Down Among the Sticks and Bones 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.
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.
Reading updates
-
Started reading
-
Finished reading
-
2 August, 2018:
Reviewed