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leighsnerdlife 's review for:
Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All
by Laura Ruby
Thank you HarperCollins Canada for a copy of this book!
The title of this book may be a bit long and unwieldy, but the story itself is absolute perfection.
The plot is centred around two teens: Pearl, the spirit of a girl who died during the WWI era, and Frankie, who was left in an orphanage with her siblings during WWII (while her father went off with his new wife’s family). Pearl narrates, jumping between Frankie’s life and her own interactions with other spirits - all while trying to sort out her own past.
The narrative style is unlike anything I’ve read before; when Pearl follows Frankie and pokes her way around her thoughts, it reads like a normal story written in 3rd person. But when Pearl is on her own or with other spirits, her storytelling loses cohesion. Quotation marks disappear and speech starts to blur into the rest of the text; the occasional comma does the same, which makes her words read more like a stream of consciousness. She is out of step with the rest of the world, insubstantial in action and thought. It’s brilliant.
The end includes some unexpected and emotional revelations, touching on Frankie trying to make her way in a male-dominated world, and Pearl facing the circumstances of her death and the people she left behind. The sadness, anger, resignation and hope laid out on the page left me struggling to detach from the story once I had finished. It will definitely stick with you.
The title of this book may be a bit long and unwieldy, but the story itself is absolute perfection.
The plot is centred around two teens: Pearl, the spirit of a girl who died during the WWI era, and Frankie, who was left in an orphanage with her siblings during WWII (while her father went off with his new wife’s family). Pearl narrates, jumping between Frankie’s life and her own interactions with other spirits - all while trying to sort out her own past.
The narrative style is unlike anything I’ve read before; when Pearl follows Frankie and pokes her way around her thoughts, it reads like a normal story written in 3rd person. But when Pearl is on her own or with other spirits, her storytelling loses cohesion. Quotation marks disappear and speech starts to blur into the rest of the text; the occasional comma does the same, which makes her words read more like a stream of consciousness. She is out of step with the rest of the world, insubstantial in action and thought. It’s brilliant.
The end includes some unexpected and emotional revelations, touching on Frankie trying to make her way in a male-dominated world, and Pearl facing the circumstances of her death and the people she left behind. The sadness, anger, resignation and hope laid out on the page left me struggling to detach from the story once I had finished. It will definitely stick with you.