eBook review - Where The Drowned Girls Go

Title And Author: Where The Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire
Publisher: Tor
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: eProof gifted by publisher in exchange for honest review/reaction

I’ve been meaning to come back to this series for quite some time. But one thing or another has always gotten in the way, so when I was approved to read/review this on NetGalley, I was hugely surprised and found time to squirrel this novella into my December reading.

The seventh novella in the Wayward Children series, this follows Cora. Since the events of Come Tumbling Down, Cora is struggling. She has nightmares from the Drowned Gods, who are waiting to claim her if she even finds her door. Desperate, she decided to transfer from Eleanor West’s Home from Wayward Children to Whitethorn Institute, another school to help children who fall through doors into other worlds then come back. This school teaches the students to forget, to be “normal” again. But the more time Cora stays, the more she realises that she and her fellow students aren’t safe…

Audiobook Review - Beneath The Sugar Sky

• Title And Author: Beneath The Sugar Sky by Senan McGuire
• Publisher: MacMillian Audio
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Bought
• Length: 176 Pages or 4 Hours 11 Minutes

I have been dodging listening to this instalment of the Wayward Children series, even though it has been calling me for quite some time. Main excuse I had was I didn't want to spend so much money on an audiobook which was just over 4 hours long. But when I decided that I might - MIGHT - cancel my Audible account, I knew that I would use one of my credits on this. Then I held back because I wanted to listen during the Bookemon Readathon I decided to take part in throughout May. 

With this being a direct sequel to Every Heart A Doorway (both Down Among the Sticks and Bones and In An Absent Dream being prequels), Beneath The Sugar Sky follows a character called Rini who literally fell out of the sky and splashed into a pond of Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, desperate to find her mother, Sumi. But Sumi is dead. She was murder in Every Heart's A Doorway, and now, Rini's reality is changing and slowly, she is being wiped out of existence. 

Sumi must come back to life, because Reality is going to notice that a girl that shouldn't exist is existing. It's a good thing that Rini has landed in a school where the student body is well equipped for a quest...

Ok... so... where the hell do I start with this?

Audiobook Review - In An Absent Dream

• Title And Author: In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
• Publisher: MacMillian Audio
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Bought
• Length: 208 Pages and 4 hours 57 minutes

Back in 2017, I finally got myself round to reading the first novella within the Wayward Children series, Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire. And I enjoyed it. Yes, it wasn’t perfect with some of the things it suggested or how it handle the murder mystery element of that plot (I figured out who was behind the deed and why they were doing it quite quickly!), but I did like reading about this world and the idea of “What happens to children to go to magical worlds like Alice in Wonderland when they come back? What trauma do they go through?” 

I have kept my eye of the series and, while I have always leaned more towards Behind the Sugar Sky more then Down Among the Sticks and Bones, I have always found one excuse or another not to return to this world. But when I discovered I had a ton of credits on Audible and that In An Absent Dream was out the following day (I listened to a good chuck on this on the day of release), I ordered it and dived straight in. 

In this, the fourth installment of the Wayward Children, we have a prequel set in the 1960s. This followed a story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who follows the rules, would rather study, read and dream than become a respectable housewife. But one day, on the last day on school before summer holiday, Lundy fins a doorway. A doorway that leads her to a world founded in logic and reason, the goblin market where fair value rules. Lundy finally finds a place to be herself, but soon, she will have to make a decision about what world she should belong in, she makes a bargain. A bargain that will, in no way, be fair value to anyone…

eBook Review - Every Heart A Doorway

This was a mistake buy. I feel like I need to state that. I was aware of this eBook and I was intrigued by it. So, I was going to download the sampler of it on my kindle and read it quickly as there was an offer on its price. Expect I hit buy instead. I was at work on my phone when I bought it and knew I couldn't return it till I get home and on my laptop, so when I told people on Twitter, everyone basically said "No! Keep it! Trust us on this!". And I trusted you guys so, kept on my kindle for the perfect moment. And seeing as next month is my holiday month and am planning to read a lot of thick books, it felt right to read now. (Plus, other half saw cover and went "Read that next").

Ever wondered what happened to kids who step through a magic door into another world? Step into the wardrobe, crawl under the bed, step into a chest, fall down the rabbit hole. Well, that's not what this novella/series is about. It's the not what happened to them in the world they discovered - it's what would happened when they come back...

The Miss Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children accept children that slip into other worlds and help them find themselves once they come back. For every child attending this school all want to return to the world they discovered.

Nancy is a new student, sent her by her parents who believe the school will help her over her "trauma", not believe that she travelled to a world very similar to the Underworld. But her arrival has a knock on effect when something terrible happened... And it's going to happen again if Nancy and her classmates can't stop it.

This is a weird novella to describe. The best way I can think of is it's a bit of a mash-up between Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and X-Men, with the feeling/tone of The Night Circus about it.

It's a little gem of a book. It's not perfect (more on that later), but for the most part, it works. It tackles an idea of "what happened when the kids who discovered a wonderful world return?" and flip it on its head. And the world of this idea is intriguing - I know at the time of writing this, this is meant to be a trilogy but I want it to be a series as there are ideas/places/characters that call to me and I want to know more and I would happily read full-blown novels about them. I would happily read them and go "MORE!".

One of the aspects of this story I love is the diversity! The diversity in this book is on point. Nancy, our main character, identifies herself as asexual. Another main character, Kade (who I love and I will pay good money to read him!) is transgender. We have characters in here that hint that they are part of the LGBT community and the BAME community without saying outright. I love that this felt like it had a wide range of characters.

I do have problems. But these can be summed up in one fault. This is a novella of 176 pages. This length is too short for this story and the ideas mentioned and touched upon. The last quarter felt rushed and lacked depth. The murder mystery element was rushed and felt anti-climatic when who/what/why was revealed (I guessed these quite quickly), character development wasn't fleshed-out as I hoped and there was several things that happened in final chapter and epilogue that made me go "Oh, that's convenient.".

If this story had a hundred pages extra, it would have worked in my opinion. We would have built the tension to the mystery, spent time with characters and saw their development (one character came in quite late in the story and the world he went to intrigues me but due to how late he appeared, we know incredibly little), we could have explored the ideas, worlds and places (there's a second school briefly mentioned that similar to this school and I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT IT!). But it felt as if the author had a word count or page limit and she was going to stick to it, no matter what.

I am going to read the other stories in this series (at the moment, we have Down Among the Sticks and Bones [a prequel following two characters we meet in Every Heart a Doorway] and Beneath the Sugar Sky [a sequel, I think. Don't hold me to that]). Let me make that clear - if I can get my hands on them, I will read them.

Every Heart a Doorway has so much potential, and while it doesn't hit all of them, it looks like it's going to be a start of a wonderful series.