Awesome! This book had everything: magic, a good story, great characters, intricate plotting. Would highly recommend to anyone.

This is a magical adventure story that invites readers to slip through doorways into other worlds alongside the characters. I instantly liked January and appreciated her love of books. Parts of it felt like a love letter to reading and books, but also to reading as a form of escape. There were passages when I felt the author had beautifully and perfectly captured how magical a book can be.

I look forward to recommending this to a many customers, and I would love the author to continue telling January's story, but this does sit perfectly as a stand alone. Magical. Adventurous. Beautiful.

This book took a bit to get into the story. The pacing was slow. The uniqueness of the story is what kept me going. The chapter setup was a little off putting at first. I enjoyed the book overall and give it 3 stars

I give this book ten thousand hearts for all time.
Ten thousand stars for plot.
Ten thousand feels.
Ten thousand surprises.
Ten thousand reasons I love the characters.
Ten thousand ways I couldn't get enough of the world.
Ten thousand shouts from the rooftop.
Ten thousand moments that were the best.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is undeniably amazing. And I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

I'll admit that it took me some time to get through this book - I was doing a lot of traveling for work, I was emotionally drained from trade shows, being away from all my pets for more than two weeks, etc. etc . . . but god. Did this book grab me by the heart and say, "Love is all around you if you know where to look, and the love you put out will return a thousandfold."

Am I saying that this book messed me up a little? Because it actually messed me up a lot.

Janurary Scaller is a lost girl, despite the big house and the warm bed. She's on the hunt for news of her father, the reality of what her patron Mr. Locke is up to, but she's secretly on the hunt for something we all want: relationships with the people around us. And on her journey, she finds this support system of people who love and care about her - from her father, her [redacted], her distant relatives she never knew she had, all down to her dog.

Not gonna lie, I was gonna riot if that dog didn't make it. And it hurt, more than a little, that right as I finished this book my own beloved dog got sick and passed. So there's this added layer of loss that covers this entire book and punches me where I'm already soft.

But that's okay! Why read a book if you don't want to be punched in the feelings, yeah?

I was unable to finish this book. Although the beginning drew me in, several other books grabbed my attention and I haven’t been able to pick up Ten Thousand Doors since then.

Fantasy is not my usual genre, but I found this book to be a very enjoyable read. I guess I would say the first requirement of an author would be to be able to construct a believable alternate world and to catch the reader up in the characters and adventures that take place there and Alix Harrow definitely did that.

This is a dual story: the story of a man, Yule Ian Scaller, and his true love and adventuress Adelaide Larson. Their separate stories begin, then join, then rupture when they are separated along with their infant daughter while transiting a Door into another world. Mysterious forces are working to close the Doors and so Yule and Ade spend years trying to find each other.

Meanwhile, the infant daughter did survive with her father, but he is alone and without resources and still trying to find his wife. He leaves his daughter, January, with a seemingly kind and wealthy man who offers him employment and the opportunity to travel and search for Ade.

January grows up in a privileged world materially, but is lonely and misses her father during his long absences. She becomes more and more unmalleable and eventually escapes what has become imprisonment. She has her parents' wanderlust and some special abilities that enable her to find and transit the Doors to other worlds.

This book is the story of her coming of age and seeking to find the truth about her parents and whether they are alive or not. She must battle villains seeking to shut the Doors but she also has some allies: her beloved dog Sindbad, her friend and protector Jane, sent by her father to keep her safe, and her childhood friend and loyal love Samuel.

Thanks to Net Galley and to the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I received an advanced copy for Netgalley for an honest review. I was so excited to get this book I actually bought the hard bound also. Big disappointment. I found this a whole lot of nothing. I was bored 1/3 of the way through but plowed on. One half of the way I DNF'd. I hardly ever quit a book even if it is just a little boring but this one I put down. I had many more exciting titles on my list to explore.

This is a beautiful, well thought out book with stories inside of stories inside of stories. Or books inside of books if you will. Anytime you start layering reading with reading you're pretty much guaranteed to get my attention. The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a beautifully written read. From a heart breaking love story, to new worlds to be discovered to the mystery of doors and even a puppy (named Bad); I can imagine revisiting this story again and again in the future and loving it just as well.

