The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Alix E Harrow
Completed 3/25/2021, Reviewed 3/25/2021
5 stars

This knocked my socks off.  I absolutely loved this story.  It’s about portals into other worlds, secret societies, prejudice, and a teenager, though it’s not YA.  It’s also book within a book.  The prose is gorgeous but not overbearing.  I was gripped until the end and got teary eyed when the main character did.  I’ve been working from home and there wasn’t a lot to do in the past two days, so I got to read this book in, yes, two days, and I’m really thankful because I simply did not want to put it down.  This book was nominated for a ton of awards last year, though it didn’t win any, but I easily would have chosen this over the book that did win the Hugo.

The book begins in 1901 when January is a young girl whose father is a field archeologist.  Her mother died tragically when she was an infant.  She stays with a guardian, Mr. Locke, in his mansion.  As his ward, she wants for nothing but her father who is always somewhere around the world on a project.  One day she finds a door out in the woods, goes through it, and finds she is in another world.  Locke tells her to put away such childish fancies and continues his rearing of her as a refined young lady.  Then she discovers a book called “The Ten Thousand Doors” that tells of magical Doors and begins to put two and two together.  It soon puts her on a collision course with Locke who seems to be trying to keep the secret of the Doors and the truth about her family from her.  Eventually she runs away to search for her father, but is followed by evil men who belong to a secret society whose aim is to destroy all the Doors.

January is awesome.  She’s a reddish-brown skinned girl who questions everything, even when she’s wearing the mask of civility Locke tries to keep on her.  She’s smart, witty, and she has an uncanny ability to make things happen when she writes them down.  She doesn’t understand the power, and uses is sparingly to avoid attracting attention.  Her best friend growing up was a lower-class Italian boy named Samuel.  After a while, they grow apart, but they later have interactions which demonstrate he has feelings for her, and vice-versa.  Several times, he tries to rescue her from dire situations.

Another great character is Jane, an African woman who January’s father sends to be her maid/nurse/assistant.  His real aim is to have Jane keep an eye on January and make sure she’s safe.  He clearly doesn’t trust Locke.  Jane is great support and protection for January and follows her when she runs away.

And the love story of Yule and Ade in the book within the book is just breathtaking.  I just loved the characters and their adventure trying to find each other.

Overall, I’d say the characterization is pretty great.  Even Locke is more multi-dimensional than a normal villain.  You want to hate him, but he does many things to make you doubt that feeling.  There are a couple of terrible villains who are somewhat one dimensional, like the red haired main and the vampire, but they’re more than simply stock characters and add to the terror that follows January on her quest to find her father.

I’ve read quite a few books within books.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.  Here it was stupendous.  Both the story of January and the story of Yule and Ade were interesting, endearing, and exciting.  I didn’t mind at all that it took a few chapters of January and few chapters of the inner book to get the plot really going because I had already come to love the three of them.  

I give this book five stars out of five.  Yes, I loved it that much.  I got emotionally attached to all the major characters, feeling their struggles, fears, frustrations, and loves.  The book was exciting, heartfelt, witty, and meaningful.  The pace felt just right, not too fast, not too slow, except for some of the chase scenes which went pretty quickly.  The revelations about the Doors and January’s coming into her own powers were awesome.  Yes, I know I’ve used that word a few times already, but I can’t say enough about how great I think this book is.