Down Among the Sticks and Bones

I rarely DNF something when I'm already so close to finishing, but I just didn't care what happened to Jack and Jill or whatever their names were. McGuire's writing writhers my soul by chewing the simplest of ideas and spitting it out for the reader to digest, and when a book is less than 300 pages long it really doesn't leave much space for actual content. I hated the characters, cared for them even less than I cared for anyone in the Every Heart a Doorway, and rolled my eyes numerous times at the supposed rebellion against gender norms. How the hell this series has won awards, I will never understand.

Une réflexion super intéressante sur les rôles imposés aux enfants par leurs parents et la société.
J'ai bien aimé découvrir l'univers qui se cachait derrière la porte de Jack et Jill, un univers qui, au final, fonctionne très bien avec l'atmosphère d'octobre. Je me souviens avoir beaucoup aimé les jumelles dans le premier tome (surtout Jack) et de visiter leur histoire dans ce tome m'a fait très plaisir.

I really enjoyed knowing Jack and Jill, their tough childhood and the world they went to. The writing was so good I'm sad it was this short but also looking forward to reading other books of the series.

I definitely prefer this book to the first one, even if it is a prequel to the first book and knew where things were headed. Wished I read this one before that.

Very good. the writing here really works for me

I read Every Heart a Doorway for the first time last year and I wrote a review for it which you can read here. I did a reread of it this year and read the rest of the books that are currently out including the short stories. I read them back to back so they kind of all got scrambled in my brain so I thought I would just write a review on the series as a whole. These books are weird but in the best way. You definitely have to suspend disbelief but if you can do that I guarantee you will have fun with this series. I love how many worlds we get to learn about in this series. Some sound delightful and some no so much. I loved the characters some more than others of course. These are all novella length. For the most part I felt like we got a full story and I wasn't left feeling like I was missing something but at the same time I wanted more from each of the stories. Not because I felt like I was missing something I just wanted to know more about the characters and what happened after the ending of the book. We do get that answer for some of the characters in proceeding books so that was good. I've enjoyed each of the stories equally. I don't think I could pick a favorite but I do have favorite characters some of which I am still waiting on stories for so I hope those are coming. Overall I had fun reading these with Destiny and I can't wait for the next release.  

Really enjoying these books so far, they are well written, the characters are complex and I feel like the author did a good job in how the povs were split. The world is so interesting and I wanted to keep reading about, the only thing I wish was different was that it was longer as I could easily spend a good 300+ pages on this world. And the way the previous book and this one play off each other is very smart, making sense of the last one while priming you and exciting you for the next one.

This one is much darker than the previous book, but that makes sense based on the world Jac and Jill come from. I liked seeing how they got they way they are and I also liked the different kind of story we get from this one. It still feels like a part of the series, but it is a different kind of story. I think I am falling in love with this series.

Really digging this series so far. And I appreciated that this book explained the appeal of Jack and Jill's world, despite it sounding so dour to outsiders...also, the illustrations were lovely and I'd like more of those please. Overall, 4 mad scientist/vampire rivalries out of 5.

So far, I have wished ghese books were longer than novellas. This book was so good?? But I wanted to savor every scene in this book and for it to be even just a little longer. I cannot wait to see where Jack and Jill go from here.

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke their crown.
And Jill came tumbling after.

This should have been the first book in the series. What a fantastic character sketch written by Seanan McGuire. I really enjoyed this book and now I am excited for the remaining books in the series.

This book discusses gender issues, raising children, etc., and gets much deeper into various relationships.

This, you see, is the true danger of children: they are ambushes, each and every one of them. A person may look at someone else's child and see only the surface, the shiny shoes or the perfect curls. They do not see the tears and the tantrums, the late nights, the sleepless hours, the worry. They do not even see the love, not really. It can be easy, when looking at children from the outside, to believe that they are things, dolls designed and programmed by their parents to behave in one manner, following one set of rules. It can be easy, when standing on the lofty shores of adulthood, not to remember that every adult was once a child, with ideas and ambitions of their own.

