“You’re nobody’s doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.”

Every Heart A Doorway is a story about lost children, the ones who find magic doorways and have thrilling adventures in magical worlds that start to feel like home. Every Heart A Doorway reveals what happens when those children finally come “home,” back to the mundane and boring world, and the school parents ship them to to “get better” and forget their impossible adventures.

I was drawn to this book, and series, by the surprised reviews of my friends. Almost all of them had commented on how much this book seemed to contain in its less than 200 pages, and how surprised they were to love such a short book so fully. Naturally, I had to read this book for myself, and even knowing my friends’ love for the series, the book still managed to surprise me in its greatness.

Everything about Every Heart A Doorway was fantastic, and it had none of the usual drawbacks that a short book comes with. It didn’t feel rushed, cut short, or undeveloped, and those 170 pages were still enough to get me fully hooked on the characters, world, and plot (though the plot is definitely not the greatest part of the novel).

For a short novel, Doorway did have quite a few important characters. Generally, this would cause each character to feel quite shallow, and remove depth from the overall novel, but the combination of fantastic prose and intriguing backstories for all the characters managed to create them as fully dimensional characters quickly. Additionally, since all these characters had such varied life experiences (as they all went to very different worlds), it meant that each new character felt entirely unique, rather than cookie cutter characters. Lastly, Doorway has a fantastic amount of sexual and gender diversity, and depicts it in a rather refreshing way. The novel itself isn’t about this diversity, so the focus isn’t on coming to terms with your identity or anything, but the book still gives enough space to the diverse characters and their identities that it still sends a positive message.

My favorite thing, however, had to be the world building itself, and the endless descriptions of the doorways and different worlds these children fell into and out of. While it’s a semi confusing system to understand at first, Nancy’s confusion lines up with the confusion of the reader fairly well, showing that not even the characters themselves fully understand how everything works. It also leads to Nancy asking the exact questions the reader has, and our knowledge growing along with her own. But not only is the building and explanation of the world fantastic, but the world itself is as well. There’s something so extremely fascinating about all the separate worlds and how they intersect, and how this is used in more of a “fantasy” way than a “sci-fi” one.

Lastly, the writing itself was also remarkable, and was probably my second favorite thing about the book. It positioned the world and the characters so well, and often made the reader stop and think about certain scenes, looking for the hidden meaning. It was a mix of “thoughtful” and “fairytale” prose, in my opinion, and the blend of the two made something truly amazing.

All in all, I absolutely loved Every Heart A Doorway, and cannot wait to continue the series. I highly recommend this book to almost everyone, as I’m sure there’s something in it for everyone to love.

Reread Edit: Rereading this has only cemented what an amazing series starter this is. There's seriously so much to explain and lay out to the reader in this first book, and McGuire manages to do it in 200 pages while still having an interesting plot and developing the characters. Additionally, rereading this after having read some others shows how much more zoomed out this book is character wise, which makes my connection to Nancy even more amazing. Honestly, I love this series so much and I love rereading them now, and can't wait to get to some new content! There's also just so many amazing quotes.

Admittedly I wasn't as much as a fan at first because of listening to the audiobook at first, and I didn't find the narrator that engaging, but she ended up growing on me anyways. I liked the accents she did for some of the characters!