I should've known from the small summary that this would end up one sided in politics, and it was. it was a huge disappointment with how alienated it made anyone feel that didn't share the authors political view. I was curious about how this would end up so I trudged through it and can say I definitely didn't like it and am very disappointed in the author for writing it.

This book was difficult for me to consume because of the politics. Cashore is one of my favorite writers, but I was a little thrown off by the substance of this book. I obviously still enjoy her writing style but it definitely wasn't my favorite.

A modern, whimsical story of politics and identity. This one is definitely a little different from other books out there and it was for that reason that I was looking forward to reading it. But it just wasn't it for me. I'm not going to lie, I had no idea what was going on or what was supposed to happen. I felt no plot going on here, even though it feels like a book that needed one. When I reached the end I was kind of just like ??? That was it??? The characters were pretty good, I will say that. I lived for the aunts. I just wish there was more to the story to grasp.

As a fellow COVID-changed-the-course-of-my-life girl, Wilhelmina and I share the perpetual grief for this version of ourselves that the world has left behind.
But trying to explain that to people through hallucinations might be a stretch.

I'm not sure things have gotten better since 2020, especially since this story was written with nowadays knowledge. Wars, inflation, another election, and whatever you wanna add in a few years are no joke, but the pandemic is still a tough subject for a valid reason.
So, keep in mind the book takes place in 2020 but was written with the understanding of 2023 (at least), it's on its whole pretty garbage.

Wilhelmina has depression, but everyone is too busy noticing - even her therapist of a mother. She can't properly grieve the loss of her beloved aunt and, due to COVID, doesn't have a goal in life, only the survival instinct of trying to keep her family alive by doing everything they need or can't do by themselves.
In the end, she comes to the realization - thanks to weird visions followed by odd dreams - that she needs to embrace the magic of the world to let herself move on and grieve her loss properly.
Honestly, how the subject is handled is bullshit. We gather she loved her aunt very much and she misses her dearly, but she's not grieving her: she feels stuck and she's suffocating in a small apartment with other six people, she doesn't know what to do with her life and how can she change it. She's miserable because she's in a miserable situation and her mental health went out of the window, but justifying all of this with grief and magic - again, more hallucinations than anything else - is kinda insulting.

And if that isn't enough, there's the other matter: for some inexplicable reason to me, she's in the wrong about how she behaves. I mean, she did her whole and now she's annoyed that people can't keep up with her?! Fuck that!
She's going through something very serious and pretty palpable if someone could just properly look at her for more than five seconds, and her supposed best friends don't even have the time to text her back.
But everything is obviously forgiven by the end because hey, she was in a bad place and she’s sorry she was so weird.

Also, and this is the last effort I’ll use for this book, the narration’s only flaw is being made way too many words for talking about nothing in moments where the focus is on something else.
For example, the political bits all the other reviews complain about are just this: too many words spent on a shitty situation, almost morbid, since we’re in the same crisis four years after that, not that Trump’s voters will miraculously stop voting for him after reading this rant about their idol.

Thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Youn Readers Group and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

There is a Door in This Darkness by Kristin Cashore is a exploration of grief, loss, and the search for meaning in a world marked by uncertainty. Cashore's lyrical prose and Wilhelmina's relatable struggles create a powerful and intimate narrative. As the protagonist grapples with the weight of personal loss amidst a backdrop of national turmoil, readers are invited to journey through a complex emotional landscape. While the novel's pacing may be deliberate, it ultimately rewards patience with a profound and thought-provoking conclusion. This is a coming-of-age story for our times, one that resonates with the challenges faced by a generation searching for hope in the darkness.

"There Is a Door in This Darkness" by Kristin Cashore is a hauntingly atmospheric and beautifully written novel that explores themes of mystery and self-discovery. The book's evocative prose and intriguing plot create a deeply immersive experience. Cashore's ability to blend lyrical storytelling with suspenseful elements makes this a compelling and memorable read.

I love Kristin Cashore, and I think her talent for writing heartfelt and meaningful characters and stories is present here, however I struggled to get invested into these particular characters and their lives.

This was a really interesting book, but I didn't realize how political it would be! Read it for the author, because I love her fantasy novels, but this one didn't quite work for me. Still, a good read.

I wanted to give this book a chance because I love Kristin Cashore, but unfortunately it ended up being a DNF. I want to believe that this would resonate with the intended YA audience that was growing up during the pandemic and the political landscape portrayed in the book, but for me it was just dredging up a lot of feelings and memories that I don't want to be thinking about while reading for fun.

