Review | Be Sure by Seanan McGuire

Source: review copy provided by publisher. This is a review of my reading experience.

Where it all began―the first three books in Seanan McGuire's multi-Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Wayward Children series.

Join the students of Eleanor West, and jump through doors into worlds both dangerous and extraordinary.

Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky

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.

Meet Nancy, cast out of her world by the Lord of the Dead; Jack and Jill, each adopted by a monster of the Moors; Sumi and her impossible daughter, Rini.

Three worlds, three adventures, three sets of lives destined to intersect.

Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations / No Visitors / No Quests

But quests are what these children do best...

Be Sure collects the first three books of Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series. The Wayward Children series is one of my absolute favorite series.

In the Wayward Children books, the characters find a door into another world but are eventually forced to go back home. These children struggle to cope and often wind up at the school for wayward children. Some books are set in another world and some are set at school.

If you haven't started reading the Wayward Children books, Be Sure is such a great way to start! Here are some of my non-spoiler thoughts on the books included in Be Sure:

Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway is a perfect introduction to this universe and what it's like to be a wayward kid who has gone through a portal to another world and forced to come back to the life they left behind. I love the magnitude of what Every Heart a Doorway spells out for these characters. There's an imaginative quality to Every Heart a Doorway, but it's also horror adjacent and should appeal to a wide range of genre readers.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Down Among the Sticks and Bones tells the backstory of two characters we meet in Every Heart a Doorway. Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a dark story in the dark world of the Moors, but the true beauty of Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the portrayal of gender roles. It's so heartbreakingly relatable.

Beneath the Sugar Sky

In Beneath the Sugar Sky we meet a brand-new character and head into a brand-new world, but we start our adventure at the school for Wayward Children with characters we already know and a problem we are sort of already familiar with. While there is still darkness in this volume, Beneath the Sugar Sky shows us just how different these worlds can be.

5/5 stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Review | Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

Come Tumbling Down is the fifth book in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series.

When Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister—whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice—back to their home on the Moors.

But death in their adopted world isn't always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome.

Eleanor West's "No Quests" rule is about to be broken.

Again.

Oof. I'm trying to get back into the habit of reviewing everything I read - including rereads. When I started rereading Come Tumbling Down, I couldn't remember what it was about, but I knew I've liked every book I've read of the series.

Come Tumbling Down was a very mid read. I refrained from reading my original review until after I finished my reread, and I'm just going to post it here:

It's not that I didn't like Come Tumbling Down, I just didn't particularly care for it, either.

Come Tumbling Down can't stand on its own the way the other books in the series can, yet half of the book is spent explaining the characters and the worlds.

I still wholeheartedly recommend this series and I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment... I just don't feel like Come Tumbling Down really added anything new.

Honestly, that still sums it up for me. It's quite forgettable.  

3/5 stars
⭐⭐⭐★★

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Review | In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

In An Absent Dream is the fourth book in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series.

This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should. 

When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

Oh, my heart. Seanan McGuire continues to break my heart into pieces with each book in the Wayward children series.

In An Absent Dream is another prequel installment to the series. In An Absent Dream follows Lundy who we know works at the school for wayward children. In An Absent Dream is her back story. We get to follow Lundy through her doorway into the world of the Goblin Market where everything has a price.

I don't want to spoil anything because I feel like Lundy's story is everything. I just love this book so much.

Are you reading this series yet? These books are portal fantasies into other worlds. A doorway finds these kids when they need it the most, and it leads them to a world they would consider to be "home". I can't help but fall in love with every character and just ache for them.

In An Absent Dream deals with family and friendship and choices that are never easy. I'm pretty sure I'll reread this series again and again.

 

5/5 stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Review | Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky is the third book in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series.

Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third book in McGuire's Wayward Children series, returns to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children in a standalone contemporary fantasy for fans of all ages. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the "real" world.

When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.) If she can't find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests...

A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do. Warning: May contain nuts.

"There is kindness in the world, if we know how to look for it. If we never start denying it the door."

I enjoyed Beneath the Sugar Sky much more on my second read. Beneath the Sugar Sky is set in a nonsense world, and I think I struggled a bit the first time to really connect to the characters and the plot in a world filled with sugar and nonsense.. This time around, however, I was really invested in the characters and their mission to save Sumi.

Going back and rereading this series from the beginning, I'm struck by how connected the first three installments of the Wayward Children series is. I'm so glad to be making my way through these books again.

Beneath the Sugar Sky is the first sequel installment where we meet a brand-new character and head into a brand-new world, but we start our adventure at the school for Wayward Children with characters we already know and a problem we are sort of already familiar with. This is such a brilliant springboard for the rest of the series since the next few books throw us into new worlds with new characters and it will feel so familiar.

