Beneath The Sugar Sky

BENEATH THE SUGAR SKY (Wayward Children #3)

Written by Seanan McGuire

Published by Tor, January 9, 2018

My star rating: 5 stars

THE SYNOPSIS:

Beneath the Sugar Sky returns to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the “real” world.

Sumi died years before her prophesied daughter Rini could be born. Rini was born anyway, and now she’s trying to bring her mother back from a world without magic. Find it on Goodreads

MY REVIEW:

Now THIS is the instalment that I was waiting for!! This was everything that I could have wanted and more. Ever since we were introduced to this world and the characters, I was craving more information about the various worlds that were on the other side of these doorways. Once again, this book was short, but packed a serious punch!!

This book was a fantastic mix of both light and dark worlds. As we’ve learned throughout the course of this series, there are worlds that have logic and rules. There are other worlds that make completely no sense to humans and seem to follow no rules at all. There are even some worlds that are ruled by death and darkness while others are all sweetness and sunshine. This book had the perfect balance of all of that. We learned more about the rules of death, and even paying a price for magic. Then we visited a world where the ground itself was made of graham crackers and the clouds were cotton candy. The dark worlds kind of reminded me of a twisted Alice in Wonderland if it was ruled by death. And the nonsense world made me think of Sugar Rush from the movie Wreck It Ralph!!

This is the one book that could be 200 pages of pure info dumping and world building and I totally wouldn’t care. I would still read it as fast as I could! Each of these different worlds has its own set of rules and what it’s role is. I loved that some worlds seemed to have a purpose while others seemed to have no purpose at all. That’s the beauty of all the logical and nonsense worlds. Some of them are similar and others are complete opposite. I wanted to soak in every detail like a sponge!

I was also so excited to learn more about some characters that I fell in love with in book one. We learned more about their past, what made them who they were, what their lives were like when they found their doorways, and what they’re like now that they’re back to “reality”. As much as I liked Jack and Jill, it was this set of characters that I really wanted to know more about.

The only downfall that I could find was with a new character. She is a new “student” in the Wayward Children school and she’s a mermaid who is overweight. I love that this series has so many different types of representation! I’ve also had body image issues my whole life, so I could relate to her more than I expected to. But, at the same time, her constant need to relate literally everything to her weight was overwhelming. Even when she knew that the others weren’t thinking about her weight, she would attack them before they even had the chance to explain themselves. Everything that happened she assumed that they were thinking she was fat. I know that sometimes body image issues can cause these thoughts though. Your own insecurities tell your brain that it’s the only way you can be seen. But it was just overwhelming at times is all. When she was actually able to focus on something else besides her weight, she was a really great, strong, and bad ass girl!! I hope that in future books she will be able to see that side of herself as well.

All in all, this series is just wonderful! I never expected to like it but I can’t stop thinking about it! I actually ended up having a dream of a candy land last night because of this book! The world building is so good that I’m dreaming about it now! That’s an accomplishment and a half! I absolutely recommend this series and can’t wait for more!!

Until next time, happy reading!