Where the Drowned Girls Go

Welcome to the Whitethorn Institute. The first step is always admitting you need help, and you've already taken that step by requesting a transfer into our company.
There is another school for children who fall through doors and fall back out again. It isn't as friendly as Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. And it isn't as safe.
When Eleanor West decided to open her school, her sanctuary, her Home for Wayward Children, she knew from the beginning that there would be children she couldn't save; when Cora decides she needs a different direction, a different fate, a different prophecy, Miss West reluctantly agrees to transfer her to the other school, where things are run very differently by Whitethorn, the Headmaster.
She will soon discover that not all doors are welcoming...

Thank you so much to TorDotCom Publishing for sending me an ARC to review! This does not affect my review in any way.

It’s no secret that I love Seanan McGuire. I mean, she and Tamora Pierce are my top two favorite authors, easily. I saw Heron (a friend from Bookstagram) mention in their review that for them it’s now more of a question of how much they’ll like these books, rather than a question of if they’ll like them. That is definitely how it is for me. I have loved the previous six books of this series, to varying degrees, so I went into this one pretty confident I would like it. Little did I know it would actually become on of my favs of the series!!

This book follows a character that we met in a previous novel, Cora. She is a mermaid, and has traveled through her own door to a place called the Trenches. However, in a previous novella she also went on a quest with her friends to the Moors, where she faced some traumatic events. Now she is trying to deal with the aftermath of that, and heal herself.

This book is a bit bleak, both because of what Cora is dealing with, and because of the new setting. Cora transfers to a new school that promises to help her forget her trauma. However, I think Seanan does an amazing job of dealing with the bleakness and Cora’s trauma in a respectful and delicate manner. I think it’s extremely important to see this in young adult stories. Teens who have also experienced trauma need to see that healing is a process, and that they are not alone.

Another major theme in the story is Cora’s fatness. Cora is fat, and she accepts and loves herself for who she is. However, society is how shall we say. The worst. She experiences a lot of fatphobia from various people in her life, from teachers to peers to random passersby. Seanan does a great job of detailing how there is NOTHING wrong with Cora. Being fat is simply a fact, just like how she has aqua hair and is a mermaid. Those are all just facts. I also love how Seanan makes sure to emphasize that fatness doesn’t correlate necessarily with health and athletic ability. Fat people can be healthy and athletic, just like thin folks can be unhealthy and unathletic.

One of the things I loved about this book is how it shows all the different sides of young girls. Actually this is true of the whole series. Each book so far has followed a different character, and each one is so different, and a hero in their own right. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes and talents, and Seanan emphasizes this to tell us that we can ALL be heroes.