Review – Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children, Book 3) by Seanan McGuire (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 176 pages
Publisher: Tor.com
Release Date: January 9, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-0765393586
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the Wayward Children series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars
“When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)
If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests…”
This is the third book in the Wayward Children series. All of these books have been slightly bizarre novellas focused around children who have gone to different worlds and survived different fairy tales only to be returned back to the normal world.
In this book some of the Wayward Children set out on an adventure to help Rini (who arrives from land of candy and bakery goods) revive her mother. Rini’s mother (Sumi) died before Rini was born and Rini needs to revive her or else Rini will disappear forever (yes, Rini is from a Nonsense world).
What follows is a bizarre quest that follows no logic and is filled with delicious descriptions of delectable sweets. I love how bizarre and creative the Wayward Children books are. They always have some adventure to them, have a very fairy tale feel to them, and are completely unpredictable.
I enjoyed this book quite a bit. There were a couple parts where McGuire tries to get into the “why” and “science” behind the portal doors; this was honestly a bit confusing and got long. However, aside from these parts this was an entertaining story.
Overall this was a good continuation of the Wayward Children series. I would recommend to YA and older readers who enjoy bizarre and quirky fairy tales of sorts. I definitely plan on continuing the series and reading about more of these Wayward Children.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– New Release Reading Challenge
– Goodreads Reading Challenge