This is the tenth book in McGuire's Wayward Children series. In the past, I've preferred the books that involve a group of children from the home together; I enjoy seeing how they manage to mingle amongst their different backgrounds. However, this story of Nadya was not lacking. I'm glad her story was unpacked; when she was introduced in a previous installment of the series, I didn't much care for her character. Now that I know her full backstory, I have so much more sympathy for her. Nadya is taken from a Russian orphanage by American parents who are adopting more for social cache than for a true want of a child. One day, while exploring, Nadya falls into a door in a pond near her house and enters a different world - a world where she is happy to be a Drowned Girl.
Nadya's story is frustrating and fun at turns. I love that the author illuminates those who use international adoption as a cultural advancement tool, not out of actual goodness. This was a great read, and I'm glad McGuire can keep the stories fresh this far into the series.

I feel like a kid on Christmas morning every single time I get to read a new book in the Wayward Children series because I know that whatever is inside is going to be both magical and also something entirely new.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is Nadya's backstory. We were previously introduced to the character in Beneath the Sugar Sky and she was referred to as a "drowned girl" and was also a long-time resident of the school. Unlike some of the previous novels in the series, this stands alone and features no other characters other than Nadya, which put a nice focus on her story without the reader getting side quested.

What I absolutely love about this series is that each and every book tackles a different issue and does so with such loving care that I think this series is one of the best for differently abled representation. Everything from neurodivergence, transgenderism, intersex, victims of assault, and this time someone born with a limb difference is covered. Then, on top of covering such a multitude of differences in children, McGuire manages to create entirely new worlds in less than 200 pages. To say she is gifted as an author is a complete understatement.

What I loved most about this latest installment is that it is wholly Nadya's story. I know a lot of readers were probably hoping for a continuation of the characters we have already met and their frequent adventures, but I always enjoy the breaks with back stories, and I feel like Nadya is going to have an important role in the future if she was worthy of having an entire book dedicated solely to her and her life before the school.

Needless to say, I adored this book and cannot wait for the next one in the series as I never ever want it to end. Of that I can be sure.

Thank you to NetGalley, Seanan McGuire, and Tordotcom for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear follows Nadya, a girl in search of a family. When she’s adopted from Russia by an American couple, they attempt to conform her into American society starting with language and ending with forcing a prosthetic arm against her desire. As Nadya attempts to come to terms with the new arm she doesn’t feel she needs, she falls into a Door and finds herself in a world of water, giant turtles, and incredible ships with kind people. But danger lurks and Nadya has to fight to keep hold of all the amazing things in Belyrreka.

As with every book in this very lovely series, it features such incredible themes and weaves a tale of understanding and kindness. This book was no different and I really enjoyed the world, although this one was a little slower and I found the plot a little less engaging. It’s still a great installment in the series, just not my favourite. The was truly fascinating and I really loved the woods and how terrifying they were. The turtle companions were so sweet. It was nice to finally see Nadya’s story and reading through it to the ending really cements how absolutely tragic her story is.

Nadya is a really great main character. She’s so strong and resilient and cares for others so deeply. Her ending is really tragic, but I like that we got to see her story play out in full. There’s a lot of great characters in this one. I especially liked the talking turtles and foxes and her relationship with Inna and Alexi—very heart-warming.

Overall, if you love this series, I’d definitely recommend pick it up, and if you’re new to the series, go binge read all of them—you won’t regret it!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Once again, Seanan McGuire proves why she is an absolute master at the novella format. Every book in the Wayward Children series clocks in at under 250 pages and yet holds so very much inside. I will never stop shouting about this series from the rooftops. If you were ever a child and need healing, these books are absolutely for you. If you are nostalgic for childhood, these books are for you. If you missed out on childhood and had to grow up too fast, these books are for you. If you ever wished to find a magical door with a world where you finally belong, well, you know the rest.

This book is a masterclass on character. Nadya is born without an arm, but never considers herself lacking anything, having never had it to begin with. It is the adoptive parents who take her from the orphanage in Russia to America that make her wear a prosthetic arm. She wears it because she feels she must, because she is not given any other option or choice. Her feelings on the matter are not questioned—instead, those around her have decided for her that this is right, the correct course of action to solve a problem that was never a problem to begin with.

When she falls into the hint of a doorway in the water, she is sure, and she finds a world is magical with waters of different weights, waters that are able to be breathed and she becomes a Drowned Girl. Here, she finds a home with people who truly love her for who she is, who consider her whole. She makes friends with a giant turtle and they pick one another. She finds love. Everything seems perfect, until it is not.

