Wrong Train, Right Time (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wrongtrainrighttime) wrote2018-01-20 05:02 pm
wrongtrainrighttime) wrote2018-01-20 05:02 pm
Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children #3) by Seanan McGuire
McGuire, Seanan. Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children #3). Tor.com, 2017. eBook.
I am beginning to think that I am not the audience for the Wayward Children series.
The premise of the series if fascinating. It follows what the lives of a motley crew of protagonists of portal fantasies...after they've been sent back to Earth. Each character is a child who was whisked away to a fantastic world, one where they were loved and cherished and found a place where they could always and forever be themselves. Then they were tossed back to Earth, for reasons ranging from ill luck to wholesale rejection. The first, Every Heart a Doorway, focuses on a series of terrible murders taking place in a boarding school that caters to these children, providing somewhere to while away the days as they wait, hope, for the day a door back to their world will open for them once more. The second, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, is a peek into the backstory of a pair of characters from the first novella. The third, Beneath the Sugar Sky, sees old and new characters from the first novella set out on a quest to restore a lost friend to life.
The idea of a boarding school for portal children waiting to go home to their worlds is a fascinating one and that's what drew me in to the first novella. Certainly it's an idea that's resonated strongly with many of the readers I've observed. But, whatever alchemy is happening between McGuire's words and the readers who love this series, it's not happening for me. I enjoyed Every Heart a Doorway, but I bounced off Down Among the Sticks and Bones within the first few pages. I finished Beneath the Sugar Sky, but it seems to have gone in one ear and out the other.. It's sat on my to-review list for a couple weeks now and I can neither work up the energy to reread it, nor a single solitary thing to say about it.
I can't pinpoint a particular reason why this is the case, so I think it's just me. The series and I, we just don't click. I don't think I'm going to pick up the next one.
I am beginning to think that I am not the audience for the Wayward Children series.
The premise of the series if fascinating. It follows what the lives of a motley crew of protagonists of portal fantasies...after they've been sent back to Earth. Each character is a child who was whisked away to a fantastic world, one where they were loved and cherished and found a place where they could always and forever be themselves. Then they were tossed back to Earth, for reasons ranging from ill luck to wholesale rejection. The first, Every Heart a Doorway, focuses on a series of terrible murders taking place in a boarding school that caters to these children, providing somewhere to while away the days as they wait, hope, for the day a door back to their world will open for them once more. The second, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, is a peek into the backstory of a pair of characters from the first novella. The third, Beneath the Sugar Sky, sees old and new characters from the first novella set out on a quest to restore a lost friend to life.
The idea of a boarding school for portal children waiting to go home to their worlds is a fascinating one and that's what drew me in to the first novella. Certainly it's an idea that's resonated strongly with many of the readers I've observed. But, whatever alchemy is happening between McGuire's words and the readers who love this series, it's not happening for me. I enjoyed Every Heart a Doorway, but I bounced off Down Among the Sticks and Bones within the first few pages. I finished Beneath the Sugar Sky, but it seems to have gone in one ear and out the other.. It's sat on my to-review list for a couple weeks now and I can neither work up the energy to reread it, nor a single solitary thing to say about it.
I can't pinpoint a particular reason why this is the case, so I think it's just me. The series and I, we just don't click. I don't think I'm going to pick up the next one.