DNF @20%

Sorry, this just wasn't for me! It's not a bad book, I was just really bored. And not sure how I feel about something like this set during the height of the COVID pandemic. Truth be told, I only gave it a try because I've loved other books by Kristin Cashore, even though this type of YA contemporary novel (albeit with a bit of magical realism) isn't really my thing. Your mileage may vary. I like the idea of the queer aunts and plus size heroine, it was just so SLOW and had so much pandemic stuff I found I didn't really want to revisit right now. I received a copy of this book for review via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This story follows a young girl who navigates grief through COVID-19 and the 2016 election. I have heard a lot about Cashore and their fantasy series but I was disappointed with this book. When I first read the tagline, I thought this was a cute fantasy story with a character dealing with grief but instead, this was a rant about politics. When it comes to fantasy, I don’t mind politics but don’t enjoy it much in contemporary. It was way too focused on COVID and politics that there wasn’t much going on. Also I don’t see how this is a fantasy book because I might have missed that part of the book.

Wilhelmina is the main character of this book and she wasn’t a bad character. She was fine but I just couldn’t get much to her not because of the politics or the election but her attitude in the book. I wish she communicated more with her friends and showcased more of her other side. There were some side characters in this book but none who interested me.

The ending was fine but I didn’t really care for it. I did like the author’s note and how much of the book follows her story. Her note made a lot more sense and connected more with me than the entirety of the book. I just wish we got to explore more of the fantasy and the other parts of the world instead of just the two main topics.

*this e-arc was sent to me by the publisher to give an honest review in return*

gentle dnf at 20%. i liked the characters and vibe, but i think i'm just not emotionally ready to read about the pandemic and the 2020 election in the middle of another collapsing year. may give this another shot in a couple more years but for now it wasn't for me.

I was skeptical coming into this one because the premise is really unappealing, especially so soon after the events of the novel took place in real life, but I’ve enjoyed Cashore’s previous work so I wanted to give it a fair try.

The problem is that this isn’t really a novel in the proper sense. It’s structured as such, but it’s mostly an endless, repetitive rant about America in 2016-2020. It’s not that I don’t agree with Cahore’s general perspective. Yes, Trump was bad. Covid was also bad. Living through the combination of the two was worse. But I’m pretty sick of rehashing it and complaining about it, and it’s far too soon to revisit it academically or emotionally.

And while I think it’s fine to use this time and place as the backdrop of a novel, simply complaining about it is not a plot, it’s not character development, it’s not really even a worthy attempt that establish time and place.

All of this just seemed disappointingly self indulgent, like instead of journaling or talking to friends or a therapist, the author decided to dump her (common and unoriginally rendered) complaints on the reader. I have greatly enjoyed Cashore’s previous world building and storytelling, but this, as they say, ain’t it, and I’m surprised a publisher let this go to print.

This brought me right out of a book slump. Kristin Cashore is an incredible author, and I was delighted to follow her into this charming urban fantasy. I wish Wilhelmina's aunts would adopt me for their own.

Book Review of There is a Door in This Darkness by Kristin Cashore

Cover Story: Maze
BFF Charm: Peas in a Pod
Talky Talk: Temperance
Bonus Factors: Unconventional Families, Body Positivity, Birds, Friendship
Anti-Bonus Factors: Arbitrary Skepticism, Politics
Relationship Status: TEABS

Cover Story: Maze
Mazes aren’t really a recurring motif in this story, but you could argue that Wilhelmina is lost and trying to find her way, and it does relate to the title. I would have liked to see some cute owls or elephants – which are recurring motifs – but that might give the wrong impression of how serious this book is, so yeah – this works.

The Deal:
Boston, 2020. Wilhelmina Hart’s beloved aunt Frankie died of cancer in 2016. Four years later, she’s still grieving when COVID hits. Now instead of the post-graduation gap year with her aunt she always looked forward to, she’s stuck in a too-small apartment with worried parents and rambunctious younger siblings while her two best friends share a pandemic bubble without her, and the presidential election is wearing on everybody’s nerves. As if that’s not enough, Wilhelmina starts seeing mysterious, sparkly messages that lead her to her classmate James Fang, whose family’s doughnut shop is struggling to stay in business. Is she losing her grip on reality, or are the messages real – and what are they trying to tell her?