Nadya is a fantastically drawn character. McGuire has such a handle on childhood and how it feels growing up in different situations. The innocence comes through in such a strong way that you can’t help but feel for Nadya, to criticize her parents, who likely only think they’re doing the right thing. If only they had asked the person it regarded what she thought. So often we brush past children, thinking they’re not old enough to have an opinion, to have thoughts on a certain matter, especially those that regard them. We make choices for them, about their life and their body, and we implement them thinking they’re right.

This novella is filled with heart and whimsy and danger. It is about fighting for what is yours, for doing the right thing. How far would you go to protect what you think is right? And what happens if all of that can be taken away from you at any given moment? How would you live your life in the present?

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is the 10th book in Seanan McGuire's award-winning Wayward Children series. This entry follows a new child named Nadya. Nadya was born in Russia and given up as a baby. The orphanage is the only world she's ever known. Given up by one mother, she decides to claim Russia as her new mother, and in an effort to please her new mother, she works hard helping other children get adopted. Nadya has no desire to be adopted herself, and she knows being born missing part of one of her arms makes her an undesirable choice to adoptive parents. So, she uses her "disability" to make other children appear more attractive to prospective parents.

This tactic works very well until a couple of well-meaning American missionaries finds the orphanage. These missionaries seek a child who needs them the most, and the orphanage workers quickly thrust Nadya upon them. Nadya is exactly what they're looking for in a child - a project. They whisk Nadya off to America, put her through an intensive year of learning English and American culture, and fit her with a new prosthetic arm. Suddenly, Nadya realizes the lack she never felt before, and she becomes an object of fascination with her new American schoolmates.

When Nadya expresses her displeasure with the prosthetic, her new parents show disappointment. They don't understand why someone who was so obviously in need of them and everything they've offered could possibly be unhappy. But, Nadya is very unhappy, and the only thing that brings her joy is visiting the pond in their neighborhood. There she can watch the turtles swim and remember her pet tortoise from the orphanage.

It's during one of these visits that Nadya, like so many other children before her, stumbles upon a Door. She is quickly thrust into the world of Belyrreka, where the Drowned live and have turtle companions as large as ships. Nadya finds another new family here, and this one wouldn't change anything about her.

Families are recurring theme throughout the Wayward Children series, and this book is no exception. Nadya has a few families throughout the story, but it seems anytime a child wishes to escape an unsuitable family, that's when the Doors appear. The Doors always ask the children to "Be Sure," and Nadya was sure she wanted to rescue the turtle she saw that had those letters carved into it's shell. If she had time to think about it, she would also have been sure that her American adoptive parents were not good for her in the least.

Nadya's adoptive parents had no interest in allowing her to be her own person. Nadya never felt the lack of her missing arm because she never had the experience of having that arm to begin with. Her adoptive parents focused on her disability as a defect, and rather than asking what Nadya wanted, they sought to remedy all of her defects - her missing arm, her foreign language, and her behavior. They wanted a safe, sanitized version of a child as a status symbol rather than providing a home in which Nadya could learn and grow and be herself.

The topic of agency was another theme throughout the story. So many people treat their children as lesser than themselves simply because children haven't reached a certain age. Some parents and adults don't see children as people with their own thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and desires. Nadya's adoptive parents saw her with a disability as being lacking, and they assumed Nadya must believe the same about her missing arm.

This also raises the issue of disability and how we treat people with disabilities. On one hand, people born with disabilities likely don't see themselves as disabled unless they are raised to believe they are missing something. The same can go for people who develop disabilities later in life. If someone with a disability asks for assistance, that's one thing, but people shouldn't assume that because they'd feel the lack that a person with a disability would also.

Luckily for Nadya, the river that becomes her home provides in the time and place of her choosing. Unfortunately, this is a Wayward Children book, so it was bound to end. This is also on theme for the series. Oftentimes, children find their ideal lives through Doorways just to be shunted back into their home world as if nothing on the other side of the Door ever happened. The children are left haunted by the memories of what they had, sometimes facing the very people they went through a Door to escape, only to discover no one believes them. Which, of course, is where Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children comes in.

I really hope that these past few entries in the series are building back up to a story featuring the Home for Wayward Children. It's been a few books now since the Home is more than mentioned, and I'd love to see how some of the new characters introduced interact with characters from earlier in the series, like Sumi and Kade. Regardless, this was an excellent entry in the series, and I can't wait for more!

I gave Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire four out of five stars. I have been a Seanan McGuire fan for a while now, and The Wayward Children is one of my favorite series by her. She would have to do something crazy to make me dislike these books. This most recent entry not only touches on important topics like found family, agency, and disabilities; it's also filled with emotion (especially the ending). This story is also a great place to dip your toe into the series, since it stands on its own. Whether you're new to The Wayward Children series or have been reading them since the beginning, I highly recommend reading this book!

