Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children, #2)

by Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire returns to her popular Wayward Children series with Down Among the Sticks and Bones - a truly standalone story suitable for adult and young adult readers of urban fantasy. Down Among the Sticks and Bones book chronicles the lives of two of Every Heart a Doorway's favourite characters before they wind up in the Eleanor West Home for Wayward Children - a place where children who have experienced fantasy adventures can be reintroduced to the 'real' world. In Down Among the Sticks and Bones, twin girls Jack and Jill find themselves thrust into a world of monsters and mad scientists, and something they thought they'd never experience: choice.

• ISBN10: 0765392046
• ISBN13: 9780765392046
• Publish Date: 13 June 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Tor.com
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

I think this story is a lot stronger than the first book and the story itself is so interesting, but I still had to give this book three stars because it somehow couldn't grip me. I enjoyed it, but I wasn't sold on the story and it was over so soon, while it felt as if it was just beginning.

[wyvernfriend]

Damn that was good This series has been a blast to read.  This is the story of the twins from the first book and could be read before or after the first.  They do stand alone but this explains some of what happens in Every Heart a Doorway.
 
Twins are brought up with rigid stereotypes and then they find a doorway to another world and discover that choices can be complicated.
 
I recommend this series.
 
Borrowed from Irish Public libraries

[leahrosereads]

I've read where this is a lot of people's favorite of the 3 books currently, and I can understand why. Even if I don't necessarily feel the same way. For me, this setting was everything! It was eerie and dark and just what you expect from every horror movie ever.

I loved the characters and their relationships with each other, but I struggle with missing certain characters in the first book of series.

And since not all of the characters I fell in love with were here, I just couldn't quite put this ahead of Book #1.

[inlibrisveritas]

Such a fun series 3 I'm so glad there are more of these to dive into! Full review to come!

[empressbrooke]

I originally gave Every Heart a Doorway 4 stars, but reading its follow-up makes me bump that down to 3. I really loved the ideas in EHaD - we're all familiar with the portal stories and the fantastic worlds children find themselves in. I was thrilled by the novelty of someone exploring what happens when they return to the real world. I found myself hovering between a 3 and a 4 star rating and ultimately rounded up to 4.

But Down Among the Sticks and Bones is far and away the better book, even though it focused on the more typical through-the-looking-glass story I was excited to get away from. It's far more focused and spends almost all of its time developing the characters, rather than using a thinly developed cast to present a busy murder mystery in a setting that deserved more attention.

[Quirky Cat]

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is most surprisingly, a prequel to Every Heart A Doorway. It includes two characters that were well established in the first; Jack and Jill. This novel is the story of how they became Wayward Children, and how they ended up back on earth (for lack of a better description) again. I wasn’t expecting this for the second novel, after all we had been given a lot of hints about their past already. That being said I’m very happy that Seanan McGuire wrote this story. It’s always fun to see how characters ended up developing and reaching certain points.



So Down Among the Sticks and Bones, like I said above, happens before the events in Every Heart a Doorway. That means that there will be some spoilers for the first novel, if you’re reading them out of order. Not really a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, but still something to consider.
Those of us that have read the first novel in Seanan McGuire’s series already know the fate of Jack and Jill. We already know how much Jack has gone through, and we’re forced to learn just how messed up Jill’s perspective on life has become. But that doesn’t change the fact that we never really saw what made them that way. This story explains everything, from their lives before finding the door to their experience in the Moors.
It’s worth noting that while they’re twins their lives have been exceptionally different from one another. It’s one of the many reasons they have the difficulties they do. While the Moors part of the novel was interesting and intentionally horrific (and I mean that in the horror novel sense), their life before that time in many ways, for me, was worse.
Seanan McGuire did almost too good of a job showing the more subtle forms of abuse. It’s easy to spot the obvious forms of it, but the subtle ones? Those frequently go unnoticed, ignored, and frequently even downplayed. Here we have two parents who are literally incapable of acknowledging their children as human beings, and their behavior towards these little girls truly did make my skin crawl.
The Moors was fascinating to read about. How it had all these different partitions of the world, and each area represented a popular horror or fantasy creature. It’s a fun concept, and the idea of some of those children making it back home explains how the ordinary people like us would be fascinated by these creatures.
Interestingly I found myself being particularly fond of Dr. Bleak. Yes, he is the mad scientist many have read about, but he’s so different than one would expect. Nothing he does is motivated by cruelty, something that cannot be said by his counterpart. Instead he’s the unwilling hero, and he knows it. I found myself fascinated by his level of self-awareness. I could easily see why somebody like Jack would look up to him.
There were many parts of this story that really struck a chord to me. I feel like many others would agree. After I finished I found myself just sitting there mulling over everything I had read and wishing there was more.
I will say that on the whole I think I enjoyed Every Heart a Doorway more for its plot, but Down Among the Sticks and Stones had the better example of character development. Both have been exceptionally strong in world building, which as you know is always my favorite part in a series like this. It’ll be interesting to see what new strength Beneath the Sugar Sky will bring to the forefront.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[alindstadtcorbeax]

4.5 stars. All I have to says out the loss of .5 stars is... I am so tired of the Dracula/ Dr. Frankenstein based stories, movies, tv shows, etc.

Otherwise I absolutely loved it. Overall great read :-)

[kimbacaffeinate]

Imagine my surprise when the story was narrated by the author. Now, this can be a good or downright terrible. I am delighted to say it was magical.

In the first book, Every Heart A Doorway, we met twin girls named Jack and Jill at the school for Wayward Children. In Down Among the Sticks and Bones, we learned what happened before they arrived. The story begins when we meet an ambitious, selfish couple living in their tidy home where appearance is everything. When the husband sees other men in his company advancing because they have children he and the wife decide to have a baby. She wants a girl to dress in frills, and he wants a son to play sports. The two have twin girls Jacklyn "Jack" who he teaches to love sports and Jillian whom she dresses in frills. Neither twin is happy, and on a rainy day at the age of twelve the two open an old chest and discover a staircase to another world.

McGuire sucked me into this dark world as the twins faced decisions, changed, learned and encountered the strange residents of this dark world. The worldbuilding is outstanding and showcased all that I love about this author. Her imagination, imagery, and ability to pull the reader knows no boundaries. From the moment the girls enter this world each choice they made determined their fate. The girls frustrated by the molds created for them quickly cast them aside.

Secondary characters from the Master to the Professor completely enthralled me. I found myself wanting to scream as Jack made her choices and admired Jillian's determination.

While entertaining,  the story delivers a clear message and it's one I am fond of. My only regret is that the story wasn't longer. The ending wasn't a cliffhanger as we know what happens to the girls from book one, but it did feel a bit abrupt keeping it from a five-star rating. This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer

[Bianca]

Children are not formless clay, to be shaped according to the sculptor’s whim, nor are they blank but identical dolls, waiting to be slipped into the mode that suits them best. Give ten children a toy box, and watch them select ten different toys, regardless of gender or religion or parental expectations. Children have preferences.

— Another eerie but beautifully written book about parental/societal expectations and how there is no one way to be a girl (or to be a person in general). It’s so good.

[Stephanie]

I love these weird little books, I love them so much. You probably don't really need to read the first one to read this one, but they're are short enough that you should read them both because they're great.