Plot: 100/10
Narration: 10/10

This was perfect! Loved this way more than the first book. Liked the author's narration a lot more too.
The beginning with Jack and Jill literally going up a hill and tumbling down the stairs was a nice touch! The story was amazing! The ending was so sad. Poor Jac

Dit was zo'n leuk, grillig, akelig en donker verhaal! Ik heb hier meer van genoten dan van het eerste boek uit deze serie.

In dit boek leren we meer over het verleden van de zusjes Jack en Jill uit het eerste boek, maar dit kan gerust op zijn eigen gelezen worden.
De ouders van Jack & Jill zijn geobsedeerd door uiterlijke schijn en duwen de meisjes daardoor in specifieke en beperkende rollen. Hierdoor worstelen beide meisjes zo hard met hun identiteit, dat wanneer ze in een duistere wereld vol met monsters terecht komen, ze zich eindelijk als zichzelf voelen.

Dit boek leest als een duister sprookje met een diepere boodschap.
Ik kijk uit om nog meer in deze serie te lezen.

This was so imaginative and I kinda loved it for that but there were several points about it that ground against my gears.

Firstly, I really didn't like that these two sisters were just pitted against each other, even though they were moved to do so by external circumstances, throughout the whole book. I don't know how they even somehow reconciled and “clung to each other” right at the end of it, considering what both had literally just gone through. I really wish that we had a bit more of a genuine reconciliation between the two sisters.

Secondly, the ending felt really abrupt. As is the case for the first book, I felt like these premises are enough to fill much longer novels instead of the novella-length story that we got here. But even then, we had so much more substance to how the sisters made their choices between the Master and Dr Bleak, but their dive back to their original home world was all done in a 7-page chapter. We had no idea how they were going to assimilate back into their world after nearly 6 formative years away, and we don't even know how they were going to reconcile with each other given that to each of them, the other had ripped away and stolen what had come to matter most to them in the years they spent in the Moors. It felt like there's so much unexplored business here that is yet to be concluded. I'm not sure if Jack and Jill's story continues in the later books but as far as I know, the instalments in this series are barely connected to each other so we may not see Jack and Jill again, which is really a shame. It was such a great set-up but I felt like we barely got to the climax before everything ended.

Thirdly, I kinda hated that Jill had no redemption arc. I was incredibly annoyed with her for the whole book but also incredibly sympathetic. She was so mired in her obsession with the Master because, in my opinion, she had grown up so bereft of attention compared to Jacqueline. It almost felt like watching a child who gets into some kind of toxic dependent relationship because of the way they had grown up till then, and then becoming susceptible to more toxicity in these relationships when they eventually grow up into adults. It was annoying but also really sad and I had really really wanted to see a redemption arc somewhere, but - there was none of that.

But overall, Seanan McGuire's worlds are always so compelling and interesting. The premise is refreshing and unique, the writing is so easy and smooth. While I particularly detested Jack and Jill's parents and the way they treated the children in the first few chapters, I could really get behind the message that she was trying to convey: treat children like very young people but still people in their own rights, and not dolls to be molded into an image that you want them to be.

Despite my gripes about it, this was still at least a 4 star read for me and I'd be continuing on the series (I really hope to see more of Jack and Jill in future books!)

3.5 Rounding up to 4 stars

Yet again I loved it instantly from the first page onward. The way these books are written, something about it feels like a song or a melody. It took me only one day to read

I do wish I knew what happend to them after the events of every heart a doorway but that might still come. 

Hello I do not have enough stars to express how much I love Jack and Jill.

3.5 once again - wish this had been longer!! wanted more of the corruption arc, more of the world. i do really like seanan mcguire???s choice to show the origin stories of the kids we met in every heart a doorway because that book definitely asked for branching out. a cool dark fairytale, though!

