Review: Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Title: Every Heart A Doorway
Series: Wayward Children #1
Author: Seanan McGuire
Source/Format: Borrowed from the library; Hardcover
More Details: Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; April 5, 2016

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children....No Solicitations....No Visitors....No Quests...

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. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter. No matter the cost.

Lately, I’ve been reading some of the backlist titles that have been on my TBR list for a while, and Every Heart A Doorway was one of them. Portal fantasy is one of my favorite fantasy elements ever—stories like Coraline and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman, and Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova—so Every Heart A Doorway was right up my alley. The story wasted none of its 173 pages, and by far, my favorite part was the very concept at the center of the novella: children returning from different fantasy worlds, and after going on such fantastical adventures (and often wanting to go back to the worlds that cast them out) a school that takes them in while they try to readjust to the people and the lives they left behind.

There were a lot of aspects about the novella that I absolutely loved. Such as the themes explored in the story and the setting, Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. The introduction of the school not only introduced Eleanor West, it also set up the some of the basic rules about the Home for Wayward Children and magic that would later play a bigger role in the story. It turned out to be one of my favorite story beginnings that I’ve read so far this year. The characters were a unique bunch, and while some of their worlds could be called similar in some small way (in terms of the classifications used in the story), the traits that made them interesting were distinctive. Those traits were often shaped by the worlds they’d visited (and called home), for example Nancy and her “stillness.” There were a lot of different worlds needed to fill the story, and the ones that were talked about were unique and interesting. I almost wished those worlds would have appeared on the page (which is one of the reasons why I’m looking forward to reading the other books in the series).

All in all, Every Heart A Doorway was as excellent a read as it was the beginning of a series. The ending, while a satisfying conclusion to some points (and for some characters) in the story, it still left the door open for more. I’m looking forward to getting caught up with the series before Come Tumbling Down is released in 2020.

Have you read any of the Wayward Children series?

5 Star Books In 5 Words

It has been a long time since I participated in any kind of book tag, and recently I was tagged by Ronnie @Paradise Found for the 5 Star Books in 5 Words book tag. It looked like something fun and easy to do. So I decided to go ahead and participate. Before I begin, I need to quickly go over some of the technical details. This tag was originally created by Matthew Sciarappa over on Youtube. Check out the original video HERE.

The rules

• Pick 5 five-star reads 
• And Pick five words that best describe what it is about the books that made me like them as much as I did

And thank you to Ronnie @ Paradise Found for tagging me. Make sure to visit the blog post over there at this link: 5 Star Books in Five Words Halloween Edition. Let's begin!

Dead Voices by Katherine Arden

Spooky; Ghosts; Lodge; Isolated; Snowstorm









A Dream So Dark by L.L. McKinney

Retelling; Action; Wonderland; Nightmares; Knights









Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Wintry; Atmospheric; Gold; Fire; Mountain







Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Portals; Fantasy; Mystery; Home; Magic









A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos, translated by Hildegarde Serle

Mirrors; Arrangements; Scarf; Danger; Cold

That’s about it for today. I’m not tagging anyone specific, because I hardly ever do. So if this seems like something you want to participate in, then you can consider yourself tagged!

The Friday 56 (164) & Book Beginnings: Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children....No Solicitations....No Visitors....No Quests...

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. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter. No matter the cost.

Beginning: "The girls were never present for the entrance interviews. Only their parents, their guardians, their confused siblings, who wanted so much to help them but didn't know how."

56: ""Finally, silence fell, and Nancy realized everyone was looking at her. She shrank back in her seat. "I don't know if the place I went was wicked or not," she said."

Comments: I have been reading some of the backlist titles on my TBR list, and Every Heart A Doorway was one of them. I loved the story and the world McGuire created. What are you reading this week?

Toile, Think, Go: The Making of a Salt-N-Pepa Costume

We said that we were going to talk more about the construction of the Salt-N-Papa outfit. So, here it is. You can find it on Toile, Think, Go, where we originally posted it.

I Watched Netflix's Raising Dion

Raising Dion is one of Netflix’s new series that came out in October, and I pretty much binge-watched all the episodes in two different sittings. This show took me by surprise. Before I saw some mention of it on my twitter timeline, I’d never actually heard of it, and boy I am glad that I gave it a try. Raising Dion was a great show. It had a great diverse cast of endearing characters. And while it had superpowers and supernatural elements, it was well balanced with the everyday aspects of a single mother trying to raise her young son in modern times with a villain who always seemed to be lurking at the edge of the next storm.

From the beginning, there was the mystery of how Dion got his powers. They were extraordinary, but they were also somewhat wild and hard for him to control. But I actually liked the angle they took with Dion’s character. He was allowed to be just a kid, and it is part of what made his character so engaging. It also set him apart from characters like Eleven from Stranger Things (there were a couple of references to Stranger Things in Raising Dion; I see what you did there, Netflix). By contrast his mother, Nicole Warren, had to be mature. She had to take the lead, because she didn’t have a choice. She was a widow after the death of her husband, Mark, and the show handled that quite well. It was never portrayed as being easy, even though Nicole had family and friends in the area. She dealt with things like trying to find and maintain a job—when scheduling interfered with things she needed to do for her son—as well as putting her son into a new school. Those little details of the ordinary day-to-day stuff, was a great contrast to the supernatural elements in the show.

Speaking of the supernatural elements, I liked how they were done in the show. Most of the setting where the show took place was urban, kind of city-like but also like a suburb, nothing really special about it. So when the supernatural aspects came in to play, it contrasted sharply with everyday life for the characters, which is part of what made it memorable. There were also limitations to what Dion could do, and since he was a kid, it sometimes manifested in childish and impulsive ways. But since he was a kid, and the show established that from the first episode, it was in-line with his character.

However that wasn’t all Raising Dion had to offer. As the show progressed, a few more mysteries cropped up here and there. Some of them had to do with what happened before the current timeline of the show—like what really happened to Mark—and I liked how it was all incorporated together.

Overall, Raising Dion is probably one of my favorite shows on Netflix to date. The end of the first season was satisfying enough…for now. I won’t reveal much about it, but I will say that the end posed some interesting questions about what would be ahead for the characters—so there was definitely enough potential for at least another season.

Have you watched Raising Dion? If so, let us know what you thought about it in the comments below. If not, does it seem like something you’d watch?