Down Among The Sticks and Bones Audio Review | So THIS is what I’ve heard hype about..

Hi friends! I listened to Every Heart a Doorway earlier this year and it was okay. Not worth the hype, in my opinion. But hereeeee comes the sequeeeeel* in all it’s haha you were wrong glory. So let’s do this!

*if you didn’t hear that in Here Comes The Bride I renounce life

Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.

This is the story of what happened first…

Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline.

Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you’ve got.

They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted.

They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices

The narrator was fantastic! I mean, Seanan McGuire reads this so I’m really just saying that she’s awesome. But anyway, the character’s all had their own voice and yeah that’s about as far as my audiobook knowledge extends. 

I thought that the story here was much more interesting than in Every Heart A Doorway. The world of the moors, combined with this certain intensity, made for a much more thrilling read. Jack and Jill are complex characters, whose choices are shaped by the terrible, controlling actions of their parents long ago.

Seanan McGuire does an amazing job at crafting entire worlds, plots, and character arcs in a few short pages. Her writing has an almost fairy-tale quality to it, each word bursting with double meanings. 

My main complaint is the romance, I understand the need for it but I hate not being able to see development. 

That’s it! Tell me: have you read this?