I cheered when Jack was able to be herself and be valued for more than how she looked and even though things work out a little differently for Jill, she was still able to do many of the things that were once barred to her. It isn’t hard to fall into the story, to become invested in the characters. Seanan McGuire once again impresses with her storytelling ability. The Moors is not a bright, happy place and the two girls grow up to be reflections of their mentors.

When Jack and Jill stumble into the Moors, they are given a chance to be who they’ve chosen to be for the first time. But this says more about their upbringing than either child as their parents had quickly made up their mind about who their children were before letting them discover it for themselves. Jill was the tomboy, always running around wild, while Jack was always too afraid of getting dirty. The contrast between these to characters is so stark, but in Down Among the Sticks and Bones, we discover that these two girls used to live very different lives. Jack was instantly one of my favorite characters and after the ending of the first book, I was happy that this next book in the series covers what happened to Jack and her twin Jill when they found their magical door. Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway introduces readers to what happens to children after they step back into the real world after spending time on the other side of magical portals. If they didn’t find a way out, they were going to become paper dolls, flat and faceless and ready to be dresses however their parents wanted them to be.” “It was an uncomfortable thing, feeling like their parents weren’t doing what was best for them like this house, this vast, perfectly organized house, with its clean, artfully decorated rooms, was pressing the life out of them one inch at a time. They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.” They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you’ve got.

Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter-adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline. Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter-polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. This is the story of what happened first… “Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.

Not even bones book 4