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At age 7, January Scaller learns about the existence of capital-D Doors, the kinds of doors that lead into other worlds. And she’d love to explore them. She’d love to explore this world, for that matter, like her father does—but he never allows that. Instead, she sees him rarely, in between his travels to far-flung places, where he finds exotic items to bring back to his employer, Cornelius Locke.
January lives with Locke, an ultra-wealthy collector, in his grand mansion in Vermont. It’s basically a private museum, filled with the rare artifacts January’s father has found for him. Locke takes excellent care of January, but she’s really just another part of his collection. She’s a curiosity herself, an in-between thing: with her medium-dark skin and wild hair, her headstrong ways, her resistance to becoming cultured and refined.
Without any other options or the freedom she so covets, January generally tries to please Locke and be a lady. But then, when she’s almost forgotten that Door she found when she was young, she discovers a book that explains all about Doors. It tells her about a young woman who found a Door, too, and a boy from another world, and who then spent years trying to find him and his world again. The writer shares his own search for information about Doors: how they work, where they are. And how a small group of people are trying to shut Doors and keep the knowledge secret.
The novel alternates between January’s life, as a young girl, tween, teen and young woman, and the story told in the book she finds. It slowly becomes clear to readers and to January herself that the two stories are connected. The book is full of adventure, danger, magic, love and longing. It’s an ode to books, to stories where characters stumble into magic places, like Narnia and Wonderland.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January is absolutely enchanting. It takes the reader off on a breathless journey of imagination to far-off and vastly different lands. January herself is a heroine to fall in love with, with her stubbornness, her desire to explore, her force of will. Every word, every sentence, is a work of art: quirky, clever, smart. I paused so often to savor the wording or to be sure I hadn’t skipped over any luscious turns of phrases in my eagerness to see what happened next. I borrowed this book from the library and then bought a hardcover copy to add to my own collection, because that’s what I do with stories I fall in love with.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes around 15 instances of moderate profanity, about 50 uses of mild language, and about 20 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content is minimal; there is some kissing and understood sexual activity but no details. There are some scenes of violence, including shootings, injuries with knives, a character losing his fingertips (magically, basically), several deaths and killings that are moderately gory, and a beating and attempting killing of a dog.
