Why am I crying??

It's almost hard to review any Wayward Children book at this point because I have come to love the series *so* much that I can't even imagine what would make me dislike an entry. Even the books I'm not a huge fan of (mostly Across the Green Grass Fields), I still appreciate for what they tell us about the worlds, these characters I love dearly, and how the doors work.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed Mislaid in Parts Half-Known. Given the cover and knowing that it would follow Antsy, this wasn't quite what I was expecting. There was a lot more meandering, but I loved the impetus for them going on this quest to begin with, and I very much enjoyed the character development in this. The ending in particular really got me -- Cora became one of my favorites through this series and my many re-reads, and I desperately wanted her to be happy. That scene with Kade was incredibly touching. Now we just need to get back to Prism and see him become the goblin prince!

There are those who enjoy the group quest books and those who enjoy the individual world books, so I can certainly see some folks not loving this one. But if you're a fan of the series, of course you should read it.

For newer fans or folks wanting to start the series, know that this is not a great entry point. People often say that it doesn't matter what order you read the books in, but this references several other books and is a direct continuation of the stories told in books 7 and 8. You might still like it if you dive in, but I fear you'd be lost and end up ditching the series.

As always, I am SO pumped to read what comes next.

I liked this. It was short and effective. It was a good audiobook with a good narrator and I flew through it. I loved seeing the stories meet each other and while I didn't remember all the details, it was great seeing them come together from what I remember.
Honestly, this entire series deserves a full reread I think and I might just do that if I ever find the time! A great world and great characters.

Thank you to Seanan McGuire, MacMillan Audio, and NetGalley for this advanced copy of Mislaid in Parts Half-Known.

I have long been a fan of the Wayward Children series, eagerly awaiting each new entry with bated breath and eager anticipation. This latest adventure did not disappoint. We delved more deeply into many of our favorite characters' backstories and took our most robust journey yet into the mechanics and worldbuilding of The Doors. If you love this series and are ready to have a dozen questions answered with hundreds more asked, this book is for you.

One of the things I most appreciate about Ms. McGuire's work is her splendid representation - a practice that she carries into the real world by having a different narrator for each book, one whose identities intersect with those of the lead protagonist. Sometimes this yields an audiobook that is a little challenging to listen to as the reader is not a professional narrator. This, however, was not the case. The narrator for Mislaid in Parts Half-Known was absolutely fabulous and a pleasure to listen to.

***4.0 Stars***

Overall,
I truly enjoy this entire series and this installment does not disappoint. We get some closure on several characters, once again visit a new world and get some interesting updates on some of the through line characters of the story. This series is both whimsical and emotional. Each story provides a good life lesson while also being heartbreaking and endearing.

Recommendation,
I would definitely recommend this story to lovers of modern fairy tales. The books in this series are short, no more then 200ish pages and the world building is fantastic. This is the 9th book in the series and should not be read as a standalone.

I was very happy to be approved to hear the audio of this. I think this may be my favorite of the series. I just loved how the narrator brought the characters to life. I enjoyed following Antsy and all the other characters on another adventure. Can't wait for the next installment and pick up a physical copy for my shelf.

I was provided an Audio arc of this book via Macmillan Audio and NetGalley.
5/5 stars!

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known is a continuation of the events from Lost in the Moment and Found. I enjoyed Antsy’s story and was happy that we got some closure for her. A few of our favorite students join Antsy on her journey, and thanks to her ability, we get to explore one of their worlds that we haven’t seen before. This series deals with heavy topics and Seanan handles each subject with tact and grace. In this book, the characters continue to navigate through past traumas and the events that led up to this point. I liked that we went deeper into how the circumstances of their childhood led them to their doors and how those worlds shaped who they are today. I’m eager to see what will happen in book ten, but I’m not ready for the series to be over yet.

This book and certainly the Wayward Children series as a whole, feels like the perfect story to start off the new year.

Why?

Because new years are all about doors closing, doors opening, and taking the opportunity to start with a fresh slate and reinvent yourself and how you see the world, and that’s a big part of what the Wayward Children series is all about.

Beginning with Every Heart a Doorway, the series is a metaphor for finding the place where you belong, the place that your heart calls home, and then getting tossed out of that personal Eden and being forced to make a whole new start on a whole new you – whether you want to or not.

Especially when you don’t. And when you no longer belong in the place you originally came from. You really can’t go home again because it’s not the place you remember and the people who once loved you no longer see you as theirs.