Lead Gal
Our lead girl, January, is an intriguing child. She's a bookworm who is the ward of a rich and powerful man obsessed with collecting unique things. Her father goes on 'errands' for him and brings back amazing wonders from around the worlds (yes plural) that many doors scattered across Earth take him to. I think January is a very well put together character and she felt very real as the story progressed. In fact around 75% I found my mind wandering and getting a bit bored; then I realized it's because that is how January was feeling! It's an impressive feat when I literally feel like the character in the story without realizing it immediately. That is a sign of a heroine that I connected with in a profound way.

Doors to Doors to Doors
If there was one thing I wanted more of it was doors! We certainly don't encounter ten thousand of them; although there are quite a few. For me any time there is an opportunity to set-up a new world or version of an existing one I'm intrigued and want the ideas to be endless. This endless number of worlds/doors reminded me of Seanan McGuire's book Every Heart a Doorway in that it could continue into infinity. And while many people will see similarities in McGuire's story to that of Alix E. Harrow I think they are both very different books. Ten Thousand Doors is more of a character study while McGuire is far more about the setting and worlds. Harrow does a good job of setting up 'rules' for the doors and keeping strictly to them. Magic without rules is just lazy writing and so I appreciated that it was obvious from the beginning what the constraints are that allow these portals to open.

Action and Adventure
If you're hoping for some flashy sword work, great escapes or vast adventures then Ten Thousand Doors is not for you. Harrow has given us the perfect book for an introvert if you will. As January is an introvert herself she doesn't really push the limits like many other heroines. There are lots of things that happen and some very tense moments but no real fighting or 'action' the way a lot of fantasy is. I personally feel this made Harrow's story stand-out from the crowd for me in a way most fantasy doesn't. It may also be that the stunning prose gives a certain pace and feel to the book that exude a quieter experience than a lot of fantasy books these days.

Relationships
There are some very unique and heart breaking relationships that January either finds herself in or is privy to throughout the story. There is quite a bit of romance without it ever feeling over the top or sappy. I liked the slow methodical set-up of all the relationships whether between parents, January and her father, January and her friend, etc.
The most intricate of these pairings is by far between January and her master Locke. It's a love/hate, hate/love relationship and we are strung along with January as she desperately wishes the man loved her or had some sort of affection to show for her. It's apparent from the get go that this is a man who collects 'things'and January is merely one of them due to her unique look. I found myself often asking if it would be better for her to be a kitchen worker than to be a 'doll' shown off. Although it seems cruel at times the freedom January gets because of her unique position with Locke plays a large part in how she finds her first door. So all's well that ends well.

The Ending
I have a hateful relationship with most endings. Easily the most likely thing to annoy me in any book is the ending. Often they are cheap, contrived, convenient or cliche. (ohhh, that's some good alliteration there, totally by accident, lol) The exact opposite is true with Harrow's ending to Ten Thousand Doors. It just felt perfect. All the ends are elegantly tied up, it's not happy but not really sad. It just is. Very much like life's endings which is probably why I liked it so much. It felt real.
The icing on the cake? This is a stand-alone fantasy book. While you may mourn that there isn't a series here by the end merely because you wish for more; I am very pleased to have read a wonderful fantasy story that won't take half my life or more to get to a satisfying ending. As Harrow tells us early on; "Doors, once closed, do not reopen."

Overall
I can't really imagine another hating this book. Disliking it, perhaps; not really getting into it, sure. But actually thinking it's awful? I'm sure there will be people but it seems unlikely to be often. This is easily a book in my top recommendations for 2019. Lovers of YA/Teen, fantasy, fiction and even probably sci-fi are all likely to find something to love in The Ten Thousand Doors of January. I'll leave you with just one of many beautiful lines from this masterpiece:
"May she wander but always return home, may all her words be written true, may every door lie open before her."

