Eep my first ARC, thank you NetGalley! This book was advertised as being very similar to the Midnight Library and the Night Circus, both of which are absolutely true. However, unlike those two, I really enjoyed this book! While the writing style and themes were similar, I think this book was better executed :)

I was expecting something a bit more whimsical and lighthearted, but this ended up being darker than I expected. The book follows Cassie, who unexpectedly acquires a book that can open doors anywhere called (you guessed it) the Book of Doors. What follows is quite an adventure involving magical books, cutthroat book hunters, and many new friends.

Also unexpected, time travel! I am very iffy on time travel as I think it’s really difficult to do well, but this is one of the best interpretations of time travel I’ve read. I appreciated the explanations of both open and closed time travel in a way that fit into the story, as this made it a lot easier for me to understand. I also felt like the author did a good job of wrapping everything up and tying all the loose ends together so that by the end of the book, everything connected back.

POV was third person, and jumped from character to character. I think multiple POV can get confusing, and while I was a little lost to begin with, it all came together nicely. My only real complaint was the pacing as some bits felt fast and others slow. As a result, it took me a while to get through the first half of this book, but I ended up flying through the second half.

Overall, I thought this book was a hit! Definitely recommending this one!

Rating- ⭐️⭐️ 2/5
Any door is every door. ‘The Book of Doors’ is a magical book that can take its user anywhere in the world. When the book falls into Cassie’s hands, she is thrust into a world of opportunity and danger. Cassie is thrilled to be able to revisit Europe, and share the experience with her best friend Izzy. The excitement quickly washes away when they realize there’s more than one special book, and people will do just about anything to get their hands on ‘The Book of Doors’. When Cassie and Izzy’s lives are threatened by dangerous collectors, they find friendship in unlikely places. I wanted to like this book but it just didn’t click with me. My major issue with this book was the writing which was drawn out in a lot of places. The characters were all one dimensional. For me, Cassie was an unlikeable protagonist and I found her character irritating. I would have liked to be more impacted by this book. I could not get invested into the story line and it unfortunately was a drag to finish. Ultimately, the concept is very cool and I enjoyed the whole magical book and time travel angle. My favorite thing about this story is how everything was cyclical. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the advance reader copy.

I'm happy about reading this book! The engaging description left me uncertain about its genre, but happily, it weaved elements of whimsy, mystery, and romance.

The nonlinear narrative involving time travel, a mysterious society, and secrets Society's within the library captivated me. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys a blend of time travel and mystery.

Thank you to Gareth Brown and Netgallery for the opportunity to read this book!

Loved this! Really interesting plot. It kept me hooked for sure. It reminded me of Addie Lauren! I think this will be a hit!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc!

Really enjoyed this. Fast-paced, inventive, fun, perfect for fans of Addie LaRue and The Ten Thousand Doors of January. NYC setting didn't hurt a bit!

Time travel and books are two of my favorite things! This book is beautiful and the premises is engaging and interesting. I found all of the characters to be endearing, especially Cassie and Drummond. A great read.

I really enjoyed this book. I think the plot had just the right amount of suspense, action and pacing to keep me interested and reading. The characters were well developed and they felt realistic within the context of the story. The story of the books and how they can be used was creative and original in my opinion. I particularly enjoyed the story of Cassie & Mr. Webber.

i can't believe this is a debut work! (!!!) genuinely one of my favorite things i've read this year, and one that has done sci-fi and movement in time so well. i'm always in for time travel, but some stories wield it as a plot device better than others, and this story did it so well. the magic was dreamy, the characters were multi-dimensional, and the story was engaging from start to finish. love love love. will buy a hard copy for my shelves!

a few more comments behind spoiler tag

– first of all, the discovery that cassie actually created the books was so lovely. i really appreciated how it happened and the way she found it out herself, and as always, i was clueless and didn't see it coming. second, there was a split second where hugo was reconsidering his life, and i thought holy shit, is he going to be revealed to be drummond? or someone else adjacent to our story? now obviously, there would've been some appearance shifting, but that wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility for this story, so the way it was phrased definitely gave me pause.

last thing, this reminded me a lot of the seven deaths of evelyn hardcastle in that as i was reading, i realized i would likely reread just to gain additional context that i missed the first time around.