The story in this particular entry in the series picks up where the previous book, Lost in the Moment and Found, left off. Antsy has returned to Earth from the Shop Where the Lost Things Go, nine-years-old in a sixteen-year-old body, still angry at the shopkeeper Vineta and terrified that someone will figure out her secret.

Which they do. Both of her secrets. Her friends figure out that she isn’t nearly as mature as her body appears to be. Her enemies figure out that Antsy left the shop with a talent for finding anything – including other people’s doors – and have absolutely no care in the world about what the doors cost and zero intention to pay for it themselves because that’s what other people are for.

But Antsy can find anything when she needs it badly enough. Including a way out when she and her friends are cornered by the magically mesmerizing head mean girl and her clique of magically reinforced sycophants.

Leading Antsy and company to break one of the School’s most sacred rules. They think they’re hunting for an escape route, but what they’re really searching for is the place that at least one of their hearts calls home. In other words, they’re going on a quest.

A quest to find the one place that Antsy literally can’t afford to return to. Unless she takes it over – for herself.

Escape Rating A: Before I get started on the book, I want to mention that I listened to this one in audio – and that feels like a bit of an afterthought, which is rare. The book was excellent, as you can tell from the rating. But this is a case where the fact I was listening to it instead of reading it didn’t impinge on my consciousness at all. The experience felt seamless, as though the narrator was downloading the story directly into my brain. Which was VERY much unlike Under the Smokestrewn Sky, where the narration detracted from the story.

I said at the top that this book was perfectly themed for the start of the year, because of its fundamental metaphor about doors opening and reinvention that just dovetails perfectly with the thoughts and feelings we all have about the old year ending and the new year beginning.

Ironically, however, this entry in the series is much more about closing doors than it is about opening them, although it definitely carries the theme of self-reflection and reinvention and finally being sure of who one needs to be in the world and their life in it.

At first, the story feels very much a part of the YA genre which the series is often pigeonholed into, as out-of-place, out-of-time Antsy is being persecuted by a powerful clique of ‘mean girls’. It’s only when she starts revealing herself for who she really is and what she really can do that we start to see her as considerably more capable and mature than either her nine-year-old head or her sixteen-year-old body would be capable of.

Because her moral compass is firmly pointed towards doing the right thing, and she’s very sure indeed what that right thing is – at least in the context of the Shop, its doors, its costs, and its purpose. It wants her back, and she wants to go, but it’s more than that. It’s that she’s ready to do the necessary for the shop and for herself. She’s grown up in the ways that matter, she just has to recognize that fact.

She has to ‘Be Sure’, and by the story’s end, she finally is.

But along Antsy’s journey we see other doors that open and close for other ‘wayward children’. Discovering that her best friend is happy and somewhat safe in the world her own heart calls home, even if it’s a world that none of the rest of the travelers would be remotely interested in staying, gives her strength and much-needed closure.

However, the series as a whole feels like it’s winding down, as it should. The young children in the first part of the series are now teenagers and their life paths are reaching out for them. One way or another, their doors are opening, giving them one last chance to be sure enough to go home.

What got me about this entry in the series was the way that the doors and the futures they represent felt like metaphors for life, for making or finding a life filled with magic and purpose. It doesn’t HAVE to be the magic of the doors – because happiness is a magic all its own. All one has to do is find it. And BE SURE.

I’m sure I’ll be back for the next book in this series, currently untitled but scheduled to be published this time next year.

I have enjoyed the Wayward Children series since it first came out and was really excited to see the newest book. The worlds behind each of the doors are all so unique and creative. Seanan McGuire's imagination never ceases to amaze me. I love how so many of the past worlds are revisited and new worlds are introduced within the story.

I listened to this story as an audiobook. The voices are wonderful and really bring the story to life. The narrarator knows how to make each character unique, especially Hudson the magpie and Antsy.

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

This was wonderful, one of my favorites in the series so far. I am a big fan of The Wayward Children series. I highly recommend reading Lost in the Moment and Found prior to reading this as this installment is more of a sequel to that particular story and really finishes up Antoinette's story. All of the other installments are more companion stories. I recommend starting at the beginning with this series so you get to know the characters and the quests that they've gone on as they are mentioned again in later installments.

