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A review by cassidysreads
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.0
I’m struggling to find if this is marketed as YA or not, but this absolutely is NOT YA at all. My library specifically placed this series in YA, and I can affirm this is not a safe book for children. If I read this as a teenager, I feel it would have been incredibly harmful to my own mental health.
0/5 stars. What a waste of time.
First off, I was SO excited for this book. The concept of children who went to a different world from a door and then returning to their real home and finding they just didn't feel like they belonged anymore was so fascinating to me. This Narnia-esque vibe was really appealing to me, and with all the praise around this series I was super stoked to start it. And unfortunately, I was incredibly let down.
How does one even describe the absolute bizarreness of this book?
I feel like this book's only purpose was to be as quirky, odd, and nonsensical as possible. Instead of having much substance, it just uses the guise of fantasy to justify it's whimsical prose. Had I known it was going to have that kind of overly flowery writing prior to reading, I likely never would have picked it up from the library. However, I'd much rather have the flowery prose of Shatter Me over this, which says a lot. If quotes like "the word had simply escaped her lips, like a runaway calf" and "an unreported death is just a disappearance in its Sunday clothes" tickle your mind's fancy, then you might just enjoy it.
0/5 stars. What a waste of time.
First off, I was SO excited for this book. The concept of children who went to a different world from a door and then returning to their real home and finding they just didn't feel like they belonged anymore was so fascinating to me. This Narnia-esque vibe was really appealing to me, and with all the praise around this series I was super stoked to start it. And unfortunately, I was incredibly let down.
How does one even describe the absolute bizarreness of this book?
I feel like this book's only purpose was to be as quirky, odd, and nonsensical as possible. Instead of having much substance, it just uses the guise of fantasy to justify it's whimsical prose. Had I known it was going to have that kind of overly flowery writing prior to reading, I likely never would have picked it up from the library. However, I'd much rather have the flowery prose of Shatter Me over this, which says a lot. If quotes like "the word had simply escaped her lips, like a runaway calf" and "an unreported death is just a disappearance in its Sunday clothes" tickle your mind's fancy, then you might just enjoy it.
"That's because Narnia was a Christian allegory pretending to be a fantasy series."
Well, to twist McGuire's own words: this book is LGBTQ+ allegory pretending to be a fantasy series. The irony of having that quote in the book when the book itself is quite literally doing the same thing. And truthfully, there's nothing wrong with that kind of concept whatsoever. But it's the way it was executed that disappointed me. The representation just felt like it was there to check the diversity box, and it didn't feel like it meshed very naturally with the actual story. The only story that truly blended seamlessly with the fantasy elements was probably Kade, and even that felt a bit off-kilter as you didn't truly know that
Now my primary issue with this is the school itself. Essentially, children who have traveled through doors to a different dimension return home from those doors and struggle to come back to reality. Their families don't know how to help them, and so they're sent off to this school to "fix" them. But in actuality, it's a school of children who have all traversed through doors and is a means of interacting with other children who understand their troubles. In ways, this reminds me heavily of mental illness. Mental illness can be heavily misunderstood and brushed under the rug, and so in some places, it felt like it hit close to home in that regard. However, there was a huge lack of emphasis on healing, which I found to be troubling.
Instead of coming to terms with the reality of their actual lives and finding a means of meshing back into their true home after being in a different world, they're essentially embracing it and nurturing this idea that they can return back to those dimensions. It just had this nuance to it that made me feel like it was encouraging others to relish in their mental illness as if it's simply a personality trait, rather than viewing it as an illness that one can heal from. Which, again, I find very harmful and disruptive to true healing as someone who has dealt with this myself. It might just be my own interpretation of the story, but that's the message I was getting from it.
I just felt like with the combination of whimsical writing that's trying too hard, to the dangerous nuance of mental illness embracement, to the wacky change of pace from fantasy to murder mystery (which is a whole different issue in itself), I frequently found myself taken out of the story. Which made it far less enjoyable to read. I was SO excited for this concept. I love the idea of children going through doors to different worlds and coming back home trying to relearn their previous life. But it just felt like it wasn't executed in the way I had anticipated with all the hype surrounding this series.
Needless to say, Seanen McGuire's writing is just not for me, and this story is just not for me. So unfortunately, I will not be continuing this series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, and Mental illness