Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.

This is the story of what happened first…

Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline.

Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you've got.

They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted.

They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.

While I enjoyed Every Heart a Doorway, I wasn’t sure how I’d like this second instalment in the Wayward Children series. I shouldn’t have worried though because I absolutely loved it. In fact, I liked this book better than the first one! Down Among the Sticks and Bones focuses on the story of Jacqueline (Jack) and Jillian (Jill) whom we met as the strange twins in EHaD. I personally liked Jack and loved her in EHaD, so I was interested in her origin story, but I wasn’t sure if it would be as charming or whimsical as the first. It was darkly whimsical (which I loved) and affected me in ways I didn’t expect it to. DAtSaB looks into the twins’ lives from conception to their teenage years, and how their parents not only had them for selfish reasons, but they also tried to shape their lives for self-indulgent purposes. This quote in particular, hit me hard:

“The trouble with denying children the freedom to be themselves—with forcing them into an idea of what they should be, not allowing them to choose their own paths—is that all too often, the one drawing the design knows nothing of the desires of their model. Children are not formless clay, to be shaped according to the sculptor’s whim, nor are they blank but identical dolls, waiting to be slipped into the mode that suits them best. Give ten children a toy box, and watch them select ten different toys, regardless of gender or religion or parental expectations. Children have preferences. The danger comes when they, as with any human, are denied those preferences for too long.”

In DAtSaB we see just how influential parents can be with their children. It was interesting to see both of these characters grow and find their own freedom once they stepped into The Moors, a world with jealous vampires, mad scientists, reanimated corpses, etc. It’s a dark and cruel world, and we see how each twin adapts and changes throughout their individual journeys.

“There are moments that change everything, and once things have been changed, they do not change back. The butterfly may never again become a caterpillar. The vampire’s daughter, the mad scientist’s apprentice, they will never again be the innocent, untouched children who wandered down a stairway, who went through a door. They have been changed. The story changes with them.”

Seanan McGuire continues to write about enchanting worlds, diversity, and day to day issues with unconventional characters. I love how it challenges society’s ideas of what it means to be a girl and shows there isn’t a right way to be one. DAtSaB is certainly the book that made me completely fall in love with this series and I can’t wait to read more.