This is the 10th novel in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. The series is about a boarding school for children that have returned from quests to other worlds, like Narnia and are now back – some experienced years of life, only to find only seconds had passed in their original world, returning to their younger bodies, others find themselves back at home years after their disappearances to families that don’t know what to do with them, unable to explain what happened to them. In some cases, they didn’t mean to leave their magical worlds and are desperate to return, while others don’t want to go back but also can’t pretend to fit in anymore – because these kid never quite fit in. That’s why the doors opened to them, because they were lost or missing something.
The way she has structured the series is that the odd numbered books all start at the school and focus on a group of students that the reader follows. There are some fluctuations as students find their doors back or new students join but there is continuity between the odd numbered books. The even numbered novellas are stand alone novels, and focus on the individual stories of some of the characters introduced previously (I think there is only one instance where the individual story is the introduction to a character that shows up in the next odd numbered book).
Seanan McGuire can write so beautifully about children and their emotions. In these stand alone novellas, she paints such a bright picture of these children’s lives, and the way parents can do harm in so many ways. That isn’t to say all the parents are bad, in some cases the children are struggling with their place in the world for other reasons but many of the novellas have parents that are concerned about appearances and do not try to understand their children at all. They are “well-meaning” or want to present a certain image to the world, and have children they shouldn’t have to fill a role. The series isn’t perfect and there have definitely been novellas I enjoyed much more than others but I always look forward to these, even as I know there might be an emotional gut punch coming. My favorites of the stand alones so far have been Across the Green Grass Fields which was just a very enjoyable and simple story, and Lost in the Moment and Found which is one of the ones that deals with very complex issues, betrayals and lost innocence.
This is the stand alone story of Nadya, one of the drowned girls from the school. Overall I think this was one of the weaker novellas in the series and it’s mostly because there just wasn’t quite the magic I usually expect from the worlds behind the doors. I mean there are talking animals and giant tortoises that bond with human riders but the world felt very undeveloped compared to some of the others in the series. The first third is set in the “real” world, introducing Nadya in a Russian orphanage before she is adopted by Americans who don’t quite bother to get to know her and instead expect her to be grateful for things she never asked for. After years of feeling perfectly fine, it is these adoptive parents that make her feel less than whole and lead her to a door.
While this is a stand alone novella, I definitely don’t recommend starting with this one – it wouldn’t give you the right impression of just how good this series can be when it’s at its best. In this, it was really the set up and Nadya’s back story that felt the strongest while the magical world felt more like an afterthought.