Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

In a drowned girl’s world

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire

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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 […]

Where this series shines, and where it falls apart

Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire

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After going back and rereading my favorite Wayward Children book (In an Absent Dream), I decided to pick up the last two that I hadn’t read yet. I loved one, didn’t care for the other, and I think I pinpointed what works for me with these books and what doesn’t. Lost in the Moment and Found is the story of Antsy (Antoinette), whose father has died and mother has remarried. Her mother’s new husband is Bad News, and Antsy runs away from home to escape him. She […]

“Your life is the biggest bargaining chip you have. Before you choose where to spend it, be sure you understand what you’re getting in return.”

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

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This is the 4th book in the Wayward Children series. Last year, I read the first several books in the series. These are all so short, which is nice for the ones you don’t like as well but makes the ones you DO like a bit disappointing as it leaves you wanting more. I read these while on a trip, and intended to continue reading them once I was home but I never did. But, In an Absent Dream just stuck with me. In an Absent […]

A doorway to a beautifully built new world

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

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How do you care for your daughter after she returns from the Land of the Dead? If you’re Nancy’s parents, you take her to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. Thus begins Every Heart a Doorway. Nancy is delivered to her new home to get better when all she wants is to return to the world she stumbled upon years ago. As does everyone else under Eleanor’s care. She takes care of and helps those children who have crossed over to other worlds and want nothing […]

CBR Bingo- What does home mean?

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Down among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

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This fills the Home square of the CBR Bingo card quite nicely! It’s taken me a long time to get around to reading the Wayward Children series and i actually started with book 2- Down among the sticks and bones. Wayward children is about a school/home for children who have been “taken into fairyland”. There are many lands, all of them different from outs. There is a rough schematic of how these worlds fall relative to each other- between logic and nonsense and virtue and […]

Victorian Gothic and Lovecraft Mashup

Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

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I liked Come Tumbling Down better than the previous installment of the Wayward Children series in terms of story, but I do think there was an over-emphasis on the concept of who’s the monster. Jack is back at the school but there’s something very wrong with her which if not fixed will definitely destroy her. This was the premise in the previews I’d seen and I have to admit I didn’t see that problem itself coming, although in hindsight it does suit their folkloric homeland […]



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