Lost in the Moment and Found
The Wayward Children series, Book 8
Seanan McGuire
Tordotcom
Fiction, YA? Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Her parents called her "Antsy", both because she was too small for her given name of Antoinette and because she could never keep still. For five years, the little redheaded girl had a perfect, protected childhood with a father and a mother who both loved her very much... until the day in Target when her daddy fell down and didn't get back up. Then, several months later, her mother has a new friend, a man named Tyler. Mother thinks Antsy should be nice to Tyler, as well; he will never replace her real father, but he's a good man, Mommy insists. Only he's not a good man, and Antsy doesn't know quite why - and the night she finally knows why is the night she runs away, far away, to get lost somewhere he can never find her.
Antsy was only looking for a place to call her grandmother, to take her away from Mommy and the lying, bad Tyler. But the door she opened turned out to be a Door, a passage to somewhere else. A talking magpie and an old woman tell her she has found the Shop Where Lost Things Go, an impossibly vast place chock full of all manner of things from all manner of worlds, lost by all manner of people. Here, Antsy finds other Doors, other places to explore with her new companions and guardians. Any child would be filled with wonder at the sight, and Antsy is no exception. But she should, perhaps, have paid more attention to fairy tales when she was younger. If she had, she might have known that nothing comes without a price - and she might have understood what the Shop and the Doors were costing her much sooner...
REVIEW: This is another "origin" entry in McGuire's poetic, haunting portal fantasy series, this one with a dark enough opening that the author includes a brief warning and a reassurance that, this time, the child runs. Antsy starts as an innocent child, full of life and love and laughter - full of so much to lose, something she only learns when her father collapses and, one by one, things she'd taken for granted fail her. When Tyler turns up, she loses even more as he drives a wedge between her and her mother through subtle manipulation and lies... the first ominous sign of what he intends for the girl should she stay. Running seems to be Antsy's only choice, and by the time she has any second thoughts it's too late to turn back; the Doors have noticed and claimed her for the Shop, a nexus of innumerable worlds and of particular importance to the Doors themselves. Here, the magpie Hudson and the old woman Vineta take her in and help her learn the ways of the Shop and the Doors and the wayward items on the shelves... but there is more to this place than they let her in on, more to the travels between worlds and the Doors that appear every day. The story reads fast, as Antsy moves from fear to wonder to acceptance to fear (and anger) again once she begins to suspect the truth, and more information about the Doors that are so integral to the whole series is trickled in. In some ways, though, it feels a bit like ground McGuire previously covered in Lundy's tale, In an Absent Dream. I'm also a bit wary of the building of a larger arc behind the Doors, the worlds, and Eleanor West's school; this is the kind of development that could kick the story up to a whole new epic level, or could turn into something too weighty and convoluted that ends up bringing the thing crashing down. So far, I don't have reason to doubt McGuire, but I'm keeping a careful eye on the altimeter of my suspension of disbelief all the same. At this point, at least, the Wayward Children series remains interesting and enjoyable.
You Might Also Enjoy:
In an Absent Dream (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
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The Thickety (J. A. White) - My Review
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