Once again, Seanan McGuire proves why she is an absolute master at the novella format. Every book in the Wayward Children series clocks in at under 250 pages and yet holds so very much inside. I will never stop shouting about this series from the rooftops. If you were ever a child and need healing, these books are absolutely for you. If you are nostalgic for childhood, these books are for you. If you missed out on childhood and had to grow up too fast, these books are for you. If you ever wished to find a magical door with a world where you finally belong, well, you know the rest.

This book is a masterclass on character. Nadya is born without an arm, but never considers herself lacking anything, having never had it to begin with. It is the adoptive parents who take her from the orphanage in Russia to America that make her wear a prosthetic arm. She wears it because she feels she must, because she is not given any other option or choice. Her feelings on the matter are not questioned—instead, those around her have decided for her that this is right, the correct course of action to solve a problem that was never a problem to begin with.

When she falls into the hint of a doorway in the water, she is sure, and she finds a world is magical with waters of different weights, waters that are able to be breathed and she becomes a Drowned Girl. Here, she finds a home with people who truly love her for who she is, who consider her whole. She makes friends with a giant turtle and they pick one another. She finds love. Everything seems perfect, until it is not.

Nadya is a fantastically drawn character. McGuire has such a handle on childhood and how it feels growing up in different situations. The innocence comes through in such a strong way that you can’t help but feel for Nadya, to criticize her parents, who likely only think they’re doing the right thing. If only they had asked the person it regarded what she thought. So often we brush past children, thinking they’re not old enough to have an opinion, to have thoughts on a certain matter, especially those that regard them. We make choices for them, about their life and their body, and we implement them thinking they’re right.

This novella is filled with heart and whimsy and danger. It is about fighting for what is yours, for doing the right thing. How far would you go to protect what you think is right? And what happens if all of that can be taken away from you at any given moment? How would you live your life in the present?

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Seanan McGuire's writing is lovely as always, and this series is charming as always. Entries like this that focus entirely on one character's time in their other world reminds me that while this is all an interconnected story, they're still fairytales. Not every book has to perfectly fit into the series and move the entire series plot forward, nor has this series ever tried to do that with every book.

As a story that explores another land and lets McGuire play with the fairytale storytelling format, it works as all the Wayward Children books work. I did really like the disability rep here, and I liked Nadya a lot as a character. The world of Belyrreka was really neat as well.

I also have to remember that these stories of the characters that explore their time in the other worlds are inherently SAD AS HELL, because it means they get spit back out to the real world at the end. It happens every time, and it's no less tragic every time.

A good entry in this series, though one I dare say could be skipped if all you really want at this point is the main story.

Another delightful entry in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series. I will never cease to be amazed... and delighted, have I mentioned it's delightful? By the weird and fascinating details that McGuire includes in her novellas.

This tenth novella focuses on Nadya, who we met in prior novellas as "the turtle girl," who goes to a Drowned World. Nadya is Russian and everything in her new world is as well? I'm not very familiar with Russian culture so I'm unsure of the authenticity but the little details were... um, delightful.

As usual, McGuire's worldbuilding is thorough, and she manages to show instead of explain how the world is constructed, though being able to learn along with Nadya was helpful. The way she leaned on science - for example, relative density - to explain some elements of the world that wouldn't otherwise make sense was especially deli... um, intriguing.

I would read another book about Nadya to learn more about her life at the school. Let's be real, though, I'd honestly read anything Seanan McGuire writes.

In a word, delightful (sorry, couldn't help myself).

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the digital advance reader's copy.

I look forward to a new release in this series every year.

Quick background: Doors to other worlds appear for children who need them. These worlds are heart and home for many of these children, although the worlds are wild and strange and rarely safe.

This entry in the series brings us the story of Nadya, a Drowned girl, who we last saw in Beneath the Sugar Sky staying behind at the River of Souls with the agreement that if her home land, Belyyreka, calls to her, she'll be allowed to return.

While I think everyone should read every book in this series, it's not entirely necessary for this particular entry, as it could stand alone. However, I think it will resonate more if you've already been immersed in the worlds of the Wayward Children.

Now, we have the opportunity to learn more about Nadya, a Russian orphan born with one arm, who is adopted by U. S. parents and treated more as an object who should be abjectly thankful for being adopted than as a child with ideas and opinions and dreams.

Nadya never feels truly loved or seen and things grow worse when her parents have her fitted with a prosthetic arm without her input.

