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Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

I heard about Every Heart a Doorway when Sam from The Book in Hand wrote a post about 7 atmospheric books to read and I thought it sounded really good! It took a little while, but I finally got around to reading this.

Every Heart a Doorway is a novella about children who have fallen into different worlds and made their way back. Living in a different world changes you, and Eleanor makes it her mission to give these children a place that will understand them. Nancy is back from the Halls of the Dead and she is longing to get back. When her parents trick her into going to Eleanor’s sanctuary, Nancy finally meets people with similar experiences to her. But before she can settle in, the students start dying.

As Sam mentioned, this book was wonderfully atmospheric and the writing was just gorgeous. I was very intrigued by the different worlds that exist and thought the world building was very interesting. I would have liked to know a bit more about what it means for worlds to be High Logic, High Nonsense, etc, but it makes sense that Nancy doesn’t know much, because she’s only been to the Halls of the Dead, and it was interesting learning a bit about the worlds with her.

Unfortunately, the book felt a bit too short, in a negative way. I don’t know if it’s because I expected to be a bit more like a mystery, but I found the murders and resolution of the murders to be very abrupt and not entirely convincing. While the culprit makes sense, questions like why the murders started after Nancy arrived were not resolved. And given the intricate world that exists, I felt that the worldbuilding, character development, and plot were jostling each other for page space and the plot and characters suffered as a result.

While I thought the characters were whimsical and dark, they were never fully developed or explored. It felt like everyone just fit a stereotype; for example, there was a mad hatter-esque girl, the apprentice to a mad doctor, the eccentric but well-meaning owner, etc. I think that if the book were longer, it would be easier to see the nuances of the characters. As it is, I don’t feel Nancy really developed in this book and that made the ending feel unsatisfying.

Overall, though, this was an intriguing novella with an original premise and some beautiful writing. I really did like the world that McGuire built, which is probably the main reason why I wish it were much longer.

Featured Image: Photo from Canva

6 thoughts on “Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

  1. Short stories and novellas always seem to be at risk of not allowing for enough character development. I do enjoy McGuire’s writing and world building in the books by her I’ve read. I do want to read this one, but it’s disappointing to hear it was lacking.

    1. That’s true – I think the best short stories I’ve read tend to focus on a small number of characters. Here there were at least 4 major characters and perhaps that was too much to cover?

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