I received a free digital ARC from Macmillan/Tor via NetGalley. In this 7th installment in the Wayward Children’s series, Cora asks to leave Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children for the Whitehorn Institute because they have been touted as able to help her forget all the memories that are keeping her unhappy in this world. Cora meets some new children struggling in this world and together they must decide what is best for each of them.

Each installment in this series is an emotional roller coaster of personal pain and realization that draws the reader in. I was happy to see some reoccurring characters from previous books make satisfying appearances. Overall, a good read, but another volume where I’m anxiously awaiting more stories that are only slowly rolling out and developing.

Where the Drowned Girls Go is the seventh installment in Senan McGuire’s Wayward Children series of portal fantasy novellas. In this story we are reacquainted with Cora, a mermaid from a world known as The Trenches introduced in one of the previous stories. She finds herself at The Whitethorn Institute – a school that is the complete opposite of Elenaore West’s – one where there are strict rules and is run more like a prison than an educational establishment. I really enjoyed this one! It was so refreshing to be introduced to a new setting, new characters and more world-building. I’m excited to see where the next installment takes us – especially as this one offered a bit of a cliff-hanger! Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for letting me read this amazing ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The seventh entry in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children’s series is one I’ve been waiting for with great anticipation. In fact, one of my favorite things about the new year is knowing these novella sized adventures are on their way soon.
While not a perfect entry into the series (I recommend any of the even numbered titles if you don’t start with Every Heart a Doorway), I was pleasantly surprised how well this followed the events of Come Tumbling Down. For those not familiar with the series, the Wayward Children titles are stories about what happens to the children who find doors that lead them to other worlds (think Lucy Pevensie) after they return to ours.
Our favorite mermaid, Cora, is the protagonist this time around, and is suffering from one of the events of book 6. No longer content waiting for the Trenches, and trying desperately to escape the voices that are haunting her, she makes the choice to transfer to The Whitehorn Institute, a place she believes will finally bring her peace. What she finds, however, isn’t what she expects. The Whitehorn Institute is cold, devoid of feeling and hellbent on breaking the spirits of the young travelers who enter its halls. Here, you are expected to leave your past behind and let go of your adventures… or face consequences.
I loved Cora’s progression through this title, and how she works her way from fear to strength- the arc feels natural and the world building for the “real” world is vastly expanded here. This is the first of the Wayward Children books to take place entirely in our world, but I don’t feel like it suffers for it. Not only that, but we’re left on a bit of a cliff-hanger- I’m excited to see how the story will progress from this point forward. I won’t say much for fear of spoiling it, but there is a great enemy who is introduced who I think will pay a huge role in the coming titles.
4/5 ⭐️’s for this title. Where the Drowned Girls Go will be available on January 4th, 2022. Thank you @macmillanusa , @tordotcompub , and @netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The latest in this line of novellas is better if you have read the previous two. It isn’t necessary to have read all of them but the previous two have people that are featured in this one. Cora isn’t dealing well with coming back from the Moors. She wants to go back to the Trenches but the Drowned Gods in the deep waters of the Moors want her more. Cora can’t take the calls in her dreams leaving her with sleepless nights she begs to go to the other school for Wayward Children. The one for kids that don’t want to travel back to their worlds but the slam the door shut and live here forever. But once she is there it is not what she thought, and she is desperate to escape. And one day she gets a new roommate, someone she knows very well and then the reader finds out just what the Whitethorn Institute is doing.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

Where the Drowned Girls Go, by Seanan McGuire, is the latest outstanding volume in the Wayward Children series (a series I can’t praise enough). Each entry in the series features one or more teens who found a door where there wasn’t supposed to be one. These doors whisked them away to a strange world where oceans can be made of strawberry soda or the horses talk or the dead waltz. Cora’s world transformed her into a mermaid. Now that’s she back in the “real” world, Cora is having a hard time adjusting. Things get worse after another trip through the doors.