I received an E-Arc from Netgalley and publisher for an honest review!

Whoah! This book had my jaw dropping to the floor quite a few times. It was not what I thought was going to be because of the dark aspect of the story. Just wow. I loved the aspect of books being magical. I am really impressed with Gareth's writing on this book. It's a must read if you like fantasy.

I loved, loved the story because of the concept the author wrote as I probably state up above in the first paragraph - the books! There was such vivid descriptions of what is happening and the places that pop up. I also felt like there was a magical system type of feel. I will say time travel - that's all I'm saying. Read the story when it comes out to learn more!

This is a little bit different than what I normally read. Welll...sometimes I read some unique stories that capture my attention. This one was more geared towards fantasy and magic.

Cassie and Drummond are the main characters in the book. I loved how the obstacles they faced that they had to figure out ways to adapt. They also had an understanding for each other.

The other characters in this story have their own adventure and they all tie in to the story in one way or the other. I will say I did not like "the woman." Whoah..talk about being the villain in the story and soooo creepy. That character gave me dark vibes. Whooo. Creepy. I will say that the relationship of all the characters have some type of unique connection to each other and ties in with the plot.

Does it get a happy ending?

This did take me a little while to read. So much going on with the twists and turns. I cannot emphasize on the twist and turns...it's that good in my opinion. It's a great fantasy reads! I am so glad I read it.

This was SO unique. Thank you so much netgalley for this opportunity.
This sits solidly in dark academia land: think "The Night Circus" and "The Midnight Library" and "The Cloisters". A wonderfully, creepy, literary-entrenched story with books, time travel, just the teeniest hit of romance, and suspense. Cassie, our female lead, happens upon the Book of Doors, a book that can transport the holder to any place and time of their choosing, and learns quickly that magical books come at a heavy and dangerous price. We meet a cast of characters, all with their own books, through space and time as Cassie tries to stop a big bad.
OH and there's some gore. Really well written, not purposefully gratuitous, plot moving gore. I LOVED it.
This is a slow read: the twists and turns through time are really impactful and need to be carefully followed. There's some bends in the theory of time that you need to just accept as fact. But overall? A really great fun read!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of The Book of Doors! This is the most thoroughly original read I’ve experienced in a long time. What a breath of fresh air! Everything from the concepts underlying the books to the characters was incredibly thought out and intricately woven together. While I sometimes struggle with the more sci-fi aspects of the genre, such as time travel, I really enjoyed the way in which it was used in the novel. I loved seeing every element come together in such clever and subtle ways. It was refreshing to see time travel used not as some kind of deus ex machina, but as a key player in the story. My only qualm was with the ending—I felt that the villain, who was repeatedly set up as a horrifying and nearly impossible to defeat figure, was dispatched almost too easily. Additionally, the events towards the end felt quite rushed, especially in comparison to the pacing of the beginning and middle of the book. Overall, however, I really, really enjoyed this novel. I am very excited to see what Brown writes next, but in the meantime, make sure to check out The Book of Doors!

I loved every single moment I spent with this book. From the beginning to the end, I loved the magic, the joy, the concept and the characters. I loved the idea of magical books. I loved so many of the concepts the book introduced and the idea that every single thing can be good or bad depending on who is using it. I cannot wait to read more books by this author.

If you love books and you love fantasy worlds built around books, I am confident you will love this book. I really hope they make it into a movie.

with gratitude to netgalley and William Morrow for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC of The Book of Doors in exchange for an honest review.

I went into this expecting something similar-ish to The Ten Thousand Doors of January or A Starless Sea, but the book ended up feeling a bit more like Ink Blood Sister Scribe. In both The Book of Doors and Ink Blood Sister Scribe the first half of the book seems to be recounting background before the plot truly begins. So, in this case, the majority of the book action took place in the second half, incorporating things from the first half to build out the story.

The romance aspect of the book was very limited - I"m actually not sure why it was included in the genre as it didn't seem like there was any romance at all at any point.

