Fantasy Annotation: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Every Heart a Doorway

by Seanan McGuire

Synopsis:

Have you ever wondered what happens to the children who come back from their adventures in Wonderland? Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children houses children from just such situations--and not just Wonderland. From every alternate reality, different dimension, every door through which they've gone and returned, Eleanor rescues these children whose stories might never be believed otherwise. Nancy went through to the Halls of the Dead, where pomegranate trees blossomed and she learned to be still as a statue for hours--even days--at a time. Kade was taken as a young child to Prism, a land of fairies, when they mistook him for a young girl and, upon discovering his identification as a young boy, exiled him back to reality. Jack (short for Jacqueline) and Jill (short for Jillian), the twins of perfectionist parents, adventured down a mysterious staircase which appeared in an old trunk in their basement to the Moors, where Jack worked with Dr. Bleak in his Shelley-esque laboratory and Jill fell in love with a feared master of the land. Nonsense and Logic, Virtue and Wickedness, as well as many minor points, make up the compass of realms to which Miss West's Wayward Children desperately want to go "home." After Nancy's arrival at the school, however, a darkness settles in around the campus, and when Sumi, Nancy's roommate from a land of Nonsense, is found dead with her hands removed, the Wayward Children must use the unique abilities they gained in their separate realms to discover what danger lurks in reality. 

Every Heart a Doorway is the first book published in this series, a set of novellas surrounding Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. The series does not need to be read in any particular order, but Every Heart a Doorway provides framing for the series with an introduction to the boarding school.

Fantasy Characteristics­¹:

• Detailed settings depict another world, magic frames the story.
• The story is peppered with descriptions of many of the children's magical worlds, and there is a decent amount of description of the boarding school itself, with particularly detailed attention paid to the spaces outside the norms of reality (prisms above a staircase, a scientific laboratory in the basement, a perpetual twilit grove of trees).
• Story lines feature Good vs. Evil, continuing story told over several books
• The students must find and defeat whomever is mutilating and killing their peers, and they are all on their own journeys trying to find their doors back home. There are further books in the series detailing more of their adventures, and there is the overarching story of Miss West's quest to save these children, even having her lament the ones she has not been able to help.
• Mood ranges from humorous to dark, ultimately optimistic, melancholy tone pervades
• While there are humorous moments, their is an inherent sadness in the students as they try to find their doors back to their respective lands. There is a melancholy acceptance from some students as they begin to acknowledge the idea that they may never find their doors. Still, many of the students are certain they will find their way home again, and the main group of characters band together with optimism they will get to the bottom of the danger in the school.
• Characters, clearly defined as good or bad, attain special magical gifts, and storyline explores others ways to discover potential
• Nancy reaches new heights in her ability to achieve perfect stillness, even slowing her heartbeat to the point of willing it not to beat in moments of extreme peril. Christopher, another student from a land of death, plays a bone flute to call skeletons from the earth to move and communicate with the students. There is an obvious divide among the students of the ones who are considered good and evil, though their perceptions may differ. Nancy struggles with her identity, but with the help of her fellow students, finds that only she can decide how her own story ends. 
• Starts slowly, sets scene and introduces group of characters, then picks up later as adventure elements appear.
• The group of students are diverse, yet they band together to find Sumi's killer. Their unique skills allow them to all lend a hand in their quest, each finding a different way to utilize their abilities. The story starts out slowly with the arrival of Nancy and her introduction to the other students, but picks up when Sumi is found dead and with the actions of the group following that event.
• Language/Style: "Authors may also create unique languages, unusual names, or complex social and political structures to help reinforce the sense of 'otherness.'"
• The compass of points to define the alternative worlds and doorways is the most complex structure of the book, but each different land has its own unique naming set and political structure. 

My Take:

Seanan McGuire is a new author for me, but I'm already devouring the other books in this series. These are beautifully written, with rich prose and the character development is nothing short of heartbreaking. In Every Heart a Doorway, Sumi states that hope is a four-letter word (and therefore shouldn't be allowed), but that is exactly what McGuire achieves in the beginning of this series. A sense of hope pervades the book and reaches out to the reader with the idea that we can all find our way home, as it is waiting for us as much as we are for it. It's a quick read, weighing in at only 169 pages, but its themes run heavy and deep with the sense of wanting to belong thrumming at its very core. 

Read-a-Likes:

Saricks suggests²:

Tamora Pierce

Stephen R. Donaldson

Jasper Fforde

NoveList suggests:

Julie Czerneda's A Turn of Light

Jack Heckel's A Fairy-Tale Ending

Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library

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¹Saricks, J. (2009). The readers' advisory guide to genre fiction, 2nd edition. Boston, MA: American Library Association. 266-274.

²Saricks, J. (2009). The readers' advisory guide to genre fiction, 2nd edition. Boston, MA: American Library Association. 280.