Friday, January 21, 2022

Where the Drowned Girls Go (Wayward Children #7), by Seanan McGuire (author), Whitney Johnson (narrator)

Macmillan Audio, ISBN 978250841247, January 2022

Cora Miller, the girl who went through the Door to the world of the Trenches, became a mermaid, had the experience of being a true hero but overall very traumatic experience in the Moors, and returned home to our world, has loved Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. Unfortunately, it hasn't been helping her in the way she thinks she needs. After much thought, she asks to be transferred to the other school for returning travelers, The Whitehorn Institute.

The Whitehorn Institute is a very different place, very strict, very disciplined, very inflexible, aimed at making the students forget their alternate worlds and the doors that took them there. It's not a kind place, or a safe one.

CW: Fatphobia, suicidal ideation, bullying, and ableism. Mental and emotional abuse from the Headmaster and the Matrons.

Cora initially finds herself being beaten down, and perhaps letting go of some of her grip on her memories. She also meets girls very different from herself, including the Nameless Girl, and some months in, is surprised by a very familiar face as another new student--but who has a very different goal than Cora.

This is a novella, and I can't say anything more that's specific. It's a story about Cora finding her own inner strength, and figuring out what's really going on at The Whitehorn Institute. It's emotionally complex and rewarding, and thoroughly enjoyable, I will say it's even more enjoyable if you've already read Beneath the Sugar Sky and Come Tumbling Down, because events in those novellas are the background for Cora's trauma. However, I think you can follow and enjoy this book on its own, too.

Highly recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

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