Wayward Children, #7
by Seanan McGuire
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Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire is a YA portal fantasy novella and the seventh book in the Wayward Children series. I listened to the audiobook, which is about five hours long and narrated by Whitney Johnson.
Cora is having trouble processing traumas from The Moors and her initial travel to The Trenches. She hopes that a transfer to another school–The Whitethorn Institute–will help her move forward in life.
As an odd-numbered installment, this one progresses the chronological plot line of this series forward. Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children is such a lovely place to land. The exact opposite is true of Whitethorn’s Institute. The Institute forces rigid rules on its students, pushing them to forget about their doors and become assimilated back into “proper” society.
This book takes another good look at identity, as happens often in this series. I think McGuire does a great job here. She also delves deeper into fat phobia now that Cora is our main character. We’ve dipped a little into that pool previously, but never to great depths while Cora was a side character in previous installments.
Sometimes I struggle with the pacing of these books, but this is the second installment in a row where I was pleased with that.
I’m really excited to see where the series goes from here. I’m really digging the overarching plot thread.
Tropes in this book include: portal fantasy, fat rep
CW: fat phobia, bullying, attempted suicide (mentioned several times), suicidal ideation, domestic abuse (very brief mention), disordered eating (mentioned)
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The Wayward Children series includes:
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