Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Rating: 
Read Before: No
Ownership: Gifted by a friend from my wishlist
Do you ever wonder what happens to the children that went through the looking glass, or down a rabbit hole, and came back? If you had gone into some kind of Wonderland and then came back to your regular life, how would you cope? Could you manage real life, or maybe have odd powers and be too changed to have a normal life again?
This series of the Wayward Children asks those questions and poses a place for them with the School for Wayward Children, which is sold as a way to rehabilitate children that disappeared and came back with odd stories, but in truth is in a way a refuge for them and to learn to harness their powers.
Every Heart a Doorway was my first book by Seanan McGuire and I enjoyed it a lot. It follows a set of friends such wayward children as a newbie joins and suddenly a lot of deaths start happening in the school and things get a little hairy and difficult. It is easy to blame the new arrival, but is it really her fault or is there more to it?
One thing that this definitely is that this is a chaotic book that relies in a way of the reader perception on what going to a wonderland is. It is not a book that will hold your hand but rather it will entice you to come and stab you in the back, then whisper sweet nothings at you while still holding a knife carefully concealed. And yet, it is a wonderful read that I couldn’t put down and had to finish in a night.
I think for me, it felt like the kind of ideas I want to explore and like to explore in media about what happens to the dreamers when they come back. It falls right there with my love for Alice Madness Returns and American McGee’s Alice, that push the limits of what is a well behaved returning child from a Wonderland and how they adjust. It asks some interesting questions, like what if the child still wants to return and prefers Wonderland?
An absolute delight to read and now I need to read the rest!
