Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Dark and twisted, with a very traditional fairy tale feel. Having read Wayward Children 1 first, I knew how the girls would end up, which made the book less enjoyable.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones tells the story of Jack and Jill. In this darkly creative sequel, Seanan McGuire shows the sister's broken lives and the world that stole them away. If you have not read book one, I highly suggest you do. Sticks and Bones will not go into detail about the mechanics of the doorway worlds and can leave you easily confused.

The girls were not raised with love and care from their parents. They were treated like moldable clay and forced into roles that made their family look perfect on the outside. But on the inside, the two grew apart, each one yearning for something more in their life. Something they could truly enjoy. Like most children, when their door appeared, they stepped through with innocent curiosity. Nothing could prepare them for the violence and desperation of their new world.

This was another brilliant and dark entry in the Wayward Children series. It's like reading page after page of smooth dark poetry that sinks into your mind. You cry out for these two girls, hoping for them to find their happiness any way they can. You become immersed in a world of magic and desperate hope. I can't get enough of this series!

I just love how Seanan McGuire's head works.

The second volume in the Wayward Children series focuses on two characters from the first book exclusively - Jack and Jill - and goes back to tell their story of the horror-themed world they stumbled into and how it changed them into the characters we meet in the first book. I enjoyed seeing how it all came about, since we only had snippets of the details in the first volume and especially appreciated Seanan McGuire's storytelling style, as a narrated tale it feels fairytale-like, but with a much darker edge. The middle seems to skip a lot and though I get these are meant to be shorter volumes, I think it could have benefited from a little more bulk. I'm not sure I really felt a connection to the characters overall, except for the fact that they felt shoe-horned into roles they didn't particularly feel they were meant for and found a place where they could ‘be themselves' through their magical door. Since the outcast and misunderstood theme is prevalent in the series as whole so far, it didn't give much more depth to the characters themselves and we're never really given much else to warm up to - although that might just be me personally, as Jack and Jill weren't my favourites from the first book and their world isn't one I personally felt a connection to.
However, I still plowed through the book and really like the concept that McGuire has come up with for this series. Although it plays on familiar ground (portal fantasy), it takes a unique and exceptional direction with it, which creates a world I want to continue to dive into again and again. Already on to book three, which says a lot considering I tend to be a reader that bounces around a lot and rarely sticks to a series all the way through in one go. Still highly recommended both as a standalone story and as a continuing part of the Wayward Children series.

I really enjoyed this one. I loved the sound of the Moors. It sounds fascinating. I loved getting the back story for Jack and Jill. I think this was better than the first one.

I love being in one of the doorway worlds, more than at the school. Just a more interesting time to spend in the novella than the first book.

Jack was one of my favorite characters in Every Heart a Doorway and so it was perfect reading how she and Jill ended up in the Moors and everything that happened to them before and during. I doubt, but I hope that at some point we get to find out what happened to them after what happened in Every Heart.

I loved this book so much! Jack was my favorite character of “Every Heart A Doorway,” so I was thrilled when I began this book and found her to be the main character. The world of the Moors, while being contained in such a small amount of pages, felt so fleshed out. Every character, even the very minor ones, felt multi-faceted and real. The story was so beautiful and is probably going to be my favorite of the series.

This book was better than the first one. Jack is a goddess and I hope we see more of her.

Jack and Jill were my favorite characters in Every Heart a Doorway, so I was beyond excited that they would be the focus of the second installment of the Wayward Children series. Seanan McGuire takes us back to where they came from and where they went when they found the door out. This series has never been subtle, and Down Among the Sticks and Bones is very clear about what it wants to say about children, parents and how when you try to treat a person like a plaything, you may end up creating a monster.

After twelve years of feeling stifled and neglected by their soulless parents, Jack and Jill step through a doorway to the Moors, a Victorian Gothic world filled with vampires, werewolves, mad scientists and blood-thirsty sea creatures. Within their first three nights they are asked to decide who they will serve - the scientist who lives in the windmill and raises the dead, or the vampire in the castle. Jack, with her untapped thirst for knowledge, chooses the scientist. Jill, with her need to be adored and her more aggressive nature, chooses the vampire. The story is intentionally fairy tale like and referential of other works. The fairy worlds featured in this series are in many ways products of our world - even though they are yet to be explained in the text. They come from a need, and what Jack and Jill need is someway to be who they are, even if that means finding a home in the darkest, most dangerous world there is.