When she finds her doorway to Belyyreka, she is home in this underwater world of giant turtles, frogs, bartering, and small community. She grows in a place where she is loved as she is and where she can be exactly who she wants to be.

I love how in so few pages, McGuire makes me care so deeply about these characters that I feel their hopes and devastation.

One of my absolute favorite young adult fantasy series.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is Nadya's story. Born in Russia with one arm, abandoned by her mother and raised in an orphanage, she doesn't find her door until she's adopted by a couple and brought to the United States. Her door leads to an underwater city where she finds her true family.
I think readers will be heartbroken by the ending, but if you've followed the series so far, you will know what happens next in her story.

As with any book in this series, the themes, in this case adoption and disability, are handled with nuance and care. Now the year long wait for the next book in the series.

This series is just so good. I always look forward to when a new one comes out and ruins me for a bit. This is no exception to that.

I loved this book and Nadya's character and world. I thought the author showed such a nuanced look at adoption and some people's holier-than-thou mindset of "saving" people underprivileged. This book shows how ableism can come in many forms and thinking you know best can lead to resentment. I also loved how unique the doorway and world that Nadya went into. I had to look up (since it's been a while since I read the first book) what happened to her after that harsh sudden ending. I am relieved of what I read. Seanan has such a way of making you so attached to each character in such a short amount of time. You want only good things to happen to them even knowing that it probably won't happen. Overall, another great book in the series and I will anticipating the next one.

Yet another example of why Seanan McGuire is just so good at writing novellas like this! Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is another installment in the beloved Wayward Children series involving portals to other worlds. This one the backstory of Nadya, and wow did it it for me. It deals with adoption and disability in really nuanced ways that feel important.

Nadya was born in Russia with one arm, abandoned by her teenage mother and left in an orphanage before being adopted through a Christian missionary program. Which goes about as well as you might expect with new, ableist parents who expect her to be very grateful. The world she falls into is one of water and sentient creatures including turtles. But the ending is a bit of a gut punch. I loved it and if you're a fan of the series you probably will too. But then I pretty much always rave about these books! I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

A beautiful addition to the series. Seanan explores disability ,adoption , what belonging in any world means . As always, Seanan reminds us how important it is to really listen to kids and values each of her characters and the stories they have to share .

As excellent or more than every other Wayward Children book! I loved Nadya's story and thought that her missing (? that seems like a bad way to phrase it when Nadya doesn't miss it) arm was portrayed respectfully and believably.

The best book yet in an already fantastic series.

Nadya spent her early life in a Russian orphanage, helping care for the children and get them adopted. She is eventually adopted (unwillingly) by an American couple, who is more interested in demonstrating their charity than in actually loving a child. They force a prosthetic arm on her, further alienating Nadya from her own body and from her classmates.

An unhappy Nadya falls into Belyyreka, a water world. She finds a family who understands her for herself, and befriends a giant turtle with a cracked shell. Adventures ensue.

I have to re-iterate, even compared to the other books in this series, this one is so so so good.

A stunning addition to the fantastic Wayward Children series. Readers get to stumble into another fantastical world, and come to better understand Nadya and her background. A series you can always be sure of — highly recommend!

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is the tenth book in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire and it follows Nadya who was last in book three. This one starts with Nadya in the “real world” and shows what her adventure through her door entails.

I loved this book so much. I loved Nadya as a character and found her story to be heartbreaking at times. Nadya has a limb difference and the way she talks about it through the book really impacted me. The feeling of people wanting to fix you even though you don’t see yourself as broken.

The writing in this was stunning as always and I loved the world Nadya travelled to. Like most books in this series, there is a lot of telling and not showing which makes the book move pretty quickly. I’m interested in seeing where the next book goes.

I think anyone who is a fan of this series will enjoy this installment. I do also think there are certain installments that make good entry points into the series and I think this is one.

Excellent addition to this series. I look forward to seeing how these characters play out in future books.

