Down Among the Sticks and Bones

So, I'm curious: has Seanan McGuire ever...read a book? Does she know what they are and how they work? Because I kind of like her schtick, but it's profoundly not a novella. By which I mean, Down Among the Sticks and Bones only has any sense of narrative structure and emotional payoff in retrospect in the events of Every Heart a Doorway, it's prequel. And the murder mystery in Every Heart a Doorway doesn't actually make any sense until you read Down Among the Sticks and Bones. I spent a lot of time frustrated by the murder mystery of Down Among the Sticks and Bones because it felt like cheating to have a murder mystery when the rules turned out to allow resurrection. Down Among the Sticks and Bones makes that slightly more palatable (although not really until book #5 is it really addressed).

As a standalone, this works barely at all. Jack and Jill are flimsy characters and the plot is basically nonexistent, with the book fizzling just as it should be hitting a climax. Where it does succeed is where Seanan McGuire seems to excel: a beautifully depicted setting (in this case, a canonical horro movie) and a rich fairy tale-esque theme. It's beautiful reading, but when the spell breaks I'm still at WTH did I just read?

Jack and Jill were my favorite characters in Every Heart a Doorway, so I was beyond excited that they would be the focus of the second installment of the Wayward Children series. Seanan McGuire takes us back to where they came from and where they went when they found the door out. This series has never been subtle, and Down Among the Sticks and Bones is very clear about what it wants to say about children, parents and how when you try to treat a person like a plaything, you may end up creating a monster.

After twelve years of feeling stifled and neglected by their soulless parents, Jack and Jill step through a doorway to the Moors, a Victorian Gothic world filled with vampires, werewolves, mad scientists and blood-thirsty sea creatures. Within their first three nights they are asked to decide who they will serve - the scientist who lives in the windmill and raises the dead, or the vampire in the castle. Jack, with her untapped thirst for knowledge, chooses the scientist. Jill, with her need to be adored and her more aggressive nature, chooses the vampire. The story is intentionally fairy tale like and referential of other works. The fairy worlds featured in this series are in many ways products of our world - even though they are yet to be explained in the text. They come from a need, and what Jack and Jill need is someway to be who they are, even if that means finding a home in the darkest, most dangerous world there is.

One of the things that made Jack stand out in Every Heart a Doorway was her sharp wit. For Jill it was her beautiful clothes and wicked mind. Here, Jack doesn't get to have as much flair - she's the straight man to her wayward sister, the one who is forced to be the hero. She's fleshed out, but a lot more vulnerable. In some ways, I enjoyed Jill's moral decay a little bit more, but this isn't an in-depth portrait of these twin sisters. As stated - it's a fairy tale, perhaps even a fable, thanks to its very clear moral. To be honest, I'm wishing I had stronger feelings about this story. The opening act, even up to when Jack and Jill choose their masters is the strongest part of this book, but after that I think I was just itching for all the stories and adventures that are teased at but skimmed over. I wish this book scared me more, made me laugh more, had stronger imagery. Mostly it just made me mad about shitty parents.

Overall, for what McGuire was looking to accomplish, I think Down Among the Sticks and Bones is very effective. It's spooky and dreamy and its main characters are engaging. But as someone who is used to, and of course enjoys, much denser works, I think this story deserved to be a lot beefier.

This is entirely a prequel focused solely on Jack and Jill's (from the first book) story. It's interesting to see one of the many fantasy worlds one (set) of the Wayward Children encounter in detail but I would have liked to see more than one somehow. This could even be a standalone book, though it does help explain some things in the first book.