This follows Antsy after she left her door and ended up at the School for Wayward Children, and our familiar cast of characters that I've grown to love so much finds themselves on yet another quest. Antsy puts her ability to find lost things to good use in this installment and we get to visit some really interesting worlds via the doors. We also get some insight and closure on some of the characters. I'm not sure how many more books are planned in the series, but it feels like things are starting to wrap up. I really love this series as a whole and I'm looking forward to the next installment and plan to reread the series from the beginning soon.

This was the first time I've enjoyed one of the installments via audiobook and I highly recommend it. The narrator did a fantastic job giving a voice to each of the many characters.

This is a great addition to this series. I really enjoyed being with a cast of characters I knew on another adventure into other worlds. It was well done, though provoking and perhaps one of my favorite in the series.

Nine books later and I still love this series. While this certainly lacks the magic of the first three (maybe four) books, I find I still enjoy following these kids' lives. We meet a few new folk, but there are some you'll recognize from previous stories. Urban fantasy always feels just the bit more real, because it could happen. Can I find a door?

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known is the ninth book in the Wayward Children series. This is a series that follows different characters each book, of children who do not fit into this world we live in quite right, and sometimes find doors to other worlds/realms where they really belong. While normally I would say you could read most of these stories as stand-alones to really understand this one and all the additional characters in it you would have needed to have read at least Lost in the Moment and Found to get Antsy’s origin story. But it would be better to have read all the prior stories as so many characters from previous books are in this one as they go on a very interesting quest together.

Antsy lived in a between world where lost things go; she can find anything needed which has made her a bit of a target at the School for Wayward Children full of kids who have lost the doors to the worlds they were in and most want to go back. Befriended by some former leads in books we have read, they are about to go on an accidental quest opening doors and walking into new worlds together. Antsy will see what has become of the shop in the in-between she left has become and have some decisions to make now that she knows all the rules.

I liked that we got to go on a bigger quest in this book with some of my favorite characters. Cade, Christopher and Cora will assist Antsy in finding her world again and will end up making a few important stops along the way. We finally get to see that world of dinosaurs we have heard about in other books, though we don’t get to linger there for long. I always enjoy seeing the different places the kids end up. I liked learning more about how the doors really work and what the real cost is to go through though them.

There were some sad moments as we say goodbye again to some characters as they find their true homes once again, it is happy and yet bittersweet. As always though I’m excited to see the new imaginings in Seanan McGuire’s head and the worlds she has dreamed up for this series.

Narration:
Jesse Vilinsky was a fantastic choice for this series. She was perfect for the voices of Antsy and all the Wayward Children. I have loved her narrations since I first noticed her narration of Swordheart. She is able to capture the emotion and humor of a story and deliver it flawlessly. I always know which character is talking and they all have depth to their voice more than just a new tone. Mislaid in Parts Half-Known was another fantastic performance by Jesse Vilinsky. I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

I absolutely adore this series and I chose to request the audio and the e-book to try and tandem listen and read. I took a leap of faith with the audio because I tend to struggle with fiction narration due to the narrators changing their voices for the characters. I was totally thrilled to find that I loved the narrator and the way that they chose to voice each of the characters. It gave a unique voice to characters that are well loved and new characters that we met along the way.

I absolutely loved this new adventure in the wayward children series and the bonds that the reader gets to see grow and strengthen as they go on yet another quest, this time with Antsy leading the charge as they follow her ability through the Doors. I can't wait to see where they end up next!

Thank you to Seanan McGuire (author), Jesse Vilinsky (narrator), Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for this advanced listener copy of ""Mislaid in Parts Half-Known," book 9 of the Wayward Children Series.

I've always had a ho-hum relationship with this series. It has everything I should want in a portal fantasy, and yet it's always fallen flat. And yet, unable to stop reading them because I have a yearly dedication to reading all the Hugo Award nominees and Wayward Children remains in there, I have remained doggedly in this race as well. Interestingly enough, this is the first time I've decided to ALC one.

Having last stopped at "Drowned Girls," this was a skip of two short stories and a novel since I left off last fall, but that turned out for the best. This book stepped up its game massively, and it's the first novella in the series to leave being marked at only 3 stars. This is FINALLY more like what I wanted. Falling through multiple doors successively. Finding a nexus. Talking about surety & ownership & the moral ambiguity between the world vs. the child it summoned, children who don’t want to go back being just as right as those who do, & what is the healthy or unhealthy way to handle all those things.