One of the things that made Jack stand out in Every Heart a Doorway was her sharp wit. For Jill it was her beautiful clothes and wicked mind. Here, Jack doesn't get to have as much flair - she's the straight man to her wayward sister, the one who is forced to be the hero. She's fleshed out, but a lot more vulnerable. In some ways, I enjoyed Jill's moral decay a little bit more, but this isn't an in-depth portrait of these twin sisters. As stated - it's a fairy tale, perhaps even a fable, thanks to its very clear moral. To be honest, I'm wishing I had stronger feelings about this story. The opening act, even up to when Jack and Jill choose their masters is the strongest part of this book, but after that I think I was just itching for all the stories and adventures that are teased at but skimmed over. I wish this book scared me more, made me laugh more, had stronger imagery. Mostly it just made me mad about shitty parents.

Overall, for what McGuire was looking to accomplish, I think Down Among the Sticks and Bones is very effective. It's spooky and dreamy and its main characters are engaging. But as someone who is used to, and of course enjoys, much denser works, I think this story deserved to be a lot beefier.

Another brilliant book in this series, I just love the way these books are written. Completely absorbing and binge worthy!

I listened to this one on audio too and it was read by the author which was brilliant as she really made you feel what she was trying to get across.

They're so good I've given in and bought the physical copies!

Narnia-esque

“Down Among the Sticks and Bones” is the second novella in a series written by Seanan McGuire. This novella is a prequel to “Every Heart a Doorway” which follows the twin sisters Jack and Jill, and how they ended up in Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. In this novella we see Jack and Jill finding their new world and home, and then it eventually shows the readers how they ended up being sent back to Earth.

I found Jack and Jill's story interesting and their world was quite dark. I thought that Jack's character was much better than Jill's as she was annoying. I really enjoyed the novella, so I gave the novella a 4/5 stars.

Pros: brilliant characters, unique narrative style

Cons:

Chester and Serena Wolcott decided to have children after seeing the impeccably behaved offspring of his work peers and her social clubs. They were not prepared for the real thing. Which is why

Jacqueline and Jillian, their twin girls, are so rigidly forced into the roles their parents intended them to fill. So when the twelve year olds discover a strange doorway, they enter it, and find a strange world, one that finally allows them to be who they choose.

While this is the second Wayward Children novella, its events are a prequel to those of Every Heart a Doorway. I REALLy liked this story. The narrative style was unique, with the narrator occasionally addressing the reader during interludes of storytelling. I greatly enjoyed this and it gave a bit of distance from the text, which was helpful as the story went in dark directions. It doesn't quite line up with the narrative of their history from Every Heart a Doorway, but most of the details carry through.

The world is really interesting, with just enough fleshing out to feel alive, but not enough to make you question how it all works in practice. I enjoyed the characters, who had a level of depth to them that was wonderful to read.

While it's short it packs a punch. Highly recommended.

This is such a great and innovative series, Ms. McGuire has taken falling down the rabbit hole to a whole other level. So much to enjoy and the series continues to get better!

I like this book. The writing is good and the story interesting.

I have read this short, beautiful, poetic book four times now, and each time it takes my breath away.

This is entirely a prequel focused solely on Jack and Jill's (from the first book) story. It's interesting to see one of the many fantasy worlds one (set) of the Wayward Children encounter in detail but I would have liked to see more than one somehow. This could even be a standalone book, though it does help explain some things in the first book.

I want 27 more books set in this dark fairy tale world

Not quite as good as EHAD, but still wonderful. It would be like comparing chocolate chocolate chip cookies (my favorite) with peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (not my favorite, but still wonderful). So, yeah. READ THESE.

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. The Moors are none of those things.

We are the children of our parents, even if who become is a result of rebelling against who they are, their choices and teachings shape us.

