Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Two Stars
“The only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.”
What happened to Alice and Wendy after they returned from Wonderland and Neverland? What if all the Narnias and Fillories were real? What if there were so many worlds that their differing natures could be plotted along a graph with virtue–evil and logic–nonsense axes? What if the hundreds of children who had visited them lived among us? How would they live in the mundane world, knowing a magic kingdom still called? Such is the premise of Every Heart a Doorway.
“Now I know that if you open the right door at the right time, you might finally finds a place where you belong.”
Skip the “There Was a Little Girl” prologue and be drawn into a home for such disaffected children through the eyes of a recent returnee from the Land of the Dead. The setup and development is realistic and fantastic simultaneously. Good, if wordy storytelling and character development. So politically correct you gag on the sweetness.
“Only by learning about the journeys of others can we truly understand our own.”
[Spoiler] This was in four-star territory until the death and dismemberment started. After that the story devolves into a blood-soaked, fantasy murder mystery. Horror is not my cup of pomegranate juice.
“Spending five years apprenticed to a mad scientist sort of changes your outlook on the world.”
2017 Hugo novella finalist. Nice cover art.
“This isn’t a place for lies or pretending that everything is all right.”
As a Matter of Fancy 
Not a fan of gore either. And it’s a finalist? Wow. Thanks for the warning.