I think I'm a little bit conflicted on the book as a whole - it started off like what could be a cozy adventure romance, and then at the 50% point it had some incredibly violent scenes and some plot points from using the Book of Doors that were intense to read, but were a bit confusing to place as a cohesive story. It was still an enjoyable read, but I don't think it is my style of storytelling/character development.

"The Book of Doors" is very reminiscent of the kind of gentle, didactic, magical realism we've seen come on the scene in the past few years. Think "The Midnight Library" or "This Time Tomorrow." Our protagonists come by a magical book that causes doors (or portals) to different places to materialize. It's hard to pull off a plot like this when it feels like it's already been done (Midnight Library, cough). The story didn't feel particularly original, and the writing was a bit..simple. Not a great combination for me and I ended up skimming through most of it.

I loved this title. I started out thinking it was a cozy fantasy book, but then it took a very dark turn! The book of doors allows the holder to travel by opening a door and the doorway becomes a portal to any other doorway that the holder can visualize. You can open a door in NY and when you walk through, exit through a door in Europe to visit a city you last saw when you were young. How much would a criminal be willing to do to get their hands on this book? What if there were other books out there that enabled the holder to have different and even more dangerous powers? I enjoyed every twist and turn of this story all the way to the end. I think this will enable lots of discussion for book clubs!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

Unfortunate DNF! The writing just fell very flat for me, it had an interesting concept, but the characters felt very one dimensional to me in terms of dialogue, pacing and exposition.

Unfortunately, I really didn't like this one. Some of it was due to personal reasons (the way the story played out took it into a realm I don't particularly like to read). Everything else though was just the book itself. There are a few reasons for this:
- There's some descriptions in this book that made me a bit uncomfortable, especially as pertains to weight-related issues
- There's a part in the book where Drummond posits that the existence of various Books may have influenced certain events worldwide. This wouldn't have been a problem, I think, if he hadn't gone on to say that the Ancient Egyptians probably had Books because their technology was so advanced at the time. It's like, I get what the author was going for, but at the same time that line of thinking is so reductive. Not everything is a conspiracy.
- There were hints of a romance brewing between Drummond and Cassie which didn't make sense or work at all.
- The villains of the story felt like they lacked nuance, even after explanations were made in the later half of the book for why they behaved the way they did. Even those explanations felt half-baked.
- None of the characters really stood out to me. They all felt like they were skimming the surface of being fully formed characters. I wanted them to have a bit more depth than they did.
- But mostly the biggest problem, for me, was the fact that the book relied very, very heavily on just telling you things happened instead of showing. It made the book drag while simultaneously speeding it along, often whipping past things I wouldn't have minded actually seeing on the page. For example, Cassie ends up forming a friendship with someone, but you never really actually see it happen. It was just something like, "Months passed and Cassie and (x) grew more comfortable with each other." Like, that's great and all, but I'd actually like to see this happen.

The entirety of the book was a case of "I like concept vastly more than I like the execution". Things never really reached the level of depth I wanted and the ending felt a little anti-climactic. Overall, really not for me.

A richly imagined (if at times a little rote) debut, very much in the Alix Harrow school of modern fantasy. Brown's vision of a world much like ours that happens to have a handful of spectacularly magical books in it -- each one able to do one thing (turn any door into every door, shift objects' states of matter, take or deliver pain or despair or joy) -- is delightful, although I wished his characters hadn't moved in such predictable ways at times (particularly around romance/romantic entanglements). There's a great riff on time travel in here as well and the pieces fit together quite nicely as the book rushes towards its conclusion. Solid fantasy for anyone looking to escape, this winter!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC. I am in love with The Book of Doors! Magic, suspense, time travel, murder and mahem! So much going on in the book in the best way! I was enamored by the very first page and captivated until the end!! I very much loved that the author let his imagination take him where it did and I’m glad I was along for the ride! If you loved Alice In Wonderland as a kid, if Dr. Who was cool, if Back to the Future brought a smile to your face, or if you’d love to go have one last leisurely talk with your grandpa, grab this book!! I can’t wait to get my hands on the hardback when it comes out in February!

Engaging, immersive, and original. A recommended purchase for collections where modern fantasy is popular.