Jacqueline and Jillian are twin sisters who we are first to in [b:Every Heart a Doorway|25526296|Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children, #1)|Seanan McGuire|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1431438555s/25526296.jpg|45313140]. The premise of the series is that children sometimes, if things are aligned just right, find doorways to other worlds. Sometimes they find their ways home, and sometimes this is a blessing, and sometimes it's a curse because the stumbled upon place is where they truly feel they belong.

You don't have to read Every Heart a Doorway first, but if you read Down Among the Sticks and Stones, then Every Heart a Doorway will explain what happened next. Even though it was written first.

Anyhow, Jacqueline and Jillian are born to really bad parents who believe they are really good parents. Each one molds one of the daughters into what they want them to be, with no regard to who they are, and in doing so drive a wedge between the sisters.

They find a door/stairway to a place that includes an area called The Moors. If you're a fan of novels like Bram Stoker's [b:Dracula|17245|Dracula|Bram Stoker|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387151694s/17245.jpg|3165724], Mary Shelley's [b:Frankenstein|18490|Frankenstein|Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1381512375s/18490.jpg|4836639], Emily Bronte's [b:Wuthering Heights|6185|Wuthering Heights|Emily Bront??|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388212715s/6185.jpg|1565818], Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's [b:Carmilla|48037|Carmilla|J. Sheridan Le Fanu|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386923594s/48037.jpg|47015], and seen the old, really atmospheric movie adaptions of these works, you should have an idea about the mood and nature of The Moors. It's England, but it's also Carpathia. It's untamed wilderness as a metaphor for the human heart. It's young love. It's the death of youth. It's peasant fearing and being reliant on the mysterious brutal man in the castle, knowing who and what he is, but not daring to speak of it. It's the mad scientist playing God. It's sad ballads about tragic love stories. It's a bad moon on the rise. It's villagers with torches and pitchforks.

Jack and Jill, as they're eventually known, have a choice between 2 guardians/foster fathers. One is a very pale man known as The Master, with, ahem, a fondness for blood, the other is a doctor with an ability to resurrect the dead. Which they choose shapes who they become. (Again, parents shaping children.)

Someone with sharp enough eyes might see the instant where one wounded heart begins to rot while the other starts to heal. Time marches on.

Mucho mejor que el primer libro, que ya de por sí era bastante bueno. Crítica encubierta a aquellos padres que quieren hacer de sus hijos un molde de sí mismos. Quizás me habría gustado que la historia fuera un poco más lejos antes del acto final. En cualquier caso merece la pena y además se lee en dos días. 4,5.

I was worried that I would not like this as much as the first story but I did. In fact this one was even more dreamlike. So good. Why can't more novels cut the fat and be this size? Seriously, there was not a wasted word here and it ended up being lovely.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
—

Some adventures begin easily. It is not hard, after all, to be sucked up by a tornado or pushed through a particularly porous mirror; there is no skill involved in being swept away by a great wave or pulled down a rabbit hole. Some adventures require nothing more than a willing heart and the ability to trip over the cracks in the world.

Every Heart a Doorway

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.

It can be easy, in the end, to forget that children are people, and that people will do what people will do, the consequences be damned.

after

Every Heart

3.0 out of 5 stars – see this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a standalone story set prior to the events of author Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway. Twins Jacqueline (Jack) and Jillian (Jill) are raised to fit perfectly within the boxes their parents select for them – looks, clothing, and behavior are all meticulously regimented. When they climb through a portal into an unknown world, they leave the rigidity of their past behind them and seek a chance to start anew. Vampires, mad scientists, and romances abound!

McGuire employs an inviting and clean prose, through which she can clearly communicate the cruel nature of Jack and Jill's individual situations. She makes you feel that being plopped into a dangerous world is a welcome respite for what the twins were coming from.

In the novella format, it's tough to fit worldbuilding, character development, and a solid story together effectively. Here, the characterization of Jack and Jill is excellent, the worldbuilding of the Moors (the creepy portal land) is strong, but the overall story left me wanting. The sequence of plot events spans several years but skips by very quickly, never lingering long enough for each event to have the intended impact. I had similar feelings when reading Every Heart a Doorway – an enjoyable read built from a fun idea, but with a story that I never fully connected with.