Another brilliant adventure in Seanan McGuire's perfectly realised world(s). We return to the Wayward Children, much beloved of the first two books, and this time enter a world of Confection.

Rini lands in the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, to discover that her mother Sumi died years before her birth, a victim of Jack's murderous rampage in book one. Rini and the students must find a way to restore Sumi so that Rini can be born to save to world. And all the while avoiding the notice of Reality before it decides that Rini is a anomaly that needs removing...

Prepare to fall in love yet again with McGuire's irresistible characters as she proves that diversity is not just a fad or a lip-service. She gives them all such life and heart and shines a brilliant, empathetic light on all their wonderful difference from gender to body type. It's fiercely feminist and terrifically accepting and it really is a joy to see.

And let's not forget the plot! Because McGuire is also and telented world-builder and storyteller. After the Wicked Logic of The Moors we have Nonsense and Virtue in a world full of sweets and confectionary. But the Cake Queen's quest for logic has made her a dictator and it is prophesied the only Sumi can restore real Nonsense. But Sumi is dead and only a visit to the Halls of the Dead might return her. It's a wild ride, full of outstanding imagination and stunning writing.

I skimmed this book to judge appropriateness for our library and it looks like a great follow up to the first novel. We have already purchased it.

Really enjoyable addition to the Wayward Children series.
Ended up listening to the audiobook for this one a little while back.

Unlike the rest of the Wayward Children books, this one isn't a standalone. You don't need to have read all of the previous ones, but it may not make much sense without the background from Every Heart a Doorway, and its premise is a spoiler. If you haven't read that one yet, wait until after you have to start Beneath the Sugar Sky.

Rini, daughter of Nancy's roommate Sumi from Every Heart a Doorway, pops into the mundane world above the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, demanding to see her mother. Which is a problem, because Sumi died without having children. A group of students, some familiar and some new, team up to help save Rini's world by bringing Sumi back.

I loved Kade and Christopher and was excited to see them again, and this book didn't disappoint. There's even a moment when Kade gets to show off some of his skill as Goblin Prince. The newcomers are excellent too, and I hope we might eventually see more of Drowned Girl Nadya. And Cora's impossibly blue and green mermaid hair functioning as a timer before her world closes to her is terrible and perfect.

I won't spoil it, but the solution to Rini's problem is amazing and exactly what it ought to be.

It's my least favorite of the books so far, but that speaks less to its quality than to how strong the series is overall. Surprising no one who knows me, the sugary nonsense world of Confection appealed to me much less than darker and deader worlds, such as the Moors. And the description of chocolate armor, cake paths, and soda seas all made me a bit nauseous. Still, this doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it or don't recommend it. I don't revisit it as often as the others, but it's still on my comfort reading/listening list.

There are some early plot points that don't quite make sense to me--for example, that they need to find where Sumi's family buried her. In Every Heart a Doorway, Sumi says she's Eleanor's ward and has no family to miss her, and it very much sounds as if Eleanor choosing to report her death is a formality since there will be no one to claim her remains but Eleanor. I suppose Sumi had extended family she contacted? Who knows. Still, a minor point in a solid book.

A fun adventure that brings back several familiar characters from Every Heart a Doorway (Kade, Christopher, Nancy, and Eleanor West) but focuses mostly on Cora, a fat girl who is an excellent athlete (particularly, a long-distance swimmer) and was dragged out of a world where she was a mermaid. I *loved* Cora and I thought her observations of how people treated her were spot-on; the plot was kind of silly but I feel like that's to be expected for a book about a quest into Nonsense.

Seanan McGuire will heal your broken heart and fill it with warmth. This book spins on the axis of fairytales, providing the comfort and uplift I’ve come to expect from McGuire's work, but it brings with it an added intimacy and insight into the life of these teens and their adventures. McGuire uses novellas in a particularly lovely way, using them to cast light on dark corners of her world, adding depth and nuance, and this novella is a fine example of this.

