Free Range Reading
Slightly less satisfying for me than the previous books in this series. I do love portal fantasy and McGuire is very up front, letting her characters know that there are portals (known as Doors) and the basics of the workings of these openings in reality. I love the idea that children can escape difficult home circumstances and find an alternate reality where they are appreciated and valued. But sometimes things still don't work out and these fugitives end up back on Earth, learning to fit back into their old lives at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children. Eleanor had her own experiences and provides understanding and safety.
This volume was basically more of the same stuff that McGuire has been dishing up for nine books now. So why was I less impressed? Well, for one, look at that cover, at that lovely sauropod framed by one of those notorious Doors. I felt like I had been promised a heaping helping of dinosaurs and I got only one chapter. And may I add that there was not one sauropod on offer.
Also, McGuire has not hidden her messages about the abuse of children, whether by neglect or active. However, this book felt particularly preachy to me. There was quite a lot of fulminating on the theme that you are not justified in perpetrating abuse because you experienced it. Which I completely agree with. I just felt like I was beaten over the head with this super-obvious moral to the story.
Will I continue reading this series? Very probably. I'm still very much a Seanan McGuire fan girl. She is an amazingly prolific and entertaining writer.
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