Cora is one of several students at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, there to find a way to make peace with leaving a place that felt more like home than their actual homes. Before Cora was a mermaid, she was bullied for being overweight. Nothing she would do would get rid of fat that genetics wants to hold onto. But as a mermaid, Cora was perfect and beautiful. She had been making progress at Eleanor’s school, but she takes another trip through the doors to help her friends, an encounter with the Drowned Gods of the Moors makes it impossible for Cora to relax. Her only option, she feels, is to turn to Eleanor’s competitor at the Whitethorn Institute. Unlike Eleanor, who works with her students to help them adjust while keeping alive the hope that their doors will return for them, Whitethorn pushes its students to forget that there are other worlds and doors.

As soon as Cora arrives at Whitethorn, she knows she’s made a mistake. Whitethorn is about conformity. It’s about misery. It’s about erasing everything that’s unique about the students who come there. What I love about this series is that it celebrates quirks and heroism and individuality—not forcing square pegs into round holes—but in a way that’s honest about the costs that have to be paid. I wish these books had been around when I was younger because I think they’re among the best coming-of-age stories I’ve ever read.

Another fun story! We get Cora and Sumi and they meet Regan--but in an awful place. Enjoyed this like I have all of this series.
Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy!

I will admit, before starting this book, I had no idea it was part of a series. With that being said, I wish I would have read the other books first to understand everything more, and to have more of a connection to the characters as a whole.
I can say that I love the authors writing style. I loved Cora as the protagonist. I appreciate that fat phobia was addressed in the book and loved the plot. I look forward to going back to read the previous books in the series.

Reading McGuire’s newest Wayward Children novella has become something of a Christmas tradition for me over the past few years. While my reading experience has varied book to book, it’s always cozy and enjoyable and transportive. I request very few ARCs, but this series is top among them and I’m always elated to receive the next installment. I was cautiously excited about Where the Drowned Girls Go, as it’s a pretty direct followup to my least favorite novella in the series, Beneath the Sugar Sky. However, this newest novella was absolutely fantastic; so much so, in fact, that it made me want to go back and reread Beneath the Sugar Sky to see if my opinion of it had changed. Where the Drowned Girls Go was a thoughtful, different addition to the series, and builds on and links every single one of its predecessors.

Cora Miller, a girl who found her true identity as a mermaid of the Trenches, as been claimed by the Drowned Gods of the Moors, a different world than the one to which she yearns to return. Back at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, Cora is so scared of the Drowned Gods that she is determined to escape and forget any and all doors to other realms, even the one that her heart calls home. And she’ll do it at any cost. This determination leads her to switch her enrollment to West’s sister school, the Whitethorn Institute, despite Eleanor’s desperate pleading for her to reconsider. Because Whitethorn isn’t welcoming, friendly, or safe. It’s a prison, and Cora has just voluntarily incarcerated herself. Will the Drowned Gods find her anyway? Will Cora let herself fade, as Whitethorn demands of her? Or will she finally find the courage to face her fears and search for home?

Besides Cora, we have a fairly extensive cast of returning character at West’s, as well as new characters we meet at Whitethorn. I found most all of these new characters interesting, and the returning characters who received much time on the page had all developed in lovely ways. This is especially true of Cora herself. I didn’t love her in her first story, Beneath the Sugar Sky, for a host of reasons. But I found many of those reasons not only addressed but rectified in this new chapter of her story. She grew tremendously as a character, and I’ve come to love her as much as I do Jack and Kade and Christopher. I’m now incredibly interested in getting more of her story.

I mentioned that this book builds on all of the preceding novellas. Some of the others could be read independently of the rest of the series, but that is definitely not the case here. The plots and settings and characters of the six books before this one are essential to understanding and appreciating Where the Drowned Girls Go. I feel like this installment bound the others into one entity, a solid foundation upon which McGuire could take the series in any direction for any duration. It made me incredibly excited to see what comes next.

