Down Among the Sticks and Bones

The second volume in the Wayward Children series focuses on two characters from the first book exclusively - Jack and Jill - and goes back to tell their story of the horror-themed world they stumbled into and how it changed them into the characters we meet in the first book. I enjoyed seeing how it all came about, since we only had snippets of the details in the first volume and especially appreciated Seanan McGuire's storytelling style, as a narrated tale it feels fairytale-like, but with a much darker edge. The middle seems to skip a lot and though I get these are meant to be shorter volumes, I think it could have benefited from a little more bulk. I'm not sure I really felt a connection to the characters overall, except for the fact that they felt shoe-horned into roles they didn't particularly feel they were meant for and found a place where they could ‘be themselves' through their magical door. Since the outcast and misunderstood theme is prevalent in the series as whole so far, it didn't give much more depth to the characters themselves and we're never really given much else to warm up to - although that might just be me personally, as Jack and Jill weren't my favourites from the first book and their world isn't one I personally felt a connection to.
However, I still plowed through the book and really like the concept that McGuire has come up with for this series. Although it plays on familiar ground (portal fantasy), it takes a unique and exceptional direction with it, which creates a world I want to continue to dive into again and again. Already on to book three, which says a lot considering I tend to be a reader that bounces around a lot and rarely sticks to a series all the way through in one go. Still highly recommended both as a standalone story and as a continuing part of the Wayward Children series.