Just before starting this book, I had finished watching the series, Anne with an E, and I was craving some more magic. I wanted a story with curiosity and genuine love of the world, and The Ten Thousand Doors of January absolutely delivered. The writing was delightful and full of whimsy while still giving due respect to sobering plot points and social commentary. The plot lent itself to some predictability and felt a bit slow at times, but it was completely unlike anything I have read recently and was truly entertaining.
The travel from world to world is great fun, but I almost wish it was fleshed out a bit more. There were brief descriptions of the different worlds and what that would mean for the kind of people who live there, but any world that was gone into in detail didn’t seem too far from our own. Some social constructs and cultures were different which was great, but I think not exploring how the differences would manifest physically was a missed opportunity. Though, the whole concept provided me with one of my favorite quotes from the book, “If you are wondering why other worlds seem so brimful of magic compared to your own dreary Earth, consider how magical this world seems from another perspective. To a world of sea people, your ability to breathe air is stunning; to a world a spear throwers, your machines are demons harnessed to work tirelessly in your service; to a world of glaciers and clouds, summer itself is a miracle.” Ugh! I love it.
The book really faces the issues of race head on. The first half of the book deals with a young mixed race girl living with a rich white man (her father’s employer) as his ward. She is looked at like some unfathomable piece of art while then being berated with racial slurs. Her temporary guardian also spends the entirety of her adolescence trying (and for a while partially succeeding) to assimilate her. The latter half of the book follows her, a Black woman, and an Italian young man on the run. The issues they face due to race are not shied away from in the slightest.
Two timelines/stories has been happening in a lot of books I read lately, so I’ve been getting a little worn out, but this one went about it in a really cool way. I loved that we (the reader) were reading the book along with January. Though I will admit, before the big reveal I did find myself constantly wishing to get back to January’s story, but once I knew the connection between the two, I was much more invested.
To read or not to read:
To read!
Content:
Travel between worlds, two timelines, period piece, fantasy, the dog doesn’t die (but you think he does for a bit), light romance, racial slurs, mixed race main character, assimilation, forced admittance/imprisonment into an insane asylum