Something I have loved about every single Wayward Children novella is the philosophical depth McGuire so beautifully imbues into the prose of each story. The writing is exquisite; I always find myself recording pages of quotes that moved me both with what they communicate and the lovely ways in which the do so. Even though all of these books are under 200 pages long, they always make me think and feel deeply. McGuire truly has a gift, and it’s always beautifully wielded on the page. I’m in awe. If each of these novellas has a philosophical theme, this one is courage and self-acceptance and being willing to stand up for both yourself and others, even when those in authority truly believe the ways in which they hurt you are “for your own good.” The dichotomy between the two school hammered these points home, and gave me an even deeper appreciation for the haven Eleanor West offers.

Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series is this wonderful, rare balancing act between comforting and thought-provoking. Each installment is unique and offers something different in both story and topics to contemplate. But the central thread, the desire to find a place of our own and the need to Be Sure before we take the risky step out of our comfort zone and into a reality that fits us better, binds all of these stories into something even stronger together than they are individually. Where the Drowned Girls Go acts to solidify that tie while also telling a very compelling story in its own right. There’s something truly magical about McGuire’s writing and world building, and I’m already eagerly awaiting the eighth installment in the series.

McGuire always brings something special to the table when she writes a Wayward Children entry, and in this latest entry we reunite with some unexpected old faces and take a look at what adventures can be found in this world without going through a door. Surprisingly, there is quite an adventure to be had!

A sinister school that attempts to straighten out children who have passed through doors to other worlds and returned is the main setting for this book, and when Cora enrolls herself in a desperate attempt to be free of what she feels is the corrupting influence of otherworldly powers, she finds herself struggling to both believe in herself and get back to where she belongs.

One of the most interesting novels in the entire series and well worth a read, though newcomers are going to be entirely confused if they start here, so try getting on board from an earlier entry.

I love returning to this world every year. Where the Drowned Girls Go is one of the strongest in the series in my opinion. Cora has grown on me as a character and the creepy atmosphere of Whitethorn was perfect.

As a lover of all things mermaid, I’m delighted that Cora has gotten her own book after being a secondary player in others. WHERE DROWNED GIRLS GO is the seventh book in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. These gorgeous portal fantasies are all fast reads - novella length and they’re incredibly representative - sexuality, body type, gender, ethnicity. All sensitively written. And these books will absolutely wreck you. Expect book hangovers upon finishing them.

Where Drowned Girls Go is about Cora, who once visited a world of mermaids, and then one with gods of the deep. Despite returning to this world and the School for Wayward Children, Cora keeps hearing the gods and fears they’ll call her back to their dark and cold world.

So Cora discovers that there’s another school for the children who come back through the doors. And yet, of course, it’s not quite as it seems.

This is the perfect blend of dark academia and mystery. Cora discovers that she’s stronger than she thought - able to handle bullies and the casual cruelties dealt out by the staff at the Whitethorn Institute. She’s also able to inspire and help those around her.

Body positive, we get more of Cora’s backstory about how she’s always been fat and how everyone - her parents, teachers, coaches has tried to “fix” her. As someone with a lifelong struggle with weight and the endless discussion abouTHEt what healthy looks like vs was popular culture tells it looks like, I appreciated every moment of this book even when my feels were getting punched hard.

Not the best entry point into the series but as the books are novellas, easy to binge and be up to speed quickly.

Pub date: Jan 2022
I loved it! This might be my favorite in this fairie tale fantasy series! Was this the first one not set mostly in a fantastical realm, but our world entirely? In any case, it's always monsters vs heroes, and our hero Cora is amazing! She has to save herself amid the brutality of bullies and her own desperate moves to evade the Drowned Gods, and eventually comes to a breakthrough revelation. The new setting of an alternate school for children who went through doors was sufficiently creepy, and the reveal of the monster was really well done. Ms McGuire's beautiful writing shines and makes it a pleasure to read!

<i>Most people can’t be entirely sure they’d be happier in one place over another, so they don’t find their doors again. But lots of people go back. They have the right combination of selfish and lonely and hopeful and stupid and earnest and selfless, and they find their doors, and they go back.

