2022 EDIT: Fantastic premise and start. But unfortunately this time round I couldn't get into any of the characters and their callousness, tactlessness and apathy towards everything happening around them, including literal grisly murder. They seem too disconnected from reality, and probably not in the way that was intended. Is this related to them being miserable adults trapped in teenage bodies and unwanted lives? It's not clear. Everyone's random meanness and hostility is not as much commented on as it should be.
On the subject of bad or inconsistent character writing, characters would suddenly speak of their backstories in great detail to the protagonist for no real reason; right after a murder, even! This is linked to the book's slow, sloppy and choppy pace. I like the sweet, enchanting, bitter and morbid subversive fairy tale atmosphere it develops, in such a short time for a novella. But not much happens, and then once the murders finally occur - starting 74 pages in - everything keeps stopping and starting, erratically in motion, like a damaged car.
It's all a baffling mix of being too bizarre and yet not bizarre enough. Plus, if the characters barely care about the sudden deaths of people they know - that they can immediately dispose of the bodies and all of the victims' possessions no problem, and even laugh good-heartedly towards their friends right after a murder - and about what's going on, then why should the reader?
However, the ideas present are enough to make 'Every Heart a Doorway' an almost magnum opus. I especially like how it loosely refers to the universal truth that, if the world gave as much of a shit about girls as it so blatantly does boys, there would be far less missing girls everywhere. The line, "We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women.", is still chilling.
Oh and the protagonist, Nancy, is mostly useless. In fact, she's completely useless. What did she actually do to earn her "happy" ever after?
And the Fairyland world that rejected the trans character, Kade, for not being the gender they thought he was, is referred to as a "really high Logic" and "pure Logic" world. That...leads to very, very unfortunate implications right there. Is it meant to be ironic? And wrong? It's not debated, so...fuck *rests head on hands in despair*.
'Every Heart a Doorway' - I think it needed another revision (and the few glaring typos confirm this).
An excerpt from my first review of the book, listing the flaws in more detail:
The subject of Kade's hypocritical magical world rejecting him for who he is - when the other kids' worlds accepted them for their true selves - isn't explored enough. In a murder mystery tale, no one does any investigating or detective work - the main key players just stumble onto plot points accidentally. The characters, who we are infrequently told are scared, are rather blasé over the fact that there's a serial killer on the loose at their school. Maybe this is to show how out of touch they are, but it results in some unsympathetic and thoughtless leads whom the reader is made to connect to. Nancy is not a proactive heroine; to even call her that is a stretch. She is constantly surrounded by more talkative and motivated characters (while her motive is to return to the Halls of the Dead, where she is most understood, she doesn't actually do or think up anything for how she could work that out), and it seems that at the end the only thing the protagonist achieves on her own is not die, and that is not "saving the world", as it were.
Nancy might believe or want to believe that she's dead - figuratively and literally - and this ghost girl wandering around as life passes her by could have had an arc where she grows more in confidence through friendships, and she slowly finds her inner light again, stands up for herself, and does stuff. But there isn't really a payoff to that in the actual book.
Final Score: 3/5
Original Review:
'Every Heart a Doorway' is one of those divisive YA fantasy books that has gotten really popular despite receiving mixed reviews from the online reader community. I usually don't bother with books that have been overhyped and have generated mixed reactions, and if I do - after crumbling under a lot of pressure - I often fall under the negative camp and think the book is mediocre and doesn't deserve its hype, so I have wasted my time on something I should have known I would not like. But anything is possible, and though I am rarely surprised by books nowadays, adding to my most recent disheartening reading slump I was willing to try anything. I felt I had to give 'Every Heart a Doorway' a try for its premise alone. And it's a novella at 170 pages, so it'll be a quickie.
'Every Heart a Doorway' by Seanan McGuire reminds me of the power of fantasy, and childhood, and psychology. It guts me to know that it isn't real, for it is a lovely little trip into the sunshine, the weird, and the morbid. For every kid, and every kid at heart, who wanted to believe they were special, to believe in magic; for every lonely and weird and wonderful child who desperately wished over the years to receive a letter from Hogwarts; or to stumble into an impossible world and go on exciting adventures like in the books, which promised a new life away from a cruel, cynical, hopeless and depressing world: 'Every Heart a Doorway' is for you.
The premise of a boarding school that houses children who have been to fantastical worlds and just can't adjust to life back in "reality" is an amazing one, full of potential. Did Alice go as mad as the Hatter from the times she'd been to Wonderland? Maybe Dorothy really did get sent into electroshock therapy after her wonderful adventures in Oz. And to say nothing of the poor Pevensie kids of Narnia. What was reality anymore for these youngsters? Why did they happen to go down the rabbit hole or find that one wardrobe in the first place? Were they chosen? What if there really were hidden doors around the world that are portals into other realms, attracted to children? What if those children loved those worlds more than their original ones (who wouldn't, let's be honest)? Worlds where they felt accepted, where they felt they truly belonged to? Where they called their real home? And who wouldn't want to stay in a Neverland and be immortal?
This book deconstructs these ideas and assesses the possible psychological damage caused by these big changes - in body, mind and soul - happening to children, and all throughout adulthood, with a demented surgeon's scalpel. The sharp instrument glints and shines in its deadly beauty. 'Every Heart a Doorway' is deep about its fantasy and world(s) building, and nonsensical in its real world logic. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but it is glorious.
