A plot is a chronicle of love. Any book, any plot, any characters: you will be able to explain exactly what is happening because of love. Everything can be explained by love, whether that's a love for adventure, the love of helping others, or the love for stories that aren't your own. This novel is no different, and yet it completely changes the game. Enter the world of January Scaller, who's curiosity for Doors (yes "Doors") and love of stories takes her on a thrilling adventure through the life of someone else and then, eventually, of her own.Alix E. Harrow has been a student and a teacher, a farmworker and cashier, an ice-cream-scooper and a 9-to-5 office dweller. She's lived in tents and cars, city apartments and cabins, and spent a summer in a '79 VW Vanagon Westfalia. She is now a full-time writer living with her husband and 2 kids in Berea, Kentucky. This Hugo Award Winning ex-historian has also had her short fiction nominated for the Nebula, and Locus Awards. The Ten Thousand Doors of January is her debut novel. You can find more about her and her writing here.
January Scaller is an "in-between thing" -- at least that's what she calls herself. Neither here nor there, and nobody knows what to make of her, just like the ancient relics she lives amongst. January, Mr. Locke's ward, adventures with him when she is seven to the strange world of Kentucky -- and ends up falling into an even stranger world herself. That's how she discovered Doors, but was told to forget them. Then, years later, she finds an old book hidden among the treasures of Locke House: The Ten Thousand Doors. January falls into this world, hoping against hope that Doors and other worlds are true. This is a love story for stories, and a love story for all things "in-between," neither here nor there. Enter January Scaller's world, and the world of The Ten Thousand Doors.
January is, quite possibly, one of the most relatable fictional characters I have ever encountered. Not because of her life, but because of the way she lives it. To start, her narration is so casual and conversational, it feels like she's letting you in on something that will change your life (spoiler alert: it does). Then, we learn more about her character. January listens and obeys the people she loves until she realizes that she needs to listen to herself first. She wants adventure, and yet she's scared of the implications. Her fear is what drew me to her. The trope of fearless heroines can be overdone in YA fiction -- those heroines might be scared, but I never felt like that fear was highlighted. Harrow gives January's doubts light on the page, validates them, and January reacts in a relatable way. She isn't always brave, she doesn't always make the right choice, and I found that made January so compelling.
Early on in the novel, January encounters a gift: a book titled THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS. The story she finds within its pages is full of love, adventure, mystique, and fear. This is the catalyst of January's desire for adventure, which had been stamped out years before. This plot device begins our understanding of why Christina Henry called this novel an "aching love letter to stories." January escapes into this novel, and as it unfolds, we see how her story is intertwined with the story on the page. Readers read along with January, as the chapters in THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS are also separate chapters, so we get to see how Adelaide's story and January's story align. This is strategically done. January's voice is already established as conversational and sharp, and when Yule Ian, the narrator of this mysterious book, enters, we see how distinctive their styles are. It is never difficult to bounce between these stories, and in fact, it's easier to dive in to narration that's hammered out and exact. Once the story of Adelaide unfolds, January sees how this girl is the girl she always wanted to be: taking matters in her own hands and having the adventure of a life time. These two girls parallel each other, and January is inspired by her. Without THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS, January would be stuck in the Locke House, and always on the threshold, always "in-between."
Understanding what January means when she describes herself as an "in-between" thing is helped, in part, by Harrow's lush descriptions and vivid descriptions of history. This novel is set in history: the late 1800s and early 1900s, in fact. Harrow, an ex-historian who employs the help of the history departments of Berea College and the University of Vermont, creates superb account of what it was like to live in those times. Clearly, Harrow did her research in understanding the experiences of colored people versus white people in America at this time, which makes January's account of her life more realistic. Everything from asylums and customary society is realistic because of descriptions grounded in history and the reality of the time. No stone is unturned as far as understanding how history played a role in this novel. Then, all the other descriptions build on top of this. We get a dazzling understanding of the colors of everyone's skin, the colors of the skies, the colors of the Doors. We smell the elsewheres, and the books, and the in-betweens. We feel dog fur in our fingers and rage coiling in our throats. The synesthesia is unlike anything I've ever read before. The descriptions are vivid, precise, quirky, and strange in a devastatingly unique way.
Now, this next paragraph is going to have some spoilers, so I suggest you read ahead with caution if you haven't read this book yet. I wanted to comment more on the narration of THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS. It's narrated in the third person, with some first-person inserts as the author makes some commentary about the story. In the end, we learn that Yule Ian (Julian) is narrating his own story. This was fun and special for readers to uncover. Of course, if you're smarter you might put it together fast, but I'll never understand reading a novel and not letting yourself be surprised by it. I love to be surprised by the little things, like how the pieces of the mystery fell together in this novel. The buildup to the real adventure was a bit slow, but I think that came at the cost of the spellbinding description, of understanding Julian's story, and reading THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS with January, all of which are elements I wouldn't trade. But, most importantly, I wanted to make a comment about Julian's third-person narration. Some might think that's awkward or strange, but I loved it because readers understood Julian better. He's scared. He describes himself as a coward. By narrating in third-person, he's able to keep that distance between himself and what he's scared of. I thought that was masterful and clever. The separation of who he once was with who is now by keeping a constant flow of third-person narration maintains the mystique of the story and the mystery January works to uncover later in the novel.
The idea that a plot is always a chronicle of love is something I learned in my first-ever official creative writing course, and something that has always stuck with me. Whenever I read a book, I think about this concept and apply it to my understanding of the novel's plot. This statement consistently rings true. In this book, it bellows. There's love between a girl and her stories, a girl and her dog, a girl and the family she works to find. There's love for worlds that's not one's own, and the Doors that can bring one there. There's the kind of love that never separates people, and the love that makes separation possible and still painful. Every page turn brought more love, and, inevitably, more heartbreak. Every love and heartbreak was January's, in essence, because she adopts it all as she writes this story for us. And, as readers, we feel this love and heartbreak as our own. Maybe Harrow put it best: "One does not fall in love; one discovers it" (165). With each page turn, January is discovering love, and helping readers find it. That is why I give this book my special, secret concept: a plot is a chronicle of love. I never say this phrase lightly, and it's always in my heart as I read a story. Only a love story for stories could make me write it and publish it as I do here. And I would be remiss if I didn't thank Harrow for "writing her heart out" (374) so that we might fall in love with stories all over again.
If you love reading novels that are, in essence, love stories to stories, or if you truly enjoyed The Ten Thousand Doors of January don't hesitate to check out Erin Morgenstern's newest fantasy novel, The Starless Sea. Check out my review of The Starless Sea here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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