What happens to the kids who come back through a doorway and don't end up at Eleanor Wests's school? It was interesting to have a different sort of setting for this story, and to see some previous characters brought together in a different sort of quest and trial than readers are used to seeing. I think this one brings something fresh to the series. This should not be read as a standalone.

This is a really interesting installment in the series. The introduction of a second "bad" school adds a lot to the world and Cora is a great protagonist. I have seen several people say this is a good starting point for people new to the series and I can sort of see that, but I imagine that the emotional investment wouldn't be as strong.

Where the Drowned Girls Go is the latest in McGuire's Wayward Children series and is definitely one of my favorite entries. For the first time in the series, we step away from Eleanor West's school and into another, but at the Whitethorn Institute, things are run much differently than we're used to. I loved seeing Cora's struggle with where she belonged take us into unfamiliar territory and seeing how this book put Eleanor West's school into a greater context and changed our view of what we thought we knew. As expected, Where the Drowned Girls Go carries all of McGuire's signature wit, heart, and adventure and brings back some familiar faces, as well as some new ones. I can't recommend this series enough and if this installment is anything to go by, McGuire is going to continue taking this series to unexpected places that you won't want to miss.

Many thanks to Macmillan-Tor and NetGalley for the ARC! This book will be released next week on Tuesday January 4 2022!

We are back with Cora for this installment of the Wayward Children series, and she is having a difficult time recovering from her encounter with the Drowned Gods of the Moors. Due to this, she decides to transfer from Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children to the sister school for children who want to forget their experiences: the Whitethorn Institute. This second school has been lurking in the background since book one, and I was excited to finally get a peek at it. It is the absolute antithesis of Eleanor’s school with constant supervision, strict rules, and abusive discipline measures. McGuire does a great job crafting this sinister and claustrophobic setting and depicting how it affects the students.

The Whitethorn students we are introduced to were easily my favorite part of the book. Regan, main character of Across the Green Grass Plains, plays a major role, and I was happy to see her again. She’s very different; the school has broken her, and it’s heartbreaking. But the contrast between her character here and her character in the previous book highlights the school’s horrors. I also found the new characters intriguing. Some struggle against the school’s oppressive rules while others adapt and become just as cruel. The two characters that interested me the most, the nameless girl and Rowena, are actually in the latter category. The nameless girl in particular has a great story, and I would love to read a full account of it. I hope we’ll see more of them both in later books.

Cora herself also has a wonderful arc. McGuire handles her trauma well, showing just how debilitating it is and how it sucks the joy out of things Cora loves. Due to all this, her request to switch schools and try to forget feels understandable and realistic even though we, as the readers, know it’s a horrible idea. I enjoyed the transformation Cora goes through during her time at the Whitethorn Institute. I also appreciated learning more of her backstory, particularly her struggle with an eating disorder. We know from the previous books that Cora is fat, and here McGuire gives us a window into what led her to attempt suicide and end up in the Trenches. This is the first time I’ve seen a character with a restrictive eating disorder portrayed as anything other than extremely skinny. It’s unfortunately common that people struggling with anorexia get ignored if their weight isn’t considered “low enough.” I am just so thankful for McGuire touched on this topic and provided representation that has long been missing in our media.

I did notice that this book is not as self-contained as some of the others. I knew that the odd numbered books build on each other and require knowledge of the previous books (as opposed to the even numbered ones, which work as standalones), but the main plot has always been resolved by the end. That’s not the case here. McGuire leaves us with a large threat looming, and I assume this plot will continue into book nine and maybe even beyond. (Based on the title of book eight, it seems we may get the story of Cora’s roommate, Antoinette, in the meantime.) This isn’t a bad thing, and I’m actually quite looking forward to this overarching plot. But it was a noticeable shift in the series for me.

Overall, Where the Drowned Girls Go is an excellent addition to an equally excellent series. I highly recommend it, and I can’t wait for the next book.

4.5 stars

This was a wonderful addition to the series and honestly one I didn’t know I needed. It answers the question “Well what happens if someone doesn’t like the world they go to?”. The addition to the world felt like unlocking an area on a video game map and I loved it despite how dark it was. Fans of this series will absolutely love this novella and I highly recommend picking it up.