While there is still darkness in this volume, Beneath the Sugar Sky shows us how different these worlds can be. There are candy corn fields and grounds of graham crackers and oceans of soda, but the world is still dangerous and the stakes are still high. This story is about Rini who is in danger of disappearing and ceasing to exist, but I'm struck most by the story of Cora who used to be a mermaid in a world of reason. I feel like most readers can relate and see themselves in the characters of the Wayward Children books, and for me, I feel like I would belong to a world of reason and I would absolutely be at home as a mermaid. I just love Cora and I love the ending to Beneath the Sugar Sky.  

4/5 stars
⭐⭐⭐⭐★

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Review | Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

Source: personal purchase. This is a review of my reading experience.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the second book in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire.

Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.

This is the story of what happened first…

Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline.

Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you've got.

They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted.

They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.

I didn't write a review the first time I read Down Among the Sticks and Bones, and I'm having the same struggle after rereading it. It's hard to put into words the things that Seanan McGuire is able to capture in the Wayward Children series.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones tells the story of Jacqueline and Jillian, twins who eventually find their doorway to the Moors after being born from horrible, self-serving parents and raised by their grandmother. We first meet Jack and Jill in Every Heart a Doorway (book #1 of the series), and Down Among the Sticks and Bones is their backstory.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a dark story in the dark world of the Moors, but the true beauty of Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the portrayal of gender roles. It's so heartbreakingly relatable. If you aren't reading this series, I really can't recommend it enough.

4/5 stars
⭐⭐⭐⭐★ 

Update: Turns out I did post some quick thoughts here after reading it the first time.

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Review | Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Every Heart a Doorway is the first book in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire.

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 reread is so heartbreaking. Having now read 6 more books in this series and coming back to the beginning - I think it hits even harder reading about these wayward children who have been forced to return "home". I get it now that no matter where they went through their portal doorway - a nice place, a dark place, a nonsense place, that was home.

I went back and read my original review for this and for some reason I focused on how weird this series would get according to reviews. It definitely does get strange, but it's wonderful and quite often heartbreaking.

I don't know if it's the end of the year or my lack of focus, but I've been in full reread mode. This is the perfect time for me to make my way back through this series. I think I will enjoy book 7 and the new book coming out in January much more revisiting the previous books in this series. I want to reacquaint myself with all of the characters we've met along the way.

Every Heart a Doorway is a perfect introduction to this universe and what it's like to be a wayward kid who has gone through a portal to another world and forced to come back to the life they left behind. These children struggle to cope and often wind up at the school for wayward children which is where Every Heart a Doorway is set.

In each book after Every Heart a Doorway, we get to follow someone through a doorway to another world (with the occasional return to school). This is one of my favorite series, and I look forward to a new release every year. You could probably jump into most books of series without starting at the beginning, but I love the magnitude of what Every Heart a Doorway spells out for these characters and the expectations that are set for these children ever finding their doorway again.

I'm awful at classifying genres so I've always thought of these books strictly as fantasy, but I can see why these also make it onto horror lists. Every Heart a Doorway is certainly horror adjacent and should appeal to a wide range of genre readers.

I feel like you will know if this is a series that sounds right for you. As for me, I love it and I hope it lasts forever.

 

4/5 stars
⭐⭐⭐⭐★

 

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Book Review | Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

Across the Green Grass Fields is the sixth book in the Wayward Children fantasy series by Seanan McGuire.

A young girl discovers a portal to a land filled with centaurs and unicorns in Seanan McGuire's Across the Green Grass Fields, a standalone tale in the Hugo and Nebula Award-wining Wayward Children series.

“Welcome to the Hooflands. We’re happy to have you, even if you being here means something’s coming.”

Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late.

When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to "Be Sure" before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines―a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes.

But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem…

I love the Wayward Children series so much. My favorite books in the series are the stand alone ones that take the reader to a completely new world. I'm so excited that Across the Green Grass Fields falls into the portal fantasy side of this series.

In Across the Green Grass Fields we meet Regan. Regan is an intersex girl who loves horses, and she manages to find herself through a doorway to the Hooflands as one does with this series.

This book broke my heart into pieces in the way that this series always breaks my heart into pieces. I can't get enough of it, and please, please, please Ms. McGuire let me see Regan again. As much as I crave these portal fantasies, I'm ready for the school timeline to come around again. I have so many wayward friends I need to check on now, OK?

That's all I have to say. I loved this book, and now I wait for more.

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫
4.5/5 stars

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Book Review | Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

Come Tumbling Down is the fifth book in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series.

The fifth installment in Seanan McGuire's award-winning, bestselling Wayward Children series, Come Tumbling Down picks up the threads left dangling by Every Heart a Doorway and Down Among the Sticks and Bones

When Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister--whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice--back to their home on the Moors.