‚There are worlds built on rainbows and worlds built on
rain.
There are worlds of pure mathematics, where every
number chimes like crystal as it rolls into reality.
There are worlds of light and worlds of darkness, worlds of rhyme and worlds of reason, and worlds where the only thing that matters is the goodness in a hero's heart‘
And i hope I can read about all of them!!!

I am so obsessed with this book, with Seanan Mcguires writing, with the worldbuilding and with Jack and Jill.
I loved the first one but this was basically everything I love put into one story.
I love my fantasy like this, whimsical and original and dark and with flowery exposition.

I want to reread it now

i enjoyed mcguire's writing, same as last time, but it wasn't as easy to enjoy the world with such a limited, miserable cast. the Moors are not a happy place, and Jack and Jill are not very happy children, with supremely unlikable parents.

there was a kind of gross fascination with watching things go downhill for the twins, which you know they will from the start - because that's why they were even in Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children's from the first book in the first place.

the world is so interesting, i can't help but wish that these books were more than novellas. i want to know more about the doorways, and the worlds behind them, and the characters in them!

i have to admit, i was confusing jack & jill for each other up until the point where they finally separate lol. i struggled with telling them apart in the first book as well. 

Another great book by Seanan McGuire. her writing is simply amazing weaving a profound story of being who you are and being the person people expect you to be. This book is a semi-prequel to Every Heart a Doorway

The Story of Jack and Jill and how they became who they are and where they came from.

CAWPILE SCORE
C-7
A-8
W-9
P-7
I-7
L-8
E-8
TOTAL-7.71/10
CAWPILECharacters.Jaqueline and Jillian were excellent characters and the way we see them grow and change both in the Horrible parents care and in the moors was excellentAtmosphereBeautifully written. I could feel the atmosphere of the their house and the feeling of the moors was undeniableWritingBeautiful writing for this series. it sometimes feels like it has a bit of a rhyme to it, which just makes it sound all the betterPlotWell paced and straightforward. we had a clear ending point and the beginning didn't detract or confuse. Intriguewas interesting to see what life on the moors was like and how it changed Jaqueline and Jillian, was interesting to see a bit of ability control on the doors. very sad to see their childhood, but i can perfectly imagine things happening like that.LogicWhile the Logic of the parents is tenuous at best, I have absolutly no doubt that there are people who do the exact same or similar things. The Logic of each choice was well documented and totally believableEnjoymentI very much enjoyed this prequel. it really helps to flesh out the backstory of the characters, but i'm excited to see the future of the Wayward Home

So, I'm curious: has Seanan McGuire ever...read a book? Does she know what they are and how they work? Because I kind of like her schtick, but it's profoundly not a novella. By which I mean, Down Among the Sticks and Bones only has any sense of narrative structure and emotional payoff in retrospect in the events of Every Heart a Doorway, it's prequel. And the murder mystery in Every Heart a Doorway doesn't actually make any sense until you read Down Among the Sticks and Bones. I spent a lot of time frustrated by the murder mystery of Down Among the Sticks and Bones because it felt like cheating to have a murder mystery when the rules turned out to allow resurrection. Down Among the Sticks and Bones makes that slightly more palatable (although not really until book #5 is it really addressed).

As a standalone, this works barely at all. Jack and Jill are flimsy characters and the plot is basically nonexistent, with the book fizzling just as it should be hitting a climax. Where it does succeed is where Seanan McGuire seems to excel: a beautifully depicted setting (in this case, a canonical horro movie) and a rich fairy tale-esque theme. It's beautiful reading, but when the spell breaks I'm still at WTH did I just read?

I didn't know what to expect from a prequel book that tells the story of Jack and Jill, but this was beautiful.

A short dark creative adventure that also explores the relations between siblings.

This was an absolute delight as the next installment for the Wayward Children. I loved getting more details about the twins, Jack and Jill. It really opened my eyes to their behavior in the first novel. I am certainly enjoying these quick novels on audiobook. I just hope my library will get the 5th book soon so I can listen to it as well.