About the Book
-
Author:
- Kristin Cashore
- Genres:
- Contemporary
- Magical Realism
Cover Story: Maze
BFF Charm: Peas in a Pod
Talky Talk: Temperance
Bonus Factors: Unconventional Families, Body Positivity, Birds, Friendship
Anti-Bonus Factors: Arbitrary Skepticism, Politics
Relationship Status: TEABS
Cover Story: Maze
Mazes aren’t really a recurring motif in this story, but you could argue that Wilhelmina is lost and trying to find her way, and it does relate to the title. I would have liked to see some cute owls or elephants – which are recurring motifs – but that might give the wrong impression of how serious this book is, so yeah – this works.
The Deal:
Boston, 2020. Wilhelmina Hart’s beloved aunt Frankie died of cancer in 2016. Four years later, she’s still grieving when COVID hits. Now instead of the post-graduation gap year with her aunt she always looked forward to, she’s stuck in a too-small apartment with worried parents and rambunctious younger siblings while her two best friends share a pandemic bubble without her, and the presidential election is wearing on everybody’s nerves. As if that’s not enough, Wilhelmina starts seeing mysterious, sparkly messages that lead her to her classmate James Fang, whose family’s doughnut shop is struggling to stay in business. Is she losing her grip on reality, or are the messages real – and what are they trying to tell her?
BFF Charm: Peas in a Pod
I can relate to Wilhelmina for a number of reasons. She’s fighting to ignore society’s pressure to lose weight. She gets along better with old ladies than her peers. She hides from her loved ones to avoid snapping at them when she’s in a snappish mood and they don’t deserve it. She cannot take a compliment without analyzing it to death: “I’m a queen (…) Am I, like, bossy?” Last but not least, there’s the highly specific irritation of wearing glasses with a face mask. I don’t have a James, though (sigh!) – and let me tell you, if I saw mystical signs leading me toward one, I’d follow them like a shot.
Swoonworthy Scale: 6
James and Wilhelmina take social distancing very seriously: masks on, six feet apart. That doesn’t mean she can’t use her eyes or her imagination, though, to appreciate a cute boy who bakes doughnuts and studies wild birds. She’s wary at first, because supernatural things keep happening every time they meet, but since he sees them too and is as bewildered as she is, she can’t help but trust him. When other forms of intimacy are not possible, verbal intimacy means a lot. The way they admit to each other in words how much they wish they could touch may be one of the most romantic things I’ve read this year so far.
Talky Talk: Temperance
Wilhelmina’s late aunt Frankie was a tarot card reader. Temperance was her favorite card because, to her, it represented a balanced way of looking at the world: “Remembering the mundane makes you smart,” she advises her niece in a flashback. “Remembering the magic makes you brave.” Wilhelmina has trouble following this advice, as she’s too unhappy to believe in magic (even when it’s literally happening), but it describes Cashore’s writing style perfectly.
Bonus Factor: Unconventional Families
James’ family is Chinese on his father’s side and Italian on his mother’s. As a little boy at his nonna’s funeral, he mixed Chinese and Western rites and threw paper offerings at the church roof to get them to Heaven. This resonates with Wilhelmina because her own family is similar. Her aunts Frankie, Esther, and Margaret were a polyamorous triad before Frankie’s death, used to blending traditions from their different backgrounds: they have Shabbat candles, tarot cards, and a Saint Francis of Assisi icon in the same household, and it’s beautiful.
Bonus Factor: Body Positivity
Wilhelmina is fat and has a chronic pain condition, but nothing and nobody is going to stop her from appreciating her body. She takes care of herself (stretching exercises, dictating instead of typing when her hands hurt) and makes an effort to look for fashions that suit her, not because she’s vain or insecure, but because she enjoys fashion.
Bonus Factor: Birds
After Wilhelmina and James witness the rescue of an injured owl, he tells her that his dream is to work at a wild bird sanctuary. He points out local birds to her and sends her videos to cheer her up. The only time we see him lose his temper is at the sight of an endangered species of woodpecker as a taxidermy trophy, and I can’t blame him.
Bonus Factor: Friendship
Wilhelmina is fiercely loyal to her friends Julie and Bee, ever since they were children and supporting Bee through an abusive home life. But now that Julie and Bee share a pandemic bubble so their younger siblings can be homeschooled together – they can fix each other’s makeup, but Wilhelmina can’t see them without their masks – she’s afraid of becoming a third wheel. Struggling to hide this fear, paradoxically, makes her keep them at even more of a distance. Can they ever be as close as they used to be?
Anti-Bonus Factor: Arbitrary Skepticism
Wilhelmina’s magic is clearly inherited from her aunts. She’s grown up all her life listening to them talk about drawing energy from the earth and sensing the personality of an object’s past owner. As a child, she used a sixth sense to locate everyone in her house, and she can still do it if she concentrates. But when the visions start (admittedly in very weird ways, like a fortune teller prophesying that her doughnuts will be stale), it takes ages for her to admit that there might be other options besides losing her mind.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Politics
The 2016 and 2020 presidential elections are discussed in all their exhausting, infuriating detail. I’m not even American and it still gave me unpleasant memories – although Wilhelmina’s determination to check her own biases was inspiring.
Relationship Status: TEABS
Kristin Cashore has outdone herself again: first the Graceling series, then Jane, Unlimited, and now this. When I’m an old lady and someone asks me what the 2020’s were like for someone like me, all I will have to do is hand them this book.
Literary Matchmaking
Cashore’s debut novel, Graceling, also features a gifted heroine searching for truth in a climate of misinformation.
Cashore’s Jane, Unlimited is a unique choose-your-own-adventure story about a girl learning to live again after her aunt’s death.
Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop celebrates the history of queer, interracial communities like Wilhemina’s.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review. There is a Door in This Darkness is available now.
I loved this one, although my appreciation was slightly hampered by the fact that we’re facing another election this year with the exact same candidates. James is a dreamboat, and I wanted a doughnut real bad while reading.
I couldn’t agree more.