3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary:
At a home for young people who can move between worlds but are temporarily out of the appropriate one, Rini arrives unexpectedly, falling out of thin air into a turtle pond. She’s from the bakery world of Confection, and looking to resurrect her mother, whose death before Rini’s conception is leading to Rini’s gradual disappearance. It’s odd, but that’s how things work in a Nonsense world.

Review:
I've heard a lot about Seanan McGuire, and been looking for an opportunity to try her work. This wasn't marked as a sequel, or I might have chosen to start elsewhere. While it definitely feels like a sequel, it's not hard to follow along; McGuire does a decent job of covering the backstory as she goes.

I'm sorry to say I was disappointed. The book is a nice YA story, but not as magical as I was expecting from the hype.

On the good side,

- the concept is interesting, if familiar - magical gates to other worlds that have different rules (Logic, Reason, Nonsense)
- the characters are a nice break from the norm - different body types, different gender identification, etc.
- the writing is light and quick


On the other side,

- McGuire lays on the Logic/Nonsense dichotomy pretty thickly. We hear over and over again about the distinction, and why Nonsense worlds can operate however they like. She also strays into a 'worlds from' and 'worlds to' description that is far from clear, though the basic intent is easily discerned
- while the characters are appealingly different than the usual, McGuire's approach is heavy-handed, even for YA. The lead character, Cora, is heavier than the norm, but very able. That's great, but where McGuire goes wrong is in making almost everything in Cora's life about being thought fat. She can run fast, even though people think she's fat; she's smart, even though people discount her wit because they think she's fat; she's a good swimmer, even though ... It's credible that this is a central concern for Cora, but I would have given a lot for just a few things in her life not to be about being perceived as fat.
- McGuire sometimes falls or almost falls into the very trap she's trying to avoid. More characters than you'd expect are beautiful. While celebrating diversity, some of the characters mock those with different views. I'd like to say that these moments are set up as 'people are complicated and no one is perfect', but they're not. It seemed to me they were just slips, not clever meta-comments.


All in all, a passable YA novel, and probably fun if you're already immersed in the world. Coming into it cold, I was hoping for more originality and a lighter touch. Despite comparisons I've seen, this felt a lot less like Narnia than like one of the lesser Oz books.

I received an advance reader copy from the publisher via neygalley in exchange for an honest review.

I somehow managed to skip reading book 2, my bad. I regret this because I liked Jack and Jill in the first one. but this one picks up right after book 1 with returning and new characters.

the main plot is that Sumi's daughter, Rini, has arrived from the future due to a time paradox. her mother was not supposed to die and Rini is now ceasing to exist. so of course they have to go on a quest. for a place that says no quests allowed, these teens sure do go on a lot of them.

Rini is a delightfully Nonsensical girl who is very proud of her vagina (wonderfully so). the other new character is Cora who went to a mermaid world. she is a spunky go getter with body shamed issues and a supposedly introverted personality. I say supposedly because her character didn't have much consistency in that trait.

I wish there had been way more Nancy. and Kade. and I hope the next book is about Christopher.

the quest was interesting and the plot and pacing made slightly more sense this time around.

Set in our world, in "reality," Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children is where those that have fallen through the cracks into other realms and then stumbled back out again find a home. Our world is not kind to the children remade by worlds of Nonsense and Magic.
"Children have always tumbled down rabbit holes, fallen through mirrors, been swept away by unseasonal floods or carried off by tornadoes. Children have always traveled, and because they are young and bright and full of contradictions, they haven’t always restricted their travel to the possible. Adulthood brings limitations like gravity and linear space and the idea that bedtime is a real thing, and not an artificially imposed curfew. Adults can still tumble down rabbit holes and into enchanted wardrobes, but it happens less and less with every year they live. Maybe this is a natural consequence of living in a world where being careful is a necessary survival trait, where logic wears away the potential for something bigger and better than the obvious. Childhood melts, and flights of fancy are replaced by rules. Tornadoes kill people: they don’t carry them off to magical worlds. Talking foxes are a sign of fever, not guides sent to start some grand adventure."
I continue to adore this series wholeheartedly. McGuire delivers in each story a painful poignancy and darkness laced through with elements of sweetness. In Beneath the Sugar Sky, that sweetness is perhaps a bit more literal than in the others. Rini has never been a resident at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, instead she is a child of Sumi who was killed in Every Heart a Doorway, a child of a Nonsense world on a quest she must complete less she never have existed in the first place.

