The writing is as gorgeous and magical as the subject matter, taking you away into a world of infinite doors and infinite possibilities. Locke, and - so importantly, so beautifully - herself.‘The Ten Thousand Doors of January’ is a beautiful book. Its heart is in January's relationships with her family, Mr. For a novel so grand in scope, it manages to stay intimate. Stories provide strength and escape in The Ten Thousand Doors of January, but Harrow doesn't neglect to show us how the stories we're told can trap us, too. The way Harrow explores privilege and race, class and power, control, imperialism, the desire for order, the desire for hope, community, home, what it is to be an exile, what it is to be afraid. The repetition gives the storytelling an incantatory quality which I liked, but might not be for everybody. There is also a tendency for characters to love at first sight, which isn't bad - I love the loves in this novel! - but, again, it feels neat. Then again, does a door fit too snugly in its frame if it closes properly? Even when plot fell into place as predicted, the story never shook me I was always eager to know what came next, and a little afraid of reading too quickly, since logic dictated eventually I'd run out of pages. If I were to level any criticism at The Ten Thousand Doors of January, it might be that occasionally a plot device is too neat. Here you will find wonder and questions and an unceasingly gorgeous love of words which compasses even the shape a letter makes against a page. Here is a book to make you happy when you gently close it. Locke whether she's colored, he tells her she is a 'perfectly unique specimen.' Julian has dark skin when January asks Mr. Locke, who labels them and puts them safely in order. Julian Scaller finds, extracts, tags, boxes, and ships pieces back to Mr. Locke, a member of the exclusive New England Archaeological Society, who employs her father to acquire objects of interest around the world. Set (at first) in New England at the turn of the last century, this is the story of January Scaller, who's growing up in a large house full of curious artifacts, rich in privilege but starved of belonging. There will be favorite parts.Įven knowing how it ends, reading again is fresh delight. The kind of last page that bewitches your fingers and, yes, you are turning again to the first page before you've decided whether you'll reread the whole book now or just turn to a favorite part. It will lead you on a journey through books within books, worlds within worlds, mysteries within mysteries, until, finally, you reach a deep breath taken after a perfectly satisfying last page. Harrow's debut novel, is one for the favorites shelf.

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The 10000 doors of january review