Where the Drowned Girls Go

Ever since the Moors, Cora has felt the Drowned Gods pull. Each night they whisper to her, calling her back. Water which once brought Cora comfort now fills her with dread, fearful the Drowned Gods will pull her back. Desperate to escape, Cora, begs to be sent to Whitethorn. And while she knows the school is different, she could never have guessed how different. From the strict rules to the no-nonsense matrons, Cora’s stay will be anything but pleasant.

There have been quite a few hushed whispers of an alternative school within the course of the Wayward Children series. Being able to experience Whitethorn firsthand through Cora’s eyes was startling. Instead of acceptance and friendship, they foster denial and subjugation. There is no talking of doors or whimsical worlds. Children are to focus on the here and now, on their future in the real world. Seanan McGuire effortlessly paints the picture of a new school without needing any overarching descriptions, or long detailed backstories. The character’s themselves bring it to life with peer interactions and overall body language.

Readers will be enthralled as they witness Cora’s past and present unfold. Being able to read about Cora’s history, and the bullying she endured for being different hit home. And knowing exactly what the Drowned Gods were taking away from her will make readers stand by Cora’s side as she does her best to piece together her future. It’s never easy being different. As much as Cora wants to believe in her door, the invasion of the Drowned Gods has worn her down day after day. Mentally exhausted, she makes a desperate move to Whitethorn. But forgetting is never easy.

Where the Drowned Girls Go is another thrilling addition to the Wayward Children series. Each new book takes readers on a dark and emotionally packed adventure. While I never know where the next door will take me, I know it will be an entertaining journey.

3.5 stars

I was so worried about these characters! I didn't know what was going to happen. Also I just love Sumi! This series and the connections between books are so much better than I expected them to be.

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.  

231123 Where the Drowned Girls Go (Wayward Children Book 7) by Seanan McGuire


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We probably don't appreciate how hard it is to grow up until we are old.

Growing up involves dealing with new people, people who don't automatically put our interests first, people we have to compete with for attention and position. We have to learn new rules that may seem arbitrary, rules that are frequently not evenly enforced. Our competition exploit marginal advantages on their side – their prettiness or height – or make us suffer about marginal disadvantages – our plainness or weight. Because we have no sense of proportion, we absolutize everything.

Growing up is Hell.

Seanan McGuire's “Wayward Children” Series is about the trauma of growing up. In McGuire's telling, the traumas of growing up are transformed by the appearance of doors that take unhappy children – mostly girls – to fantastic worlds where they can be mermaid, heroes, vampires, princesses, or strange things, whatever it is that they think they need to get away from their trauma.

Why mostly girls? If you read McGuire's backstory for her characters, it seems that there are a lot of mean girl tormentors and innumerable ways that girls can be tormented by expectations imposed on them by family or society.

Cora Miller was a fat girl. She excelled at swimming. So, naturally, when she found a Door, it took her to a world where she could be a mermaid. She had adventures and became a hero. And then she was expelled by a door that turned her back into a fat girl with aquamarine hair.

The central conceit of McGuire's book is that the “wayward children” are often expelled from their fantasy worlds and then spend the rest of their lives looking for a way back, a way back that will probably never appear.

Some people can't adjust and they go to mourn and mope in a school for wayward children. Others want to forget and they go to the Whitethorn Academy where they can be taught to forget the world they have lived in.

Cora wants to forget. In a prior volume – which I haven't read – it appears that after she came back from the mermaid world – the “Trenches” – she went to a world of Drowned Gods. After returning from that horrible world, she is haunted by the Drowned Gods, who want her back.

She therefore decides to go to the Whitethorn Academy to find safety from the Drowned Gods' whisper in her head.

This book is about the Whitethorn Academy. It is not a happy place.

This book is about how Cora and her friend Sumi, who is a character from earlier books, plot to escape.

This book is about novella in length. It is an easy-reading novel for Young Adults, mostly girls, I suppose. I am neither but I enjoyed it, mostly for the descriptions of fantastic worlds. The characters are generally sympathetic, the prose is clean, and the plot moves along.

The introduction of another alternative school for wayward children, more sinister... Sometimes more permanent.

4.5*

I liked this one better than the last few, though I'm not sure I quite understood what all was happening at the other school (I'll blame the cold medicine for that). Still, this hasn't reached quite the heights of the first four...and dang it, I just want more Kade!! 3.5 nameless matrons out of 5.

One of the weaker ones. There's veeeeery little plot, but at least Cora was a bit more likeable than usual. Here's hoping the next instalment will be another hit.

Cora the mermaid is near and dear to my heart since her first appearance in this series, and I was happy to get a book where she is the main character this time (although Sumi also makes an appearance later). She's been haunted since her last quest, and hopes a drastic change will help her get over that, but changing schools turns out to be more than she bargained for.

This was very intense at times, but fantastic like all the books in the series. There's hardly any book I look forward to more than the next one, but I'll take a short story in the meantime, so hello, Skeleton Song.

Again this book had the main character of Cora, who made everything about her fatness which I got tired of really fast. She has been in like 3 books so far and you would think she'd have some character development along the way but apparently not because it's all been stuffed in this books. 