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a book that felt like polar opposites throughout the story. There were times that I was utterly entrances with the story, but there were also times that I just wanted the story to end. This being a story about magical doors that transport you to different worlds and different parts of the world I thought there would be more magic involved, but there really wasn't as much as I was hoping for. For me this brought the rating down slightly.

As for the characters I was mostly disappointed because I never felt a connection to them. I never really felt a need to care about them or what happened to them, this left me feeling disjointed from the story. Especially during the slow parts when there wasn't much action.

Compelling from first to last, a lonely young girl finds power in her own words, travels to other worlds and learns about herself and others. A must-read..

This book is like if Strange the Dreamer and A Darker Shade of Magic got together and had a baby that was then fostered by Margaret Rogerson with occasional visits from Seanan McGuire. I know that's a completely nonsensical and likely very overwrought metaphor, but there you go.

I don't quite know what I expected from The Ten Thousand Doors of January - I do know that I was initially very hesitant to read it, and that it was only the hype surrounding it that finally convinced me to pick it up. The summary is quite vague, so I wasn't quite sure where the book was heading, and it's certainly in no hurry to tell you. This is a very, very slow-paced book, to the point where I struggled with the pacing at several intervals, and it's not really so much about adventure and portals and different worlds as it is a coming-of-age story about a lost young girl.

Though beautifully written, The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a very, very quiet novel that isn't in any particular rush to do anything with itself at all. Instead it revels in languorously introducing its world and its heroine and her backstory. That said, however, there is still something indescribably compelling about it - perhaps the narrative frame, which is that of January writing her story for someone to read at a later time - that makes it a nice, cozy read to let yourself sink into, like an old friend.

There is such a love of books and stories interwoven into this text, not just in January's own tale, but in the tale she begins reading, for The Ten Thousand Doors of January is, in some ways, a story within a story, or rather, two stories running parallel to one another, eventually coming to fit together in a pleasantly satisfying way. There is also a constant running commentary on race and racism, classism, and the inherent privilege of rich white men who think they ought to control the world. January herself is perceived as mixed-race, and so deals with all the struggles that come with that in the early 20th century. I admired the balance of fantasy and reality in the text.

I really wish I could give partial stars, because this is a 3.5 for sure, because it's beautiful and admirable and a really incredible feat of storytelling, but I just couldn't jive with the pacing at all, and I did struggle to keep reading at several parts.

This book is what I wish The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern was. This book had an interesting and understandable plot and great character development. Would probably also appeal to teens and adults.

My Thoughts

Wow! Just WOW! I didn’t just read this book, I experienced it. I'm not even sure my review can do this book justice, but I'll give it a shot. Here are my pros and cons for The Ten Thousand Doors of January:

Pros

1. First off, this book contained some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever experienced in a book. Lyrical, poetic, emotional, inspired, rhythmic, expressive… I could keep coming up with adjectives, but honestly, you need to read it. I was absorbed into the story by the beautiful writing in a way that doesn’t happen often. The words were chosen perfectly, the sentences grabbed hold of me and didn’t let go, and I was completely captivated. It was a absolute pleasure to read this book.
2. I liked the focus on capital letters. For example, a door is just a door, but a Door is something special. There were other times when a word was capitalized to give it emphasis – Villain, Running Away From Home, etc. Pay attention to the capitalized words.
3. What a fun story overall! Truly, I can’t believe this is a debut novel because it absolutely ticks all the boxes for a favorite book – awesome adventure, believable fantasy, perfect writing, unique storytelling, magic, corruption, secret societies, love, lost love, found love, a loyal dog, portals, pain, happiness, whimsy, asylums… heck it even has a vampire!
4. This is also a story within a story. It was a unique concept that was admittedly a little confusing at first (see Con #1) but once it came together it was brilliantly and creatively executed.
5. The love story/stories in this book were 100% believable. They weren’t cheesy or unrealistic at all. They felt incredibly honest and real. I appreciated that.
6. I connected to the story and the characters so much that I felt like I was part of the book. Like I said earlier, I didn’t read this book… I experienced it.
7. Pay attention to the character names – they have meaning.
8. I thought the themes in the book included having courage and embracing change.
9. I loved the description of the “threshold” – the space between one world and the next when you cross through a door. It was so descriptive I almost felt like I was experiencing it rather than reading about it.
10. I did NOT want this book to end! :)

Cons

1. As much as I loved this book, I did think it started off slowly and a little clunky. It took several chapters before I started understanding what the heck was going on (the story within the story perspective) and was finally engrossed in the story. Anyone struggling at the beginning of this book shouldn’t give up! Once you figure out the pattern of the book, it flows much more smoothly.