As always, I highly recommend this series of novellas.

Best installment of the series so far! Great to get to see more of the world and cool time travel messes!

Beneath the Sugar Sky is the third book in The Wayward Children series. I had not read the two previous books, but this one stands alone in the series.
Not being a big fan of fantasy, it was not my favorite to read, but I did enjoy the fun writing. The premise is most intriguing, and the human nature always seems to find wayward children interesting.

In Eleanor West’s home the children have found doors to fantastical worlds. You will meet interesting characters; Rini Onishi, Sumi, Queen of Cakes...

This adventure is dark, yet whimsical and full of wonders such as a pink soda sea, candy corn fields, and a castle made of gingerbread.

This is a great addition to your collection that emphasizes acceptance, kindness, and the enduring value of friendship.

Stand-alone, but yet a series, I am keeping up with these short intriguing novels.

After having read and absolutely loved the previous book in this series, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, I was really excited for a new Wayward Children book. Sadly, I was disappointed.

It was still a fairly entertaining read and the wonderful writing definitely bumped up the rate, but I felt disconnected, and at times even uninterested, in this story. I neither cared for the new world or the new characters, and for some reason it really irked me to be back at school again.

I guess that revisiting old characters were suppose to feel reminiscent of the previous books but I just felt like we were imposing on already finished stories and that their integrity was kind of stepped on.

I do however look forward to more stories in this universe and I think McGuire is really sharp and talented. An alright read.

If you wished to read more about the adventures you heard about in the first book, then check this one out!

This was a fun read, and much more adventurous than the first book. In Every Heart a Doorway, all these different tales of doorway adventures are told but never seen, whereas you experience bits and pieces of what some of the characters' adventures entailed. What I liked most about this book is the addition of the otherworldly characters, like the Queen of Cakes and the Lady of the Dead, who are not quite human yet easily discernible from the other nameless characters of each world. Definitely a fun read.

I continue to love McGuire's darkly magical Wayward Children series. Hopefully she'll be writing more, because I would definitely read more. It was particularly interesting in this book to get a look at more of the worlds, both through traveling to them as well as through the characters' descriptions of their worlds.

This was a fun short read centered in a world alongside ours. It was fun to see where some of the characters from Every Heart A Doorway ended up. It was cute.

Although it could be read as a standalone, this book featuring the "Wayward Children" is a stunning follow-up to Down Among the Sticks and Bones. Her stories are short but action-packed with great pacing. The character development is the best out there, in my opinion. Her imaginative world-building blows my mind with each new book, and the way that she brought the worlds from other doors to life in this book gave such clear imagery to me that it is probably my favorite yet. Cannot recommend enough.

This fantasy series is just amazing. It transports you to their school immediately after you've read a paragraph about it. Hopefully we'll get the next installment soon!

Beneath the Sugar Sky works as a counterpoint to the events from the first volume in the Wayward Children series. Rini fell out of the sky into the turtle pond at the Home for Wayward Children and demands to see her mother, Sumi. One big problem, Sumi was murdered by Jill a couple of years ago. So now Christopher, Cora, Kade, Nadya, and Rini are on a quest to restore Sumi to life so that the Queen of Cakes can be defeated and Rini can be born. An interesting adventure that leads the characters into a variety of stressful situations that they need to navigate and puzzles to solve. My favorite of the series so far!