Ms. Hen reviews Every Heart a Doorway

 

Every Heart a Doorway

Seanan McGuire

Tor Books

2016

Ms. Hen decided to read this book because it was recommended on Book Riot a while ago. She thought it sounded like something she would enjoy.

This book centers around Nancy, who is a new girl at a boarding school for children who have come back from magical lands. She went to a place called The Halls of the Dead, and has a difficult time adjusting to being back in the real world. Her roommate is Sumi, a girl who went to a High Nonsense World, who is fast with her hands.

Nancy makes friends with Jack and Jill who had been in the Moors, another dark world, and Kade, who she thinks is cute, but she is not interested in boys. The children go to therapy at the school, and have classes. The headmistress, Eleanor, went to a High Nonsense world, is younger than she seems, and dresses in mismatched clothes. Some dangerous things happen at the school, and the children need to learn to handle them.

This novel is a combination between GIRL, INTERRUPTED, HARRY POTTER, and SHERLOCK HOLMES. It's a lot of things mixed into one: it's about a magical school, but they have therapy, and there is a mystery involved.

Ms. Hen liked this novel, but it left her wanting more. There is a lot of discussion about magical worlds, but the narration does not actually go to one of them, which Ms. Hen wishes it would. She loves the description of the worlds where the children went: such as the spider country, where the Loriel lived with the spiders, and the skeleton land, where Christopher learned to talk with bones.

Even though this book is wanting in parts, Ms. Hen still liked it. This novel is a fast read. There are nine books in this series, and Ms. Hen might read some more, because she would like to see if the characters travel to their countries, because Ms. Hen would like to go to them, to see what it's like to experience a magical land.