TBR Challenge: Alix E. Harrow - The Ten Thousand Doors of January

In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

 

Comment: The year is almost over and there are two last themes left in the TBR Challenge for 2023. 

In November the theme is "once upon a time" and what immediately came to mind was a story with magical elements, just like the fairy tales of my childhood. I had my chosen book in the pile since 2019 and I felt this was a good opportunity to get to it at last.

In this fantasy book we meet heroine January who is living with her warden in a big house, with all the things she needs, except her father, always traveling for work, and freedom to do what she wants. She has been told she needs to stay there for her own protection, but one day she finds a weird door and can cross it, arriving at a completely different world, to her amazed surprise. Then, that door disappears and her progression to find the truth about herself, and what her father really does for mr Locke, her warden, begins. The problem is the more January learns, the more dangerous everything is, including being around people who help her. What can January do to survive, to learn and to find her parents, which has been her dream all along?

I had been captivated by the cover of this book when it was originally released. I also liked the opinion of some readers and the theme alone would be one I'd want, since there were references to those who love books and stories. I can now understand these descriptions but I will be honest: I was confused for a good part of the story and not because of the content. I just could not find a way to follow the sequence of events shared, and this made me wonder if, perhaps, a different type or editing would have made a difference.

The plot is quite fascinating, especially for a reader who constantly listens to or reads about that old saying "to read is to escape into a new world" or something like that. I do like this idea and, in fantasy stories, this is even more appealing. Basically, we follow January as she grows up in a fancy house which isn't loving but is secure, until she starts noticing the doors which lead into different places. At the same time, we have a different POV by someone sharing the life of another character who was able to do the same thing as January.

I'll say I was absolutely not impressed with the supposed twists (perhaps this isn't the best word), since they seemed to be so very obvious. Some things that take time to be presented and developed just felt very easy to follow and I was annoyed here and there with how the author tried to make it more poetic or whimsical or something, instead of placing things in a more linear narrative. I guess this is what worked so well for many readers to give them that notion of magical realism - which I also like - but here just got on my nerves and confused me.

I did like the idea of the story and the different characters, it's clear the author wanted to use diversity in her novel, and the characters' background and origins was a way to accomplish this. I think that, really analyzing the story, there are many subjects to pick up and discuss, namely about race, racism, exploration and stealing, colonialism and freedom, and all this is quite worthy of being called to attention but I kind of wanted January to get things quicker and she took a long time to understand what was going on and that, from a certain moment on, became obvious.

What I liked the best was the idea of traveling through doors into other worlds. What a pity - to me! - that this was a story about the act of traveling and not about where the travel leads to. There's a metaphor there, I'm sure, but the more I read, the more I wanted this to go a different direction and I will say that in the back of my mind there was this memory... 

I just had to google it and I've quickly came across the name of a TV series from the 90s, of which I remember watching some episodes, titled Sliders. It was about characters traveling into other worlds through a wormhole of some kind. The series was about them trying to go back to their world and while they were stuck on another, the episode would be about that. I think I can say the idea of this book is quite similar in the concept, if not in the execution.

This said, the mrs Harrow's story is more about how January learns things and starts to think for herself and how that might lead her to a future where he helps others with some skills she develops in the meantime, as well as looking for her parents whom she believes were killed but she still hopes perhaps this isn't true. As I've said, I liked the story in general and many of the situations described, I liked the pace from a certain point on, but as a whole I did expect this to be better. I also agree with some readers who wish the heroine had been older, since other elements could have been achieved better if that had been the case.

All things considered, this wasn't too bad and in the end I have to say it was a worthy reading experience, but I did hope for a slightly different type of narrative, yes.

Grade: 7/10