Seanan McGuire's writing is lovely as always, and this series is charming as always. Entries like this that focus entirely on one character's time in their other world reminds me that while this is all an interconnected story, they're still fairytales. Not every book has to perfectly fit into the series and move the entire series plot forward, nor has this series ever tried to do that with every book.

As a story that explores another land and lets McGuire play with the fairytale storytelling format, it works as all the Wayward Children books work. I did really like the disability rep here, and I liked Nadya a lot as a character. The world of Belyrreka was really neat as well.

I also have to remember that these stories of the characters that explore their time in the other worlds are inherently SAD AS HELL, because it means they get spit back out to the real world at the end. It happens every time, and it's no less tragic every time.

A good entry in this series, though one I dare say could be skipped if all you really want at this point is the main story.

Another delightful entry in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series. I will never cease to be amazed... and delighted, have I mentioned it's delightful? By the weird and fascinating details that McGuire includes in her novellas.

This tenth novella focuses on Nadya, who we met in prior novellas as "the turtle girl," who goes to a Drowned World. Nadya is Russian and everything in her new world is as well? I'm not very familiar with Russian culture so I'm unsure of the authenticity but the little details were... um, delightful.

As usual, McGuire's worldbuilding is thorough, and she manages to show instead of explain how the world is constructed, though being able to learn along with Nadya was helpful. The way she leaned on science - for example, relative density - to explain some elements of the world that wouldn't otherwise make sense was especially deli... um, intriguing.

I would read another book about Nadya to learn more about her life at the school. Let's be real, though, I'd honestly read anything Seanan McGuire writes.

In a word, delightful (sorry, couldn't help myself).

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the digital advance reader's copy.

I look forward to a new release in this series every year.

Quick background: Doors to other worlds appear for children who need them. These worlds are heart and home for many of these children, although the worlds are wild and strange and rarely safe.

This entry in the series brings us the story of Nadya, a Drowned girl, who we last saw in Beneath the Sugar Sky staying behind at the River of Souls with the agreement that if her home land, Belyyreka, calls to her, she'll be allowed to return.

While I think everyone should read every book in this series, it's not entirely necessary for this particular entry, as it could stand alone. However, I think it will resonate more if you've already been immersed in the worlds of the Wayward Children.

Now, we have the opportunity to learn more about Nadya, a Russian orphan born with one arm, who is adopted by U. S. parents and treated more as an object who should be abjectly thankful for being adopted than as a child with ideas and opinions and dreams.

Nadya never feels truly loved or seen and things grow worse when her parents have her fitted with a prosthetic arm without her input.

When she finds her doorway to Belyyreka, she is home in this underwater world of giant turtles, frogs, bartering, and small community. She grows in a place where she is loved as she is and where she can be exactly who she wants to be.

I love how in so few pages, McGuire makes me care so deeply about these characters that I feel their hopes and devastation.

One of my absolute favorite young adult fantasy series.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is Nadya's story. Born in Russia with one arm, abandoned by her mother and raised in an orphanage, she doesn't find her door until she's adopted by a couple and brought to the United States. Her door leads to an underwater city where she finds her true family.
I think readers will be heartbroken by the ending, but if you've followed the series so far, you will know what happens next in her story.

As with any book in this series, the themes, in this case adoption and disability, are handled with nuance and care. Now the year long wait for the next book in the series.

This series is just so good. I always look forward to when a new one comes out and ruins me for a bit. This is no exception to that.

I loved this book and Nadya's character and world. I thought the author showed such a nuanced look at adoption and some people's holier-than-thou mindset of "saving" people underprivileged. This book shows how ableism can come in many forms and thinking you know best can lead to resentment. I also loved how unique the doorway and world that Nadya went into. I had to look up (since it's been a while since I read the first book) what happened to her after that harsh sudden ending. I am relieved of what I read. Seanan has such a way of making you so attached to each character in such a short amount of time. You want only good things to happen to them even knowing that it probably won't happen. Overall, another great book in the series and I will anticipating the next one.

Yet another example of why Seanan McGuire is just so good at writing novellas like this! Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is another installment in the beloved Wayward Children series involving portals to other worlds. This one the backstory of Nadya, and wow did it it for me. It deals with adoption and disability in really nuanced ways that feel important.

Nadya was born in Russia with one arm, abandoned by her teenage mother and left in an orphanage before being adopted through a Christian missionary program. Which goes about as well as you might expect with new, ableist parents who expect her to be very grateful. The world she falls into is one of water and sentient creatures including turtles. But the ending is a bit of a gut punch. I loved it and if you're a fan of the series you probably will too. But then I pretty much always rave about these books! I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

A beautiful addition to the series. Seanan explores disability ,adoption , what belonging in any world means . As always, Seanan reminds us how important it is to really listen to kids and values each of her characters and the stories they have to share .

