Title: Every Heart A Doorway

Author: Seanan McGuire

Release date: April 5, 2016

Every once in a while, a book comes along that you know you’ll love it purely by the cover art and the title. That was the case with ‘Every Heart A Doorway.’ I knew based on that alone I would be over the moon reading it and once I read the synopsis I was hooked.

Jen from the Ladies of Horror Fiction crew kept telling me to read this as well. After her and I buddy read ‘Where the Woods End’ together, she told me I absolutely had to get onto reading ‘Every Heart A Doorway,’ and now that I have – she was right.

What I liked: The story follows a young girl, Nancy. You see, some children spot doorways to different realms and plains, and some of them step through and spend time there. Those that return are ‘different.’ Because of this, the parents will send them to Eleanor and her school where they hope the children will be ‘helped.’

The book itself has such an easy flow to it that I found myself engrossed immediately. The story is hard to categorize. Is it fantasy? There are elements of horror. Definitely filled with drama and character relationships. Sometimes a book defies standard categories and this was one of them.

The characters in here are great. McGuire expertly gives us some outstanding children to want to know more about, especially when bad things begin to happen.

The school in and of itself was intriguing. We don’t get much description of how it actually looks, so the reader gets to interpret it as they wish. I suspect it was a standard, square-box, building type structure, but for me, I kept going back and picturing it as a massive tree that was hollowed out and the school built within. Why? I honestly don’t know, but that is the beauty of reading!

What I didn’t like: Completely minor thing, but throughout the read, I had a sense of complete timelessness. Or more accurately – no specific time period that this book was happening in. But at one point a character mentions that they saw something on someone’s Facebook page and that really killed that feeling for me. It doesn’t detract from the story, but for me personally, I really wished we hadn’t have know FB existed in this world.

Why you should buy it: This is part of an ongoing series, but book one reads purely like a stand alone. The ending will absolutely leave you wanting to know more, but as a single read – stunning. This had everything. You’ll go through the emotional rollercoaster with this one and a lot of questions are brought up, with some really great philosophical answers and discussion.

I had such a great time with this one. Now, I’ll need to talk my wife into letting my buy book two!

5/5