The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

Title: The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Author: Alex E. Harrow

Pages: 371

Finished: September 24, 2020

First Sentence: When I was seven, I found a door.

Summary: January Scaller, Ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke struggles to feel at place in his house of curiosities. In fact, she feels closer to a specimen rather than a human being. And though she struggles to be a good girl, she can't quite shake the memory of stepping through a door into another world when she was seven. And then she discovers a book. A book about doors, other worlds, and the people you find there.

Thoughts: While writing up my review of Piranesi, this book arrived at the library for me. This and Piranesi could be cousins. The plot is similar, the conceit of other worlds is similar though this one involves doors and many worlds and centers around a coming of age story as well as a love story. 

Harrow uses a double narrative. A book within a book. I found both stories so compelling that I just kept reading until it was suddenly midnight, the book was over, and I was crying as I came down from the reading high.

January is a little frustrating at times. At times seemingly helpless and overly whiny, though one understands as the story continues and discovers just how much she was gaslit in her upbringing. The book takes a bit of time to get going. We get a lot of backstory as January catches us up to the current moment. But once she finds The Ten Thousand Doors, things pick up. 

One of the things I'm discovering about myself is that I like books where things come out all right in the end. Even as the tale gets more heated and things look as though they'll never come through, if I know things will be OK, I'm pretty willing to keep going. All that to say, it's easy to infer everything will be all right as the story is written as though January were writing a history of events. 

This is a compelling though somewhat complex tale with a lush writing style.

Read-alikes - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, 

This covers a couple of challenges, though I'm not really following or entering anything into the forms anymore.