better writing in that sort of regard.



Regardless though, I loved this book, and the queer representation made me happy as an asexual. I can't wait to read Down Among the Sticks and Bones, and I expect I'll check out some more of Seanan McGuire's works as well.

Whatever happens after those children come home from their adventures in portal worlds? The trauma of living years in another world, going through puberty even, then being cast back into your earth-bound body, at the same age you left? C.S. Lewis didn't really address the mental health implications of the children he sent to Narnia, did he?

But never fear, Seanan McGuire swoops in with Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, a special school for children who tumbled through a doorway, a rabbit hole or any other number of entrances to magical worlds, and came back again.

The main character comes right out and says she's asexual, something this book has been praised for. She shows that she's interested in the romance but not what comes after. Another child was rejected from his world because they thought he was a princess but on the inside he was a boy. There are twins who were assigned pretty and clever roles by their parents, now rebelling against that. It seems that magical lands like taking the children that don't quite fit.

In essence there's a whole big metaphor here for parents who refuse to accept their children as they are when they are not straight or cis. In their magical worlds they finally found a place where they felt the belonged, when their parents try and shape them in a pre-designated image. Most the parents are in denial.

But the Home is the opposite of a "correctional" facility. Eleanor West may pretend to parents that she works to "cure" the children, but instead she listens to them and lets them come to terms with their loss in their own ways. Sometimes doors will open again, but more often than not, they don't.

The plot is more of an aside, with a murder mystery at the centre. It's more about exploring the children and how they are affected, more by our society than the other lands. I loved all the different types of places they visited, although these are just glimpses. If anything, it was a little too short and I will definitely be reading Down Among the Sticks and Bones, which follows Jack and Jill's back story.