the ten thousand doors of january by alix harrow

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alex E. Harrow
371 pages

What’s it about?
 January Scaller is often left alone at Locke House while her father journeys the world looking for treasures.  Mr. Locke (her father's employer) treats January kindly, but she finds herself restless and she misses her father.   She longs for a more adventurous life.  January is expected to "behave" and she finds her escape in books.  When a special book appears that tells the story of secret doors and hidden worlds, she wants to know more.
  
What did it make me think about?
This is a story about words- more succinctly it is a story about the power of words.  The stories we read are doors into other worlds, often worlds we are unfamiliar with.  "Words and their meanings have weight in the world of matter, shaping and reshaping realities through a most ancient alchemy."

Should I read it?
 Even though I found this book really inconsistent- there is still so much to like about it.  It is a fantasy story written for readers.  The book kept me engrossed at times, and uninterested at other times.  All in all, there is way more to like than dislike in this book. I think this story would lend itself to a good discussion.

Quote-
"Doors, he told her, are change, and change is a dangerous necessity.  Doors are revolutions and upheavals, uncertainties and mysteries, axis points around which entire worlds can be turned. They are the beginnings and endings of every true story, the passages between that lead to adventures and madness and -here he smiled- even love.  Without doors the worlds would grow stagnant, calcified, story less."

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Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeymii
Circe by Madeline Miller
The Buried Giant by Kazoo Ishiguro

7  stars