Summary
It is not surprising to me that this book was nominated for the Goodreads Choice 2019 Best Fantasy Novel and Best Debut Novel. In my opinion it absolutely deserves to win in both categories!

This book immediately rose to the top of my list of favorite reads for 2019 and at least cracked my Top 25 all-time favorite books ever. I would read anything this author ever writes. I kind of want to go out and buy a bunch of copies to hand out to strangers and make them read it because it is an incredible fairy tale, a phenomenal fantasy, and a gripping story. I would recommend this book to absolutely anyone – I think any reader would enjoy it. But if you are interested in fantasy and science fiction then this is a must read for you. Add it to your list now!  :)

Thank you NetGalley and Redhook Books for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was instantly drawn to this book when I saw the gorgeous cover. And without even knowing what it was about, I knew I had to read it.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a mix between fantascy, science fiction, and romance.

I wasn’t quite sure where it was headed in the beginning, but once I caught on to the story, I was fully engaged. I loved how Alix E. Harrow developed the characters. That was honestly the best thing about this book. The way that the story built upon itself was fascinating, and the literary nature of the prose was wonderful.

The first half of the book was fascinating and I did find myself losing some steam around 2/3 of the way through, but it picked up again at the end. I can’t say I was super surprised by the ending but all the loose ends were tied up well.

Overall, if you’re a fan of fantasy, I would highly recommend this one.

-I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Alix E. Harrow, and Redhook Books for the opportunity to review.-

January Scaller is left at home that isn’t really her home as her father goes off to find an object for her father’s employer. It is the employer’s home. Her father is often away traveling for his employer, Mr. Locke. Mr. Locke says he will look after January. One day at the age of seven she opens a door that opens to a different landscape — it’s a rocky seaside cliff. This experience changes January’s life. She will never be the same. Her curiosity, prickliness and the sensitivities of her feelings don’t interfere with her smartness. She is a very smart girl. There are doors that are portals to other places. There are men who want these doors closed permanently. Will they be closed?

The novel depends on characters relationships. It also show her deep thinking a lot of the people that are close to her. It’s a gentle fantasy story but still includes racism, classism and sexism. I was quite interest in how January was un able to feel like she fitted in. She felt like an outsider.

This review has been a long time coming! I started this book on September 19th and am now reviewing it on Nov 7th. This book completely derailed my ARC reading plans and generally took forever to read. I hope reading this book for review was worth it, as I am very hung-up on this review. Objectively this was an interesting book that had a very complicated plot and intriguing characters, but I also had so much trouble reading it. I actually put this down at the beginning of October and just didn’t read it for an entire month, before I decided to just get it out of the way.

The story follows a young girl who has grown up in the late 1800s with a wealthy benefactor in a house filled with curiosities. At times it feels like she is herself a curiosity, meant to be put under glass and ignored, but when she finds a book that tells of other worlds and the doors between them, she discovers a world that will become her own.

The character work in this book is easily the most interesting part. Every character had interesting aspects that were slowly revealed throughout the novel. By the end of the book I connected with the characters and wanted them to succeed. I just took more than 70% of the book for me to care. This is also an adult book, which it definitely uses to have some very dark concepts show up. There is a scene with self-mutilation, which was really disturbing and was really the reason that I put the book down.

This is also a book that contains another book inside of it, which was a problem for me because I ended up caring more about the story inside than the story outside. They are both tied together, but it was still jarring when the inner story ended. Once it did I started to like the outer story more and by the end I was invested in the ending.