The girl with no name and some of the other characters were nice. I liked the fact that Regan joined the gang in this one. Again though not much more info on Kade and also the whole mystery doesn't get resolved at all. This really is just an opening to the next book. I would have rather then had one bigger one where some stuff actually got resolved

Utterly beautiful, disturbing, thought provoking and wonderful. While the story itself is captivating, that's not the point, there is a much deeper message about acceptance, both of difference and of yourself that truly spoke to me. You can be your own door.This book continues the core story of the Wayward Children, carrying on where [b:Come Tumbling Down 44804083 Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children, #5) Seanan McGuire https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556543251l/44804083.SY75.jpg 60132774] left off. It would be very helpful to have [b:Across the Green Grass Fields 53205924 Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children, #6) Seanan McGuire https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1589982332l/53205924.SY75.jpg 75843947] fresh in your mind when starting this book.This series always leaves me struggling to review it - each book touches me so deeply and is so meaningful that I find it hard to put my thoughts into words.

4 stars

An Exciting continuance of the wayward children books. I'm excited to see more interactions between the 2 schools

I can't wait for next year

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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And everyone knew that things from the other side of the door could absolutely leak through into this reality. Her hair had been brown, not aquamarine, before she found her fins. Christopher would die without his flute—literally die. Seraphina was the kind of beautiful that stopped hearts, and everyone who'd seen pictures of her from before her travels said that she hadn't always been like that. She'd been attractive, not impossible. The doors made changes. The doors stayed with you.

WHERE THE DROWNED GIRLS GO

afraid

“You've always said that there was a second school.”

Eleanor pulled her hands away. “The Whitethorn Institute. Cora, you can't intend—”

“You said they steal your students sometimes. That when you're not fast enough, or when the children are having a harder time adapting to life in this reality, that sometimes Whitethorn gets there first.” She sat up straight, giving Eleanor a challenging look. “You said it was where students go when they want to believe that everything that happened on the other side of the door was just a dream, or a delusion, and not a real thing at all.”

WHERE THE DROWNED GIRLS GO

There is a lot of magic in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series and her newest addition, Where the Drowned Girls Go. Magic in the characters' hearts and magic in the worlds and doors she has built. And that magic comes through in every lyrical word spoken by the characters. It is an impressive feat to be this far into a series, book 7 to be exact, and still be impressed by the story. But I very much am.

While novels have a long time to tell a story, it has a chance to zig-zag, twist, and curl around, coming to a climax that is 400 or 500 pages in the making; novellas aren't like that. They do not have the luxury and word count to dance around. They need to be tight where every word is a choice, and every character's action is exacting. This tightness is why this particular series is so powerful. McGuire tells a lot, builds whole worlds behind hidden doors with a short page and word count.

The seventh book of the series, Where the Drowned Girls Go, builds a world, but it isn't behind a door but at a new facility. Instead, McGuire creates The Whitethorn Institute, A school that is the antithesis of Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. There are old characters that readers of the series have gotten quite fond of and new ones to meet and get to know.

Cora, a girl who has gone through a door and returned, is desperate for change. She is desperate to move on. However, The Drowned Gods of the Moors have her number and torment her nightly, begging her to give herself over to them—something she will not do. Cora decides that the only way to get away from them is a drastic change. She leaves Home For Wayward Children to The Whitethorn Institute.

Mcguire was able to describe The Whitethorn Institute in very few words. For me, it resembled a “therapeutic” Boarding school for Problem Children that use questionable methods. Cora decides that she needs to go there and forget because The Whitethorn Institute teaches you to forget.

It is not what she imagined it to be. The school is much, much worse.

This story has many themes, very much like the other books in the series that adolescents and adults face in their lives. Where the Drowned Girls Go deals with self-image, weight, and bullying. And much like the other books, McGuire does not bash the reader of the head with the themes. Instead, she weaves them into the story, so they make up the story's fabric. I left Where the Drowned Girls Go, remembering my issues with bullying as a child and an appreciation for Cora as a character.

In conclusion, check out Where the Drowned Girls Go but only if you have read the entire series. Reading the first six books gives you a full appreciation for the worlds McGuire has created and a heightened enjoyment of Where the Drowned Girls Go. There is true beauty in McGuires writing, and the Wayward Children Series can take you out of this world and through the doors into new ones.

Pros: thought provoking, plus sized protagonist, interesting story

Cons:

Cora Miller is still having nightmares months after returning from the Moors and no longer believes Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children can help her. So she transfers to the other school for children who have found doors to other worlds, Whitethorn. Upon arrival she realizes she's made a terrible mistake. But while it's easy to enter Whitethorn, it's very hard to leave.

This is the 7th novella in the Wayward Children series and relies on knowledge of the prior books to really work. You find out what happened to Regan after the events of Across the Green Grass Fields as Cora deals with the trauma of visiting the Moors in Come Tumbling Down.

Cora is a fantastic character and though it's not her origin story (so no mermaid adventures in the Trenches) it was wonderful watching her grow and realize that she doesn't need to be in a portal world to be a hero. And that sometimes you just have to deal with your problems head on.

I found the book thought provoking as it pointed out some of the daily horrors humans inflict on each other, especially towards those with larger bodies.

The story is engaging and the perfect length.

I love the Wayward Children series and have been reading them all as they come out, but I was also like UH OH when I realized I was supposed to remember things that had happened in previous books here. But like, I got it, and once I was into it I really loved the way the world opened up here. Cora is such a relatable fat protagonist and I love her journey!!