BFF Charm: Peas in a Pod
I can relate to Wilhelmina for a number of reasons. She’s fighting to ignore society’s pressure to lose weight. She gets along better with old ladies than her peers. She hides from her loved ones to avoid snapping at them when she’s in a snappish mood and they don’t deserve it. She cannot take a compliment without analyzing it to death: “I’m a queen (…) Am I, like, bossy?” Last but not least, there’s the highly specific irritation of wearing glasses with a face mask. I don’t have a James, though (sigh!) – and let me tell you, if I saw mystical signs leading me toward one, I’d follow them like a shot.

Swoonworthy Scale: 6
James and Wilhelmina take social distancing very seriously: masks on, six feet apart. That doesn’t mean she can’t use her eyes or her imagination, though, to appreciate a cute boy who bakes doughnuts and studies wild birds. She’s wary at first, because supernatural things keep happening every time they meet, but since he sees them too and is as bewildered as she is, she can’t help but trust him. When other forms of intimacy are not possible, verbal intimacy means a lot. The way they admit to each other in words how much they wish they could touch may be one of the most romantic things I’ve read this year so far.

Talky Talk: Temperance
Wilhelmina’s late aunt Frankie was a tarot card reader. Temperance was her favorite card because, to her, it represented a balanced way of looking at the world: “Remembering the mundane makes you smart,” she advises her niece in a flashback. “Remembering the magic makes you brave.” Wilhelmina has trouble following this advice, as she’s too unhappy to believe in magic (even when it’s literally happening), but it describes Cashore’s writing style perfectly.

Bonus Factor: Unconventional Families
James’ family is Chinese on his father’s side and Italian on his mother’s. As a little boy at his nonna’s funeral, he mixed Chinese and Western rites and threw paper offerings at the church roof to get them to Heaven. This resonates with Wilhelmina because her own family is similar. Her aunts Frankie, Esther, and Margaret were a polyamorous triad before Frankie’s death, used to blending traditions from their different backgrounds: they have Shabbat candles, tarot cards, and a Saint Francis of Assisi icon in the same household, and it’s beautiful.

Bonus Factor: Body Positivity
Wilhelmina is fat and has a chronic pain condition, but nothing and nobody is going to stop her from appreciating her body. She takes care of herself (stretching exercises, dictating instead of typing when her hands hurt) and makes an effort to look for fashions that suit her, not because she’s vain or insecure, but because she enjoys fashion.

Bonus Factor: Birds
After Wilhelmina and James witness the rescue of an injured owl, he tells her that his dream is to work at a wild bird sanctuary. He points out local birds to her and sends her videos to cheer her up. The only time we see him lose his temper is at the sight of an endangered species of woodpecker as a taxidermy trophy, and I can’t blame him.

Bonus Factor: Friendship
Wilhelmina is fiercely loyal to her friends Julie and Bee, ever since they were children and supporting Bee through an abusive home life. But now that Julie and Bee share a pandemic bubble so their younger siblings can be homeschooled together – they can fix each other’s makeup, but Wilhelmina can’t see them without their masks – she’s afraid of becoming a third wheel. Struggling to hide this fear, paradoxically, makes her keep them at even more of a distance. Can they ever be as close as they used to be?

Anti-Bonus Factor: Arbitrary Skepticism
Wilhelmina’s magic is clearly inherited from her aunts. She’s grown up all her life listening to them talk about drawing energy from the earth and sensing the personality of an object’s past owner. As a child, she used a sixth sense to locate everyone in her house, and she can still do it if she concentrates. But when the visions start (admittedly in very weird ways, like a fortune teller prophesying that her doughnuts will be stale), it takes ages for her to admit that there might be other options besides losing her mind.

Anti-Bonus Factor: Politics
The 2016 and 2020 presidential elections are discussed in all their exhausting, infuriating detail. I’m not even American and it still gave me unpleasant memories – although Wilhelmina’s determination to check her own biases was inspiring.

Relationship Status: TEABS
Kristin Cashore has outdone herself again: first the Graceling series, then Jane, Unlimited, and now this. When I’m an old lady and someone asks me what the 2020’s were like for someone like me, all I will have to do is hand them this book.

This book was well written and the characters were great but I feel like it took me forever to get through this one. I think a lot of readers would enjoy this story and I really did enjoy the overall story in this book and that it tied back to things we all experienced before and during COVID. Loved the main character and her story throughout the back and how everything seemed to tie back at the end.

