Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
CW: Transphobia, Deadnaming, Child Abandonment, Parent Death Mentioned, Mutilation/Blood, Death, Child Death, Skinning, Reanimation, Animal Cruelty, Swearing, Bullying, Medical Content, Disordered Eating
5/5
While I'm normally the person in my friend group to suggest books, occasionally a friend recommends one to me. This was the case for Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. And they were absolutely right to do so! I took a while to get around to reading it, but I fell in love with it as soon as I did. It's an imaginative world of worlds with ace rep and neurodivergent coding. I'm relieved that it's the start of a series, as I didn't want to be done with it. If you're intrigued so far but not looking for a series, this novella definitely works as a stand-alone.
Every Heart a Doorway starts when Nancy is sent to a boarding school for Wayward Children. She has been through a doorway to a land of the dead, a land she felt at home in. Now she must learn alongside others like her, children who have been cast out of their world and are desperate to go back. Unfortunately, as soon as she starts making friends, people start being killed. Who will be next? Who is doing it? What's their motive? Will Nancy and the school survive long enough to benefit from what the Home for Wayward Children has to offer?
The premise of this story is a beautiful and exciting one. I love the idea that there are worlds out there perfectly suited for each person who isn't suited for Earth. This is where I sense the neurodivergent coding, aided by the author being autistic. All of the children we met felt at home in the world that they found. When they returned to the real world, they had spent so long unmasked that they couldn't stand the world they came back to. Their parents had a hard time with the returns as well. As an autistic person, it left me wondering what world would make me feel right. Perhaps one from scratch would do best, but I can't help thinking of Halloweentown from the Disney Channel Original Movie.
Another aspect that made me love Every Heart a Doorway was the queer rep. McGuire included ace and trans rep in her novella. Nancy has a squish (platonic crush) on her classmate, Kade, who is trans. He was thrown out of his other world for it and disowned by his parents when he returned. The Home for Wayward Children took him in, though. He's not the most extroverted person, but he does immediately take to Nancy in return. Nancy is asexual and potentially on the aromantic spectrum. Her doorway world was affirming of this. Knowing that McGuire is demisexual made this representation all the more satisfying to me. I have read that the other books in the series have queer rep too. If it's anything like this, I'm looking forward to it!
Every Heart a Doorway should be a horror novella, given the murder, mutilation, and description of some of the worlds, but it didn't come across that way to me. It's possible that my inability to imagine the gory scenes kept it from being as scary as it could be, but I don't think so. This school is for the children who want to go back to their worlds or at least want to remember them. Many of the worlds were dark, scary, or focused on the dead. The characters are comfortable with dead bodies, so it's easier for the reader to be as well. I appreciated this approach. It's not disrespectful to the dead, it honors them without turning them into a spectacle. The people at this school have a very different viewpoint than most humans, and that matters.
Seanan McGuire created a fantastical and dangerous world that offers hope and acceptance. If the idea of escaping into another realm or a boarding school for kids who have done so appeals to you, Every Heart a Doorway is the book for you. Treat the book as a doorway of its own!
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