“That's why people shouldn't get too hung up on labels. Sometimes I think that's part of what we do wrong. We try to make things make sense, even when they're never going to.”

Beneath the Sugar Sky advances on the story of McGuire’s other two short novels in the Wayward Children series. This one brings a combination of old and new characters on a quest through many of their own worlds, giving readers a glance into the myriad of magics and societies that these children have visited.

It’s been a while since I’ve read this short novel now, but the lyrical worlds and vibrant characters are still ones I remember vividly in my mind. While the other novels in this series have so far stayed fairly “stationary” considering the adventure aspect of them, Beneath the Sugar Sky takes readers on tour of the variety of worlds available in the Wayward Children series, many worlds we’ve seen described by children/teens who have visited them.

The plot of this book is fairly interesting, like all the rest, but once again didn’t feel like that was the true focus. It was still fantastic and fun to follow but was overshadowed by the luscious writing, intriguing characters, and endless worlds once again.

The writing was flawless and lyrical, as I’ve come to expect from this series. It manages to truly speak on life while hiding it under the guise of silliness and wonder, weaving an intricate sort of tale. It ends up making this book extremely ‘quotable’, in a sense, while also making it enchanting to read. Beneath the Sugar Sky is all you’re thinking about while you’re reading it, and a lot of that is thanks to the immersive world Mcguire is able to create through her writing.

In terms of learning more about the setting/worlds that exist, this book seemed to push the bounds of the other two. The bouncing from world to world lets readers truly see the strong and strange differences between all these lands and our own. Additionally, it also works to add on to the basis of the other two by revealing more of how these worlds work, the spaces between these worlds, and how to jump between them.

The main character was one new to us, Rini. She’s from a world of water and mermaids and feels like an outcast in a world where she can no longer move so gracefully and is once again judged for her weight. While I liked her, I didn’t seem to like her quite as much as our other narrators so far, who I felt more mature and less whiny in similar situations. However, this didn’t impact my reading too much, as Rini wasn’t the only focus of the novel. We see a lot of old favorites, most from Every Heart A Doorway, and the story itself links closely to the plot of the first novel.

Overall, I quite loved this next installment in the Wayward Children series and the journey it took me on this time around. I’ll definitely be reading the next one soon!

Reread review: I think I liked this one even more on the reread too. Surprisingly I had actually forgotten a lot of the details of this one, so it made the reread even more worthwhile! Overall I like the switch back to a larger cast, and I loved seeing all the different worlds we jumped through. Confection was especially cool to see, especially alongside the discovery of reason existing alongside nonsense. It made the story both interesting on a singular level as well as intriguing for the series world as a whole! I can't wait to read book 4 and get some new content again though, there's just something extra special when the story is brand new.