The characters are memorable and they stand out well - a limited cast of children and adults with serious issues who are colourful in a dry, drab real world that doesn't want to deal with them.
Our main lead is seventeen-year-old Nancy Whitman, a gothic girl who has been to an Underworld known as the Halls of the Dead, and wants nothing more than to taste pomegranate and dance with her lord under the starry night sky again. She explicitly mentions that she is asexual, but not aromantic, for they are not the same thing, and from her long time among the dead she has developed the habit of standing as still, silent and breathless as them whenever she is stressed and upset.
Eleanor West is the elderly eccentric headmistress of the boarding school, her Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. She wears bright colours when parents and local authorities aren't around, and is still a child at heart, perhaps too much so. She wants to help the children who have been through what she had once, and unlike everyone else she can still access her fantasy door, but only with a nonsensical, childlike mind. Eleanor isn't dissimilar to Dumbledore or a good version of Count Olaf - a female version of this type of character is rare and it is refreshing. She is a tragic figure, being practically the only adult shown in this novella.
Kade is a transgender male and a little too calm and cheery for an eighteen-year-old who got kicked out of his fantasy world of candyfloss and knights for not being a girl like they thought. There is also Sumi, a completely, happily-loopy Japanese girl who holds nothing back - her world was like Wonderland; Lundy, a teacher who due to travelling back and forth many times from her magical door, she ages backwards and has the body of an eight-year-old (I'm getting Claudia from 'Interview with the Vampire' vibes from her); Christopher the Latino skeleton land boy, who doesn't really get introduced until over a hundred pages in; and last but certainly not least, the Addams twins, Jack and Jill, both girls - Jack is the utterly morbid but brilliant mad scientist's protegee (she seriously scared me, but that's the intended reaction), whilst Jill is the pretty, girly former vampire's prize. Their parents also beat the parents from Louise O'Neill's 'Asking For It' as the worst in the entirety of YA fiction: after barely any time of their twin daughters going missing, they have another kid whom they tell his sisters are dead, with the implication that they never really tried to look for them. The real world is as insane as any made-up one.
And yeah, vampires, in a way, are in this book. So are mutilated bodies and disposing of the evidence, for 'Every Heart a Doorway' is also a murder mystery, binding its time before striking dead a character the reader grew to like very much and didn't expect to get offed so soon and so suddenly. It takes risks, and leaves no detail untouched, like a madman.
Everybody is eerie and unstable in this shiny/gothic two-sided coin of a novella; nobody is what they seem. It's not all rainbows, friendly munchkins and unicorns here. In fact, in Nancy's world, unicorns would get cooked and eaten at a banquet.
The diversity of the cast is also something to applaud in a modern day fantasy. It contains feminist teachings, and even analyses why it is that more girls visit magical lands than boys. Ableist slurs are called out on.
The writing is addictive and it whisks the reader fast into its meta-narration, and prose containing prospective lands, where the plot doesn't start until over a quarter of the way through. It is so effective it can be read in one day.
For its fantastic concept, writing, characters and atmosphere, 'Every Heart a Doorway' does contain many flaws, and the reasons for its dividing people can be founded fairly. Its ideas and plot could have been explored better in a novel that's longer (sequel-baiting does not count). Not every potential is realised for a great story. The subject of Kade's hypocritical magical world rejecting him for who he is - when the other kids' worlds accepted them for their true selves - isn't explored enough. In a murder mystery tale, no one does any investigating or detective work - the main key players just stumble onto plot points accidentally. The characters, who we are infrequently told are scared, are rather blasé over the fact that there's a serial killer on the loose at their school. Maybe this is to show how out of touch they are, but it results in some unsympathetic and thoughtless leads whom the reader is made to connect to. Nancy is not a proactive heroine; to even call her that is a stretch. She is constantly surrounded by more talkative and motivated characters (while her motive is to return to the Halls of the Dead, where she is most understood, she doesn't actually do or think up anything for how she could work that out), and it seems that at the end the only thing the protagonist achieves on her own is not die, and that is not "saving the world", as it were.
Nancy might believe or want to believe that she's dead - figuratively and literally - and this ghost girl wandering around as life passes her by could have had an arc where she grows more in confidence through friendships, and she slowly finds her inner light again, stands up for herself, and does stuff. But there isn't really a payoff to that in the actual book. The Home for Wayward Children itself isn't 100% friendly anyway - bullying exists everywhere, including Hogwarts - no matter how hard Eleanor tries to keep the children safe from the harsh real world.
Yet, I love 'Every Heart a Doorway'. There is so much to talk about in such a short story. I adore the writing, the creepy, luscious tone, the gothic horror, the strange and beautiful characters, and the angles it took, despite what could have been if only it were longer. It's deliberately weird and bizarre but not self-indulgent. Care is present.
There are unseen, unfounded lands out there. You only need to look for them, and believe in yourself before you can believe in them. We make our own story, our own narration, and don't let anyone else tell it for you. Where we love and are loved and understood in return - unconditionally and unfailing - that's where we can call home. There is magic in this unique novella, buried not too deeply. Whether you find it or not is up to you.
Final Score: 3.5/5
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