McGuire has done it again. Where the Drowned Girls Go is the 7th installment of The Wayward Children series and it holds all the magic of the first six books.

You see, there are magical doors that call children from this world to other lands, other realms, and other worlds. When they come back to this world, they aren't always believed nor is the magic of their world totally gone from them. Miss Wests home for these Wayward children is a place they can go to heal, feel welcomed, and know they are understood and loved. Yet sometimes, what seems like the end is only the beginning.....

For Cora, it is different. She has been through two magical doors in order to help rescue a friend and now that second world doesn't want to let her go. It haunts her days and her nightmares. In her distress, Cora leaves Miss Wests home and enrolls in the sister school Whitethorn Institute. But Whitethorn isn't what it seems and this time Cora may be the one who needs rescued....

I love everything about this series. From the beautiful representation of LGBTQIA+ character(s) to the fantastical adventures portrayed within the pages. There is a deep haunting humanity to these books that unfolds truths inside us that we only dare to realize are there.

This is easily my favourite in the series in what feels like a long long time. Since book one, really. And I couldn’t tell you what specifically about this seventh instalment did what the previous five couldn’t. I really have no idea.

Maybe it was finally having a story that featured this other school? The very anti-thesis of the Home for Wayward Children? Maybe it was Cora? Maybe it was all of it.

I’ll admit, I had forgotten most of what preceded this book which was a bit of a problem initially as so much depends on knowing what Cora experienced since returning from her Door. But it is more or less glossed over and hinted at, I just wish I had a better understanding. Regardless, though, the point is less what came before and what Cora wants of her future; mostly, to have one. Which brings her to ask for a transfer to Whitethorn. If only she really knew what she was asking for..

“<i>This place hurts people. It makes them crawl into their own hearts to be safe, and then turns those hearts against them</i>.”

Again, I really did love pretty much everything about this one. I’m even almost tempted to round up on it. I don’t imagine we’ll see a continuation of this particular plot/cliffhanger in book eight, as they seem to switch off, but I can’t wait to reunite with these characters and see how they might come back and save those still at Whitethorn. If they do.. who knows!

This has been a strange series for me. One I love in concept but not always in execution; and my relationship with this author, particularly under this penname, has been fraught with this kind of pattern. But it’s books like this one, it’s remembering she’s also Mira Grant, that keep me coming back and refusing to throw in the towel. And I’m so glad for that.

3.5 stars

Finally, a book that centers on Cora. Cora is by far my favorite of the Wayward Children, and I was so excited when I realized this book would focus on her. Unfortunately, we never get to see The Trenches behind Cora’s door. Instead, we’re taken to Whitehall Institute, which is basically an incredibly strict behavioral treatment center for kids with Doors.

I was super disappointed that we didn’t actually get to go through any doors in this installment, because those books are my favorite kinds. I loved visiting Sumi’s candy coated world of Confection, Lundy’s logical Goblin Market, and Regan’s green, grass fields of centaurs and other hooved creatures. While I really enjoy this series, books that take place more firmly in our world are never as immersive and exciting for me as the ones that invent an entirely new one.

That being said, I still really, really liked this book. I had all but forgotten there was another school. I think it might have been mentioned in the first book at some point. Even though it was mostly magic free, I really liked the development and introduction to some of the new characters at the school and the reintroduction of characters from past books (shout out to a returning Regan!). Cora, as usual, was my favorite, but Sumi is always a welcome addition.

As usual, this book is full of characters who represent those who are often underrepresented in fiction. Intersex and LGBTQ characters are the main characters of these novels. Best of all, queerness, body type, or gender are never the focus of the characters’ personality or quest. They are who they are fully and (mostly) happily. It’s also really refreshing to read about a character with a body type like mine who is the hero of the story. Cora is fat, but she’s also healthy and strong and brave. Maybe one day we’ll get to visit her underwater world. Until then, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for my own door that says “Be Sure”.