Book Review

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a wonderfully magical portal fantasy novel that will appeal to just about any book lover. It’s slow, winding, and subtle, brimming with some of the most gorgeous writing I’ve ever read. Unfortunately, the plot doesn’t lend itself to tense action or momentum, making this a much quieter adventure and not quite what I was looking for after coming off the bloody, excitable events of The Blacksmith Queen by G.A. Aiken.

January Scaller is a woman left in the care of her father’s employer, the enigmatic and very wealthy Mr. Locke. Locke is very interested in collecting antiquities and rare objects; January’s father is often hired to procure these items and travels most of the year. At the age of seven, January discovers a blue door in a remote Midwestern field that opens up to a rocky, seaside cliff. Her life is, understandably, changed forever at this discovery, especially as she grows older and her relationship with the Doors (portal doors are capitalized in the text) becomes part of a larger conspiracy. Strange men are hoping to close the Doors permanently, sealing them from ever being opened again.

It takes a while for this good versus evil vibe to firmly take root, as there is a lot of coming of age setup for January, but she is a wonderful heroine to spend time with. She’s smart, sometimes prickly, curious to a fault, and just feels everything down to her bones. There’s a heartbreaking emphasis on loss and love given her father’s absenteeism and the mystery of who her mother is/was.

I’m not exaggerating when I say this is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I’ve ever read. Harrow is truly gifted with how she plays with language, enabling January to break the fourth wall in charming ways.

Here is one of the opening paragraphs:

When I was seven, I found a Door. There–look how tall and proud the word stands on the page now, the belly of the D like a black archway leading into white nothing. When you see that word, I imagine a little prickle of familiarity makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You don’t know a thing about me; you can’t see me sitting at this yellow-wood desk, the salt-sweet breeze riffling these pages like a reader looking for her bookmark. You can’t see the scars that twist and knot across my skin. You don’t even know my name (it’s January Scaller; so now I suppose you do know a little something about me and I’ve ruined my point).

January, as the narrator of this story, is infectious with her curiosity. The way she describes things made me desperate to know more. I wanted her to find all of the answers she sought and then some, to go on grand adventures, to have fun, instead of having her life be overshadowed by this persistent feeling of not fitting in. Yes, you will cry during this book with tears that are both happy and sad.

The relationship between January and the Doors is the central plot point–what the Doors mean, how they are accessed, who else knows about them, etc. And that was all well and good, but it certainly didn’t keep me from making comparisons to one of my favorite portal fantasy series: Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children. If you’re also familiar with these books, you’ll most likely do the same.

In the Wayward Children series, young children find their way into these portal-ed fantasy worlds and are then deposited back in the real world with really no ways of coping. Some experienced trauma, others realized that time works drastically different in another world, but I always got a clear sense of the types of environments to which they journeyed. They are varied and imaginative and so distinct. I didn’t have the same feeling with Ten Thousand Doors; the portals never become full-fledged settings and I wished January had spent more time within them.

I also want to note that Ten Thousand Doors isn’t nearly as dark or grim as the Wayward Children, if you happened to be put off by those aspects in the McGuire series.

This book is heavily focused on character dynamics and is driven by those relationships. Any action was short-lived and the stakes were never high enough to make be believe in any real, legitimate danger for January. At times, I wanted something that would amp up the pace or keep me on the edge of my seat, but that is not this sort of book. Though January is a great main character, she does a lot of ruminating on the people close to her and whatever situation she’s currently dealing with. I wanted something to get my heart racing. There aren’t any intense confrontations with the bad guys, just frequent emotional distress without much follow through.

My expectations were misplaced for The Ten Thousand Doors of January. I was hoping for more portal fantasy meets Wayward Children meets Men in Black; that’s on me. However, if you’re in the mood for a lovely, tender fantasy novel about belonging and one that feels more like a long, relaxing bath than a hot, intense shower will all of the fancy pressure and pulsating settings you can imagine, you’ll love this one. It’s a soothing pick for when you hope to take comfort in a book.

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The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow

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  1. Lisa says:

    I just put a hold on this book yesterday, so I’m happy to hear this review!

  2. Kate says:

    That cover! I just saw this book for the first time in the AudioFile newsletter and wondered how it would compare to the Wayward Children books. Sounds like something to keep in mind for when the mood for slow and lovely hits.

  3. Sonia says:

    I also added this to my TBR. It does sound very promising 🙂

  4. Lisa F says:

    I’ve been considering reading this awhile, and the review pushed me into buying it!

  5. Mei says:

    I picked up this book last night and could not make it thru chapter 1 because of the racism littered throughout, even in the small amount I read. I won’t list the moments here, but will just say that the straw that broke my ability to continue with the book was when January, who is apparently mixed race, refers to herself as an “in-between thing,” echoing what her beloved guardian has called her. I could not tell if she was being ironic, or if she just accepts that this is the way white people view her.

    Maybe the author’s intent was to realistically replicate the racist attitudes of the period, but she seemed to do so with a kind of uncritical blunt force, without doing any of the work to work against the wrongness of what she was depicting, at least in what I read. The overwhelming impact to me was a reproduction of the racist harms she was representing. I felt like I was being slapped repeatedly in the face.

    On GR, the author, who is white, refers to the racial identity of January as a major spoiler, which I find really problematic as well. I do not like when people ask “What are you?” when they first meet me. Yet by making January’s race a “spoiler,” and describing her race as some kind of amorphous unknown in chapter 1, it feels like the book is inviting readers en masse to pose this question. DNF.

  6. Rachel says:

    This review matches my own experience with the book. Beautifully written, a little too slow for my taste.

  7. Babelfish says:

    I can support Mei’s attitude toward the book, absolutely, but somehow I managed to move past that and really, really like this one. The edges of the universe are a little fuzzy on New Year’s Day, and that fuzziness was exactly what I needed to dive headfirst into this book and barely emerge to talk to my in-laws. (Who are lovely, but not as lovely as this story.)

    It’s a soft-edged slow-burning love letter to stories, and at the time it was the exact right book. And…I mean, I’m white, so my experience is different and not as valid here, obvs, but I appreciated the in-between-ness. It struck me less as a discordance and more as exactly in line with the tone of the rest of the story. Again, not particularly defending the book, just admitting that it worked well for me at the time.

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