5 ⭐ CW: absent parents, forced institutionalization, self-harm, violence, descriptions of blood, animal abuse

"Doors are change."

"I will not be your leash, my love." (Swoon)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is the first I've read by this author, and it didn't disappoint! I fell in love with this book right away, and January has my whole heart.

We follow January, a girl who is the ward of a rich guy (think ageless Daddy Warbucks) while her father travels for work. She is a lonely child who loves getting into trouble and writing stories. January does what we all do, escape into stories. One day she finds a book about a woman who found a Door (capital D important) and travelled through to a different world I'm search of a boy she met long ago.

This book was a love letter to readers and to stories in general. This book puts forth that books are their own kind of Door to another world. It had themes about power, change, wanderlust, love, sacrifice, and the need to feel freedom. It was heartbreaking and beautiful at once. Harrow also did an excellent job of depicting what it was like for a dark skinned mixed race girl in the early 20th century, and the unique difficulty of being "in-between." I was not expecting the MC of this book to be a mixed raced girl living in New England, but I loved it and loved how genuine it was.

I loved all of these characters. They all were so human and complicated. None being completely good or evil (well except Theodore. Fuck that guy). Jane was a badass woman from East Africa that I would lay down my life for any day. And Bad (a dog) is goodest boy! This is one of those books I can see myself reading again. Looking forward to more of this author's work!