But death in their adopted world isn't always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome.

Eleanor West's "No Quests" rule is about to be broken.

Again.

It's not that I didn't like Come Tumbling Down, I just didn't particularly care for it, either.

Come Tumbling Down can't stand on its own the way the other books in the series can, yet half of the book is spent explaining the characters and the worlds.

I still wholeheartedly recommend this series and I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment... I just don't feel like Come Tumbling Down really added anything new.

⭐⭐⭐★★

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Book Review | Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

Middlegame is a fantasy novel by Seanan McGuire.

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

I am such a fan of Seanan McGuire. Her imagination and her characters are amazing. Middlegame is no exception to this. The first time I picked up Middlegame (at the beginning of last year), I was spoiled by early reviews and I decided to put it away until those reviews would not affect my reading experience. Now that I've gone back and reread/finished Middlegame, I see why there were so many spoilers. This book is really hard to discuss otherwise, so I'll skip any actual plot points.

My favorite scenes are in the beginning of Middlegame when we are getting to know the characters of Roger and Dodger and the connection between them. Seanan McGuire's stories are so brilliant and so fun. I'm here for her story ideas for life.

There are a lot of time jumps in Middlegame, though. It's necessary to the story, but as a reader I rarely enjoy jumps in time. They pull me out of the story and away from the characters, and there's just no way my preference could overcome the amount of shifts in Middlegame. The story got progressively slower as the book went on, and as much as I loved the premise and the characters and the writing, it still managed to be difficult to get through.

⭐⭐⭐★★

Review copy provided by publisher

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Book Review | In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

In An Absent Dream is the fourth book in Seanan McGuire's fantasy series Wayward Children.

This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.

When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

I think this one is my favorite of the series!

I'm all caught up in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series now. I'm sad because I've been able to read four of them so close together and now I will have to wait to read the next one.

I'm not a great series reader. I burn out easily so it takes a lot for me to keep coming back to a series. I think in this case it helps that each book is so different from the last. (That and the fact that they're so good.)

I felt like there was so much allegory happening in In An Absent Dream. I would love to know what it was really about in Seanan McGuire's mind. The story was like a fairy tale, and the writing was so wonderful for me.

If you haven't started reading this series yet, just do it. I waited longer than I should have to get started.

I won't lie and say she took the story in directions I wanted it to go. I'm a little bit wrecked by this one, but also anxious to see where McGuire takes me in the next one.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book Review | Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky is the third book in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series.

When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)

If she can't find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests...

A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do.

Warning: May contain nuts.

If you've been following my reviews so far this year, you know I've been making my way through Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series. This series is about children who have gone to fantasy worlds (similar to Alice or Narnia) and returned home.

These books are so imaginative. I'm really enjoying making my way through this series. Book 1 (Every Heart a Doorway) was set at the school for kids who were having trouble coping with their return from a fantasy world. Book 2 (Down Among the Sticks and Bones) was set in one of the dark fantasy worlds. Beneath the Sugar Sky was set in a Nonsense world.

There's a quote in the book that pretty much sums it all up:

"'We're teenagers in a magical land following a dead girl and a disappearing girl into a field of organic, pesticide-free candy corn,' said Kade. 'I think weird is a totally reasonable response to the situation.'"

I think this world was my least favorite simply because it was hard for me to worry about the fate of people in a world where the ground was made of graham crackers.

That being said, I did enjoy Beneath the Sugar Sky, and I absolutely loved the ending. I'm looking forward to finding out what's in store for us in book 4.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★

Book Review | Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the second book in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire.

Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.

This is the story of what happened first…

Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline.

Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you've got.

They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted.

They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.

Yeesss. Down Among the Sticks and Bones was quite different from Every Heart a Doorway. There was no second book slump happening here.

In Every Heart a Doorway, we met several kids who had returned from various fantasy worlds. Down Among the Sticks and Bones was the story of Jacqueline and Jillian's (Jack and Jill's) time spent in the Moors. I loved it! The Moors was such a dark fantasy world.

I'm planning to head straight into book three (Beneath a Sugar Sky). I have a feeling each book will be a unique experience, and I'm looking forward to it!

⭐⭐⭐⭐★

Book Review | Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Every Heart a Doorway is the first book in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire.

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.

My number one take away reading reviews of the Wayward Children series is that it gets pretty weird. I definitely see precursors to that in Every Heart a Doorway. This book had some strange moments.

Every Heart a Doorway was also pretty amazing. It's about what happens to kids who visit fantasy worlds (think Narnia or Alice) and then come back to our world. I absolutely loved the imaginative quality of Every Heart a Doorway.

I'm glad I decided to catch up on this series this year. I know it's going to get weird, but I'm here for it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