Coming off the heels of the stupendous Dread Nation, I was pumped for this YA novel. The setup: children travel through magical portals to alternate worlds, only to become distraught upon their return to their tedious old lives. (Postmodern Wonderland or Narnia!) Though this book won all the awards—Hugo, Alex, Locus Nebula—it utterly failed to enchant me. I suppose my heart is a closed door. Or maybe an inky void.
Nancy (the sixth most interesting character, maybe) lands at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children as a last resort. Her parents believe a kidnapping broke their daughter, changing her from a happy-go-lucky girl in rainbow colors to a somber, slow-moving cipher with black and white hair. They believe a boarding school with therapists who specialize in her “disorder” will put her back together. Nancy knows better: she disappeared because she traveled to another world, a place where she belonged, a place where she was happy, a place that’s now out of reach.
The other teenagers at this peculiar boarding school have had similar personality-changing experiences, albeit with different destinations. (For those keeping track, the cardinal directions are Nonsense, Logic, Wickedness, and Virtue.) Together, the teachers—former travelers themselves—and small number of students struggle to reintegrate into life on Earth; but really, they all are desperate to discover a portal back to their beloved forever Home.
“C.S. Lewis never went through any doors. He didn’t know how it worked. He wanted to tell a story and he’d probably heard about kids like us and he made shit up. That’s what all those authors did. They made shit up, and people made them famous. We tell the truth, and our parents throw us into this glorified loony bin.”
“We don’t use terms like that here,” said Eleanor. There was steel in her tone. “This is not an asylum, and you are not mad—and so what if you were? This world is unforgiving and cruel to those it judges as even the slightest bit out of the norm. If anyone should be kind, understanding, accepting, loving to their fellow outcasts, it’s you. All of you.”
Sounds great, right? It was, until people starting turning up dead, dumping this unwitting reader into a morbid game of Clue. The lovingly drawn main characters turn from introspection to self-preservation, moving from murder scene to murder scene. Tantalizing bits of backstory come out as they conspire to literally hide the bodies from the authorities. And just when you think the book is turning a corner…it ends. Because it’s a novella under 200 pages (surprise!). And if you want to know more about characters who are not Nancy? You have to buy more novellas. …
Recommended if you like high concept and emotional imagery and don’t mind gratuitous horror; not recommended if you like your novels with a serviceable plot and fulfilling ending.