Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children #2) by Seanan McGuire

Every Heart a Doorway

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the second novel in the YA fantasy series centered on Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. In the first book, we mostly followed Nancy as she made herself at home at the school, but we met Jack and Jill, two twin girls who help Nancy in her journey. Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the story of how those two girls ended up at Eleanor West's. 

I wish I could describe the tone of these novels. It's a sort of mounting dread. There's nothing creepy about opening a trunk full of old clothes until it's happening in a Seanan McGuire novel. There's nothing creepy about walking hand in hand with your best girl unless you're reading a book in the Wayward Children series and you know that nothing good will happen to that best girl.  

I didn't know I wanted to know Jack and Jill's backstories until they were given to me. And now I want to know more. But somehow I know that I really need less because, like the first book in the series, this book is unbearably and utterly sad. 

What makes this book so good, though, is that, despite the fact that this is a crazy fantasy story with multiple worlds, it's so real. The benign neglect of the parents who never really thought about raising children past the image of photos on a desk, the resentful relationship of the sisters, and the creepiness of their guardians - it all could be real. Sure, there's some handwaving about multiple worlds and doors between them, but the things that make stories stick with you, those intangible things that make fictional characters believable, those things are impeccable. 

4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

At night, they lay in their narrow, side-by-side beds and hated each other with the hot passion that could only exist between siblings, each of them wanting what they other had. (page 38)

One of the best parts of this book was that McGuire doesn't write the two sisters as having the best, happiest, most perfect relationship. It's complicated, it's not always warm fuzzies, and I was here for it.

Some adventures require nothing more than a willing heart and the ability to trip over the cracks in the world.
Other adventures must be committed to before they have even properly begun. (page 50)

I wonder what kind of adventurer I am.

There are worlds built on rainbows and worlds built on rain. There are worlds of pure mathematics, where every number chimes like crystal as it rolls into reality. There are worlds of light and worlds of darkness, worlds of rhyme and worlds of reason, and worlds where the only thing that matters is the goodness in a hero's heart. (page 61) 

And there's obviously a world without shrimp. 

When people heard that she had a twin, they were always quick to say how nice that had to be, having a best friend from birth. She had never been able to figure out how to tell them how wrong they were. Having a twin meant always having someone to be compared to and fall short of, something who was under no obligation to like you - and wouldn't, most of the time...(page 63)

My relationship with my sister is quite complicated and I swing from resenting her to knowing that only she really knows what it was like growing up with our parents and finding that comforting. I have an acquaintance who has two sons and she's always talking about how they'll be best friends in the future. That's not guaranteed and they barely tolerate one another now. I just keep my mouth shut and know that she's setting herself up for a downfall.