Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third installment of the beloved Wayward Children series, returns the reader to Eleanor West’s School.
At the beginning of our story, a girl, Rini, falls from the sky into the little pond behind the school. Students observing her arrival are shocked, but what she has to tell them shocks them even more.
Rini comes from the land of Confection and she is searching for her mother, Sumi.
But how is that possible? Sumi died years before, at the school, before she ever had the chance to conceive a child.
Nevertheless, Rini persists. She is clearly real, she is right there in front of them, although she is slowly starting to disappear. With her life on the line, Rini won’t let reality and logic stand in the way of her finding her mom and saving not just herself, but also her world.
Sumi was one of my favorite characters from Every Heart a Doorway, so I was excited to get to this book, as I knew there was a connection to her.
In spite of Eleanor’s rule for no quests, a quest is very much where this book goes. Cora, Christopher, Nadya and another one of my absolute favorites, Kade, assist Rini in her search.
A bone flute is used in this story, which I thought was so cool. Christopher, whose world was a skeleton underworld, was able to use the bone flute to summon skeletons right out of their graves and I was living for it!
The kids meet up with another of the original characters from Every Heart, so that was a lovely surprise as well.
The land of Confection, the world Sumi and thus, her daughter is from, is a nonsense world with some logic; some rules the nonsense must follow.
I’ll be honest, the whole concept of a nonsense world freaks me the heck out and Confection is no exception.
Even as a kid, I was super weirded out by Alice in Wonderland, which I would also classify as a nonsense world with some logic.
Overall, this is a delightful novella. Unsurprisingly, the characters were fantastic, the writing is top shelf beautiful; I just really, really enjoyed it.
I cannot wait to continue on with the next book in the series! Do you think Seanan McGuire could just keep adding to this series forever?