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

I loved the Graceling series by the author, so I jumped on the chance to read her latest book. I didn't even read the synopsis, which I should have. This is nothing like Graceling. T This is a magical realism book set during the COVID pandemic and the 2020 election. Both of those topics a bit too raw, and the 2024 election is looking to have the same candidates run. This book focused on a time I'd rather forget, and is heavily politicized. I don't think I would have picked this book up had I known how politically focused it was.

I thought the author did a good job expressing Wilhelmina's emotions through the pandemic regarding anger, jealousy, grief, chronic pain, and loss. She wasn't coping well with any of her feelings, and I think that was pretty true for many of us as we navigated the pandemic. The book is told in alternating timelines that eventually bring her story together with all of the strange things that have been happening to her and make her face that she isn't OK. I can understand and appreciate why the author wrote this book as a way of coping with what we all went through especially the stress, grief, and trauma many experienced. I hope that readers can relate to Wilhelmina and the journey she goes on.

Overall I do think this was well written, but this one wasn't my favorite by the author. Readers are either really going to connect with the main character and the journey she is going on or they aren't going to like her at all. Perhaps younger readers will relate to Wilhelmina a bit better than I did. The timeline jumps are either going to be to your preference or not. This book is very heavily politicized, and I prefer to keep real life politics out of my fiction. I have my opinions, but I part of the reason I read is to escape real life, and this book put me right back into the center of several very hard years.

I wanted to like this book so much.... I loved the first maybe 20% of it. But I couldn't get through the politics and honestly, it may be too early for me to be immersed in a book about COVID.

3.5 almost 4 stars
This book has fantasy as the first genre, but I really didn't see any fantasy in it. It was a little more magical realism I think. So this threw me off a little. It's also VERY political (anti-Trump) and COVID heavy.
This book is about our main character Wilhelmina navigating one of her great-aunts death piled on COVID piled on Trump's election and subsequent stress of the next election. She has kind of been going through the motions, taking a year off school before going to college to help her 2 younger siblings through their schooling. 2 of her great aunts (all 3 lived together in Pennsylvania) have come to live with them through the pandemic. One day, Wilhelmina starts seeing weird things and finds out a boy from her class James is also seeing them. Will this pull her out of her trauma depression?
I liked the characters, Wilhelmina had a great bond with her 2 best friends, but they cannot spend any time together due to COVID restrictions. Her family was extremely supportive of her and of everyone in the family which was very sweet. My favorite characters were Delia, Wilhelmina's 10 year old sister who was extremely sassy and the aunts. We get flashbacks, so really I loved all 3 of them because we do get to get to know all of them.
So I don't really like political books, and I feel like a book about the 2016 and 2020 elections are so close that it just made me a little panicky with the 2024 election coming up, though I agree with the character's views. There was a lot of political talk. Weirdly enough, I was interested in the book as a whole. It wasn't really plot driven, it was more character driven. I had absolutely no trouble following along even though there was literally no action or anything. I just had a genuinely good time with it (I just knocked it down a little because there was SO much political and COVID talk).
I would definitely not suggest this book if you are still triggered by COVID or the 2016/2020 elections, but if those things don't bother you, I would suggest giving it a try!

There is a Door in This Darkness is the first book by Kristin Cashore that I read that wasn’t Graceling—as many of you know, I’m a huge fan of the Graceling series! At first, I wasn’t sure if a contemporary YA was for me, but the description of this book being about magic had me really curious—how is something both magical and contemporary?! Also, this book is about grief, and that is something that does tend to draw me in, having had my fair share.

TIADITD reminded me so much of the movie Big Fish (based on a book by the same name, that I’ve not read) because in a seemingly ordinary world, magic abounds and coincidence and connection sweep the MCs on a journey of discovery—and, in Wilhelmina’s case, overcoming loss and finding love.

This book also deals with the COVID Pandemic and the 2016 and 2020 elections, so basically this book is heavy, and yet it’s filled with light—both literal and figurative. It was kind of interesting to me that I didn’t always like Wilhelmina, she was often selfish, grouchy, and irrational, and yet I loved her journey, and I also enjoyed how she found her way out of those frustrations that I felt with her. I also loved the cast of characters; I feel like each one was well-rounded and solidly developed and the book would not have been the same without each and every individual side character because they all affected Wilhelmina and her adventure in different and important ways. James was, of course, my favorite—who doesn’t love a doughnut-slinging MLI who seems fated to enter one’s life?

In the end, I give this book five stars; but I will say the political commentary—while I wholeheartedly agree!—came off a little too pointedly to have felt natural on the part of the narrator, and I think would have felt less forced had the book maybe been in first person POV or the language been only used by the characters.