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“You see, doors are many things: fissures and cracks, ways between, mysteries and borders. But more than anything else, doors are change. When things slip through them, no matter how small or brief, change trails them like porpoises following a ship’s wake.��

This is a story about the desire for unknown, the longing for change. It is a story of the dangers of complacency, blind obedience, unquestioning submission to those who proclaim they are the strong ones. This is a story of the need to take action, to rise above what has been determined for you and do what you have to do regardless of the obstacles in your path. It is a story of growing up while holding on to curiosity and adventure which do not need to give way to propriety and stuffiness. It’s a story of family and abandonment. It is a story of how it feels to be the “other��, “an in-between sort of thing.��

This is also a story about the power of words.

“If one follows the stories, one will nearly always find a doorway buried at their roots.��



“Worlds were never meant to be prisons, locked and suffocating and safe. Worlds were supposed to be great rambling houses with all the windows thrown open and the wind and summer rain rushing through them, with magic passages in their closets and secret treasure chests in their attics. […]
I was so very tired of locked doors.��

There are doors in the world �� or Doors, really �� that appear in the places where boundaries between worlds are thin and that can take you through to places that are different and strange. They allow for things unusual and new to flow between worlds, changing status quo, bringing fresh beginning with them.

But those Doors are closing now. Or rather, someone has been closing them.

In 1901, January Scaller is seven. An “oddly colored�� reddish-skinned girl, she is a ward of Cornelius Locke, a rich man, a no-nonsense member of an archaeological society and her father’s employer. January has no mother, and her father is always away on Ms. Locke’s archaeological expeditions, returning from time to time with a wealth of strange things that go straight in Mr. Locke’s vast collections. January is lonely, and resentful of her mostly absent father, and works really hard to earn approval and love from the replacement father figure, her guardian Mr. Locke who buys her things and takes her on long travels �� and in return expects her to grow into a respectable young lady with certainly no penchants for imaginary things and wanderlust.

But then, at age seven, January walks through a blue Door standing in an empty field and sees a different world - one full of smell of ocean and blue water, one that calls to her. And eventually she notes that writing some things down when she really believes them makes them happen. But that is certainly nonsense, and no proper young ladies should be given to such flights of fancy.

“There was no room, it turned out, for little girls who wandered off the edge of the map and told the truth about the mad, impossible things they found there.��

Then, at the age of seventeen, January runs afoul of those in power who view her either as a nuisance or an irritation to be swatted away. Those who look at her and see a weak colored girl of no consequence �� unless she has something that they want. And January, sheltered and naive, raised to be quiet and pliable and proper, has a rude and abrupt awakening.

“The truth is that the powerful come for the weak, whenever and wherever they like. Always have, always will.��

This book made me quite angry at times �� angry at blatant power imbalances, at the injustice, at imperialism and prejudice - and at January herself �� at her questionable choices and desperate desire to cling to normalcy, as abnormal as that normalcy can be. (view spoiler)[Although it does turn out that there was a reason for her infuriating indecisiveness and desire to obey and please �� for those obsessed with opening Doors, a Locke is a terrible idea. (hide spoiler)] And anger is often what fuels change. And change, while not always good or bad, is what fuels and sustains life, even if it is inconvenient to the ones happy with status quo.

“The will to be polite, to maintain civility and normalcy, is fearfully strong. I wonder sometimes how much evil is permitted to run unchecked simply because it would be rude to interrupt it.��

It is a well-written book, full of wondrous and magical things and told in a crisp well-crafted prose, with excellent plot and well-crafted characters, and enough worldbuilding to sustain sequels (although in this world of never-ending series I’m very happy with stand-alone novels). Its magical yet grounded, charming yet tough. It allows for a bit of moral ambiguity in the characters, with no one (view spoiler)[except for Samuel, probably the weakest of the “good guys�� (hide spoiler)] coming out of this smelling like roses. For a debut especially, it’s very strong; it reads as though written by a seasoned author, which bodes quite well for Harrow’s future works. Those Hugo and Nebula nominations are well-earned.

“I hope you will find the cracks in the world and wedge them wider, so the light of other suns shines through; I hope you will keep the world unruly, messy, full of strange magics; I hope you will run through every open Door and tell stories when you return.��

4.5 stars keys to all the locked Doors.
—�Ĕ�Ĕ�Ĕ�Ĕ�Ĕ���

My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: /review/show...