Great idea for a story, Mom suggested this one ( )

“I believed in the black gleam of the ink in the night, in the strength of my own fingers wrapped around the pen, in the reality of that other world waiting just on the other side of some invisible curtain. I believed in second chances and righted wrongs and rewritten stories. I believed in Samuel’s belief.”

I love everything about this book. I love the title, the whimsical cover, the book within a book trope, the enchanting characters, the hauntingly beautiful language. This book is everything I want a book to be. And it’s my first read of the year; I just can’t imagine that it’ll get any better than this gem.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is about a semi-orphaned girl raised to be good with a devoted dog named Bad. Like the best heroines, January (a name I’m unabashedly obsessed with) longs for freedom and adventure and truth, which is in contrast to her borrowed privilege and sheltered, isolated existence inside the gray estate of Locke House. In short, January longs to be the hero of her own story, but the abandonment by her father and her captivity as a collector’s item in Locke’s museum force her to fall in line with the wealthy benefactor’s expectations of her—be good, be quiet, don’t indulge in fantasies. Through the smuggling of stories, though, January finds a small red thread of impossible hope. This new and fragile faith allow her to cross the Threshold, setting off on an adventure through ten thousand doors to find the truth she’s searching for. In the end, it’s the power of words that save January and the many worlds she crosses into.

This book is about the power of words and stories, it’s about hope in the midst of hopelessness, it’s about adventure and love and enchantment. It’s about all the things that make a satisfying journey through the world of books. ( )

Absolutely fantastic! Gorgeous writing: picturesque, lyrical, beautiful prose in service of a fantastical, magical story. I tore through this book, eagerly, hungrily, in just a few days. The story is very inventive, rich in nuance and detail. It filled me with sense of longing and loss, fun and wonder. To scour the world with January Scaller, a complex and compelling protagonist, and her faithful canine friend Sindbad, in search of Doors, would be a grand adventure and worth the hardships. I hope Samuel will be able to rejoin them. The Ten Thousand Doors Of January was borrowed from my public library, but it will be added to the permanent collection. Between this and A Spindle Splintered, Alix Harrow, in only two books, has quickly become a newly discovered favorite writer. ( )

Had to DNF it, not my cup of tea. The story didn’t grip me and I found it tedious to read.
( )

When January was a young girl, she found a door that opened to another world. But Mr. Locke (her father’s boss and essentially her surrogate father, since her own dad spent almost all his time traveling the world looking for treasures for Mr. Locke’s collection) severely punished her for having such fanciful thoughts, so she put it out of her mind and went on with the business of growing up. Now, at 17, she’s told that her father is dead, and things begin to happen to and around her that make her return to the idea of worlds behind doors…

An excellent idea for a story, and the world(s) building is nicely done. I enjoyed the book just fine, but I fell just shy of *loving* it, mostly because the characters felt a little flat. I was interested in where the story was going, but I never felt fulling invested in the people involved. Still, a fun read. ( )