I wish I could say that I liked it, but the ending was a bit lackluster in my opinion, as some of the strings were still loose and questions were unanswered. These ruined the parts of the ending that did conclude the book properly, making it just another unsatisfying ending.

Ultimately this book was too dense and too long so my liking and there wasn’t enough of the portal fantasy that I wanted when I picked it up. Are there any portal fantasies that you would recommend, other than the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire,which is already on my list for this month. I really need soom good recs! Happy Reading!

3 stars

3.5 stars. It took me until 40% into this book to be invested in the story line. If I hadn't been reading it because I had requested an ARC (and joined a buddy read) then I would have DNF'd because that's too long to be bored with a book. After 40% I really thought the plot picked up and I wanted to know what would happen to January, but the prose was still a bit too flowery for my taste and leaned towards long-winded descriptions that weren't doing anything for me. There were also some points in the book where it seemed to be narrated directly to someone and sometimes where the narrator was talking more generally and I wanted it to be consistent.

The audiobook is narrated by January LaVoy and this is definitely the way to go if you want to read it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Redhook Books for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was magical and there was something about the story that just really captured me, I loved inhabiting the world that Harrow created in Ten Thousand Doors of January! The writing is definitely on the flowery side, so it might not be for everyone, but it really worked for me.

I am an absolute sucker for stories of other worlds and escapism. It’s what makes me love the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire so much, and Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. And this story definitely had those some themes throughout. Since I am a sucker for escapism but also a huge research nerd, I really loved the aspect of January’s father being a sort of “door anthropologist” and cataloging all of the doors that he searched. I think I would have loved a story just about her father, to be honest.

But that’s not what this story is, this story is about January and how she reacts to finding out these truths about herself, and she shines completely on her own in her story. I loved the character of January from the very beginning, I loved the style of writing the author used to convey January’s voice and I rooted for the character the whole time. January is a very forthright, self-confident girl, but she is not without her flaws and fears. I loved that about her character and felt that it really fleshed out her complexity and made me feel more attached to her as the story drew on.

But let’s not leave out the most important character in the entire story...BAD. Bad the best-most-ferocious-perfect-protector-boy ever. 14/10 good dog. I was so emotionally attached to this dog that there were times of anxiety in the book that I thought I was going to have to DNF it, but I kept going, and I’m so glad I did! January and Bad’s relationship is the most perfect portrayal of a dog’s love, loyalty and protection. He made me think of my own dogs and how crazy protective they can be at times and it made me love the story all the more.

In the end, I would give this book 4.5 stars, only because it made me have panic attacks over the dog’s safety, and there was a slowness to the story in the beginning that made it a little hard to get into. But, ultimately I really enjoyed Ten Thousand Doors of January and I would recommend it to anyone who loves stories of escapism and characters discovering other worlds. Readers who enjoy the Wayward Children series will probably enjoy this story as well.

I love books that seem to be orchestrated just for the pleasure of reading. The Ten Thousand Doors of January seems to pull off just that, with imaginative writing and a story-within-a-story plot concept.

January Scaller grows up in a beautiful mansion filled with loads of odd treasures. Her father travels a lot for work and January is the ward of a wealthy man, named Mr. Locke, and often left to her own devices.

January has been carrying around a secret that she has never shared with anyone. When she was just seven, she found a magical door that lead her to a beautiful city. In a moment of bravery, she shared this with Mr. Locke, who grounded her for sharing such ridiculous tales.

When January stumbles upon a book, hidden away in a chest, she begins to find herself immediately connected to the story.

It is about a young woman, named Adelaide, who has also found doors. As January begins to read this story, she stumbles again upon more and more doors that help her understand her own story and the story of her parents.

This is the type of writing where you want to underline passages or read these imaginative sentences out loud. Harrow builds these incredible worlds within each of these doors that lead the reader on adventure after adventure.

If you are looking for a fantasy escape, this is such a good one.

Honestly, it reads like a modern day classic and is just the kind of magic we need to escape with right now.

Add this one to your stack, even if you aren’t a fantasy lit lover. I have a feeling you will fall in love with this story too!