As excellent or more than every other Wayward Children book! I loved Nadya's story and thought that her missing (? that seems like a bad way to phrase it when Nadya doesn't miss it) arm was portrayed respectfully and believably.

The best book yet in an already fantastic series.

Nadya spent her early life in a Russian orphanage, helping care for the children and get them adopted. She is eventually adopted (unwillingly) by an American couple, who is more interested in demonstrating their charity than in actually loving a child. They force a prosthetic arm on her, further alienating Nadya from her own body and from her classmates.

An unhappy Nadya falls into Belyyreka, a water world. She finds a family who understands her for herself, and befriends a giant turtle with a cracked shell. Adventures ensue.

I have to re-iterate, even compared to the other books in this series, this one is so so so good.

A stunning addition to the fantastic Wayward Children series. Readers get to stumble into another fantastical world, and come to better understand Nadya and her background. A series you can always be sure of — highly recommend!

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is the tenth book in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire and it follows Nadya who was last in book three. This one starts with Nadya in the “real world” and shows what her adventure through her door entails.

I loved this book so much. I loved Nadya as a character and found her story to be heartbreaking at times. Nadya has a limb difference and the way she talks about it through the book really impacted me. The feeling of people wanting to fix you even though you don’t see yourself as broken.

The writing in this was stunning as always and I loved the world Nadya travelled to. Like most books in this series, there is a lot of telling and not showing which makes the book move pretty quickly. I’m interested in seeing where the next book goes.

I think anyone who is a fan of this series will enjoy this installment. I do also think there are certain installments that make good entry points into the series and I think this is one.

Excellent addition to this series. I look forward to seeing how these characters play out in future books.

What a joy! What an absolutely engrossing and marvelous little book! How often do we really open our hearts to the feelings of others? This books puts forth the idea that our best intentions may not always be as welcome as we dreamed they would be, especially to a suffering child who needs so much love and patience. Nay da is unwanted from birth. In fact, her birth mother, a young woman who feels she has not had enough time to be a child herself, literally can’t get out the door fast enough when she is born, especially after seeing her missing hand that never grew. Nayda herself grows up in an orphanage till age nine with a fierce love for her home country of Russia and a kind and charitable heart that allows her to push other children before herself to find new family’s. Secretly she hopes if she is good enough, selfless enough, her mother will see her mistake and come back for her. Instead by age nine she is taken by an American family and all her culture is stripped away. She literally loses everything she ever loved, and this is not done malicious ly but out of the misguided belief of her new adoptive parents that she will be grateful for a life with more privilege in America and that she was unhappy where she was. They believe they can quickly convert her to English and that by showering her with new toys and clothing, they can ease the suffering of her life from growing up disabled and unwanted, not unstanding she has never seen herself as disabled and that she holds a deep loyalty and commitment to where she came from. The story is beautiful and heartbreaking, intelligent and though provoking on so many levels. After she is fit with a prosthetic limb to make her “whole” against her will, and unable to make herself understood, she finds herself in a magical world much like Narnia, but instead of lions and witches and such there are magnificent shifts and huge turtles and many challenges that will help her discover the person she was meant to be. It’s a lovely tale and I greatly want to read the other books by Seanan McGuire after indulging in this one!

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Wayward Children, #10)
by Seanan McGuire
Aren't all the Wayward Children books wonderful?! I have read them all and each one has touched my heart in some way. This one broke my heart, twice. In the beginning and the end. The middle was wonderful! It really threw me with the ending. I felt like someone hit me in the stomach.
I did not see it coming.
McGuire's books always make me feel like I am there, experiencing the story with the characters. The world building, no matter how fanciful, remains believable when McGuire describes it. This story sure has the most varied backgrounds, and one of the most thrilling too!
I really got wrapped up and invested in the main characters. I think this was one of her better books. I want to thank the publisher, and NetGalley, for letting me read and review this amazing book!
If you haven't read any of the Wayward Children books you are really missing out. Each book is totally different from each other. Pick up one, two, or more, and enjoy!

I am always excited for the next installment of the Wayward Children series. Her world's are always unique, fun to learn and explore.

Unfortunately, I do feel that some of them have become a bit formulaic and I'm not quite as excited for the ones that fill in the backstory of characters. Nadya is a character that I did like back in the beginning of the series but this one did feel a bit unnecessary to know her backstory in such detail. I almost wish that we had gotten more of her later story and the backstory. I think it would be interesting to see a character's return to their world - how they cope with returning and the effects of this.

Despite not loving the last two installment of this series, I will still continue with this series until the end as I know I can still love another one in this.

Thank you to net galley and the publisher for the arc.