Where The Drowned Girls Go (Wayward Children book 7) by Seanan McGuire (book review)

The award winning novella, ‘Every Heart A Doorway’, introduced the concept of doorways through which children can pass to a different world. Often, what they experience suits their personalities. Often, when they return to our world, it is not through choice. They may want to return but unless their door opens for them again, they are stuck. The problem for them is that adults do not believe them when they talk about the worlds they have visited. Eleanor West set up a school for these children where they could be with others who had similar experiences. ‘Where The Drowned Girls Go’ is the seventh in the Wayward Children series and continues the narrative.

Cora’s world, the Trenches, is a water one. Once through her door, she became a mermaid, her hair changing colour to blue-green and was there until a whirlpool spat her back through the door. In the sixth book, ‘Come Tumbling Down’, Cora went with some fellow students to the Moors. There she encountered the Drowned Gods. They lured her with song, despite her knowing it was a bad idea to follow the sound. Their siren song followed her back to the school and she can’t get it out of her head and causes her nightmares and sleeplessness. As a result, she decides to transfer schools to the Whitethorn Institute.

The new school has a totally different approach to the Wayward Children. By regulating them, it aims to eradicate their desire to find their door and turn them into boring, normal humans. They are treated as if they are mentally ill. Then Sumi turns up, saying she has come to rescue her. As Cora realises there is something wrong with the Institute, she decides that she has made a mistake devises a plan to get her, Sumi and some of her dorm mates out.

This is a delightful book. It works better than some of the series because the focus stays very much with Cora and allows her to grow. While it is not absolutely necessary to have read all the books in the series, reading ‘Come Tumbling Down’ would be useful as it flags up where Cora’s issues have come from.

Pauline Morgan

February 2022

(pub: Tordotcom, New York, 2022. 150 page hardback. Price: $19.99 (US), £15.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-250-21562-4)

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