Every Heart A Doorway - by Seanan McGuire

Title: Every Heart A Doorway
Author: Seanan McGuire
Published: 5 April 2016
Series: Wayward Children #1
Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis: 
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. 

This world is unforgiving and cruel tho those it judges as even the slightest bit outside the norm.

I listened to this as an audiobook.

My favourite character in Every Heart A Doorway is definitely Sumi. I love how bubbly her personality and the alliteration is an interesting quality for her to have. Kade would probably be my second favourite character.

I absolutely love that asexuality and being transgender are present in the book - both with main characters. Another good thing is that the main character explains that being asexual and aromantic are two different things - which I think that some people in the real world should be told about.

I was a little confused at the start of the book as we don't see Nancy come back to her original world from her door, only that she turns up at Eleanor's home and the story is told from there.

Hope means you keep holding on to things that won't ever be so again, and so you bleed an inch at a time until there's nothing left.

No spoilers, but the characters that were killed did surprise me. One of the three did sort of  deserve it though - until it was explained where their door was. Then I felt bad for thinking that way.

Plus I loved that Jack and Jill were twin girls - their full names being Jacqueline and Jillian. Normally when we hear or think about the nursery rhyme, we think that it's one boy and one girl so it was nice to see that twist put in there.

I figured out who the killer was before it was revealed and I'm a little proud of that.

I'm a genius of infinite potential and highly limited patience. People shouldn't try me so.

Christopher's talent was quite cool, kind of like the pied piper from fairy tales. I also thought that Nancy and Christopher would be a cute couple together.

In the end, Nancy eventually goes back through her door, so we get to see pretty much her entire story.

Magic doorways to other worlds, murder, a little mystery, and belonging. I would definitely recommend this fun but dark little novella to everyone.

You're nobody's rainbow. You're nobody's princess. You're nobody's doorway but your own and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.

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All books in this series:

    1 | Every Heart a Doorway
    2 | Down Among the Sticks and Bones
    3 | Beneath the Sugar Sky
    4 | In an Absent Dream

4.5 | Juice Like Wounds
    5 | Come Tumbling Down

    6 | Across the Green Grass Fields

    7 | Where the Drowned Girls Go