If you've stuck out this series this long, things are looking up! I'm cautiously almost looking forward to the next one now, and not dreading the catch-up on the three pieces I missed.

I adored this book! I was so happy that this book follows Antsy again, because I really felt for her while reading Lost in the Moment and Found. Picking up this book felt like coming back home again. I think anyone who is invested in the characters of this series (especially Kade, Cora, Christopher, Sumi, and Antsy) will really love this book.

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known reunites us with Antsy as she is attending Eleanor West's school and feeling unsure of herself. She doesn't quite fit in, being 9 years old but looking 16, and she has unfinished business as she is worried that the shopkeepers aren't keeping their promise. She draws unwanted attention because of her ability to find lost things, and that ends up prompting her journey.

This book feels almost like a direct follow-up to the plot arc of Lost in the Moment and Found, which I found to be very satisfying. I will say the pacing is a bit choppy; because this is a quest book, there's a lot of step-by-step travel our characters have to do to get where they need to be. And don't let the cover mislead you: we don't get to the dinosaur world until over halfway through, and it's not the main focus of the book by any means.

But I really enjoyed seeing the different worlds, and by the end I was crying because of how things wrap up in a happy-but-sad, perfectly bittersweet way. I love this series so much and I was so happy to see the way things resolved for Antsy. I already want to go back and reread the series from the start, as I feel like we know so much more now than we did when the first book came out. It definitely feels like this series is starting to wrap itself up; there are a lot of conversations had and conclusions drawn in this one about the nature of the doors and the worlds, and there are hints that Eleanor's time may be coming to step through her own door and have Kade step up in running the school. These kids are slowly growing up :')

In terms of audiobook narration, I really appreciated the different voices Jesse Vilinsky did for these characters. There are many scenes with a whole friend group of kids, but I never felt confused as to who was speaking. I thought Kade's and Antsy's voices in particular were spot-on.

(Also, if McGuire is writing any more short stories in this universe, I would love to read about Antsy possibly reuniting with her mom once she is old enough.)

Last year, I finally decided to read "Every Heart a Doorway." That spurred me into binging the entire Wayward Children series. I love this series with it's in-depth characters, beautiful worlds, and the discussions of its important topics.

I enjoyed myself so much with this one. There were moments where my heart hurt and I audibly gasped. However, the reason I'm not giving it the full 5 stars is because of the pacing of this book and a the small fact we didn't get to spend more time in the dinosaur world.

I still highly recommend this series and I could see myself rating this one higher upon rereads, but right now, a 4 stars seems correct.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of the audiobook.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Another absolutely fantasy filled installation of this wonderful Wayward Children series. I don't want describe too much and give away what happens. But as a dinosaur and Jurassic Park fan, bravo Seanan! Just a great time all around!
Read the series, love them. Recommend them to all your friends and also the person who bags your groceries. Never stop reading these books!

Full review on Pages n' Pages podcast (episode post date 1/16/24- Chapter 133).

“People who've been hurt often think they have some sort of right to go around hurting other people," said Sumi. "They think trauma's a toy to keep handing down forever. But the fact that someone hurt you and tied you up in knots doesn't give you the right to do it to anybody else.”

The Wayward Children series has always been, and will always be, my comfort series.

As someone who constantly feels like they don’t fit in anywhere and they’re different from everyone else, each book speaks to me in a different way. It’s like a hug to my heart and there are always tears. This book was no exception.

I love that we got more of Antsy’s story, and got to see her interact with other favorite characters from the series. I can’t wait to go back and do a re-read so I can highlight my favorite sections!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Once again, this series delivers. McGuire is so good at building all of these worlds, creating their rules (or lack of rules), and somehow keeps them from going too off the rails. Everything feels so cleverly crafted and well-thought out.

I appreciated the moments spent with some characters I truly love, even if at the end I had to let one go. I'm looking forward to the next book, which I believe is the last. I am sure it will break my heart, but Seanan will do it so well that I'll forgive her happily.

A note on the audiobook: The narrator is excellent. Her different voice intonations for each character are spot on.

I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed the narrator, she helped bring the characters to life. This isn’t my usual genre but the synopsis sounded interesting so I wanted to give it a try. It turns out that it is part of a series and I read it as a stand-alone (which was fine) but I feel like I would have enjoyed it more having read in order. It was a pretty short book but I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I loved the whimsical feeling and I will be reading the rest of the series! Highly recommend!