What a joy! What an absolutely engrossing and marvelous little book! How often do we really open our hearts to the feelings of others? This books puts forth the idea that our best intentions may not always be as welcome as we dreamed they would be, especially to a suffering child who needs so much love and patience. Nay da is unwanted from birth. In fact, her birth mother, a young woman who feels she has not had enough time to be a child herself, literally can’t get out the door fast enough when she is born, especially after seeing her missing hand that never grew. Nayda herself grows up in an orphanage till age nine with a fierce love for her home country of Russia and a kind and charitable heart that allows her to push other children before herself to find new family’s. Secretly she hopes if she is good enough, selfless enough, her mother will see her mistake and come back for her. Instead by age nine she is taken by an American family and all her culture is stripped away. She literally loses everything she ever loved, and this is not done malicious ly but out of the misguided belief of her new adoptive parents that she will be grateful for a life with more privilege in America and that she was unhappy where she was. They believe they can quickly convert her to English and that by showering her with new toys and clothing, they can ease the suffering of her life from growing up disabled and unwanted, not unstanding she has never seen herself as disabled and that she holds a deep loyalty and commitment to where she came from. The story is beautiful and heartbreaking, intelligent and though provoking on so many levels. After she is fit with a prosthetic limb to make her “whole” against her will, and unable to make herself understood, she finds herself in a magical world much like Narnia, but instead of lions and witches and such there are magnificent shifts and huge turtles and many challenges that will help her discover the person she was meant to be. It’s a lovely tale and I greatly want to read the other books by Seanan McGuire after indulging in this one!

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Wayward Children, #10)
by Seanan McGuire
Aren't all the Wayward Children books wonderful?! I have read them all and each one has touched my heart in some way. This one broke my heart, twice. In the beginning and the end. The middle was wonderful! It really threw me with the ending. I felt like someone hit me in the stomach.
I did not see it coming.
McGuire's books always make me feel like I am there, experiencing the story with the characters. The world building, no matter how fanciful, remains believable when McGuire describes it. This story sure has the most varied backgrounds, and one of the most thrilling too!
I really got wrapped up and invested in the main characters. I think this was one of her better books. I want to thank the publisher, and NetGalley, for letting me read and review this amazing book!
If you haven't read any of the Wayward Children books you are really missing out. Each book is totally different from each other. Pick up one, two, or more, and enjoy!

I am always excited for the next installment of the Wayward Children series. Her world's are always unique, fun to learn and explore.

Unfortunately, I do feel that some of them have become a bit formulaic and I'm not quite as excited for the ones that fill in the backstory of characters. Nadya is a character that I did like back in the beginning of the series but this one did feel a bit unnecessary to know her backstory in such detail. I almost wish that we had gotten more of her later story and the backstory. I think it would be interesting to see a character's return to their world - how they cope with returning and the effects of this.

Despite not loving the last two installment of this series, I will still continue with this series until the end as I know I can still love another one in this.

Thank you to net galley and the publisher for the arc.

4.5 stars!

Thank you to Seanan McGuire and Tor Books (my beloved) for an ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

I just really love this series. I just really, really love it and I forgot how much I loved it until I came back to it.

I was lucky enough to also receive an ARC for the prior book in this series, and I remember when I got that one I was only about three books in so I binge read the entire series last December in order to review it. It was such a joy to come back to a year later and be reminded about the simple joy of the Wayward Children series.

This was an especially welcome addition to the series as Nadya's experience of being born without one of her hands hits close to home as someone also born "disabled"(not a term she identifies with but one that I do). Her frustration with using aids and being made to feel ungrateful by the people around her was relatable and also well done as I've come to expect of this series. I also just love her world with it's giant turtles and undersea villages and as usual I was absolutely heartbroken when I turned a page and realized the book was over.

I know some fans of the series don't like the individually-focused books as much as they like the ones focused on the Home for Wayward Children but they always strike a chord with me and I'm glad this one does too. Genuinely, the last two books have been some of my favorite in the series and I'm so looking forward to where this series goes next.

Happy reading!

Another really good read to add to the Wayward Children series. While this wasn't my favorite, I liked that it is expanding the worlds and characters. I liked the underwater world and the bonding with turtles.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is another captivating installment in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, and it brings readers back to the world of doors and impossible lands with a tale as immersive and profound as the water-soaked realm it explores. This time, we follow Nadya, a young girl with a complicated past and a missing arm, who finds herself drawn into Belyyreka—the Land Beneath the Lake. This book is full of the magic, whimsy, and emotional depth that fans of the series have come to expect, but it’s also a unique and powerful story of identity, acceptance, and the idea of “home.”
Nadya is a standout protagonist. Born without an arm, she’s had to endure a world that treats her as incomplete, even as she knows deep down that she’s whole. Her adoptive parents, in their well-meaning but misguided attempts to “fix” her, only add to her frustration by fitting her with a prosthetic arm that feels like more of a burden than a blessing. Nadya’s journey is a deeply personal one as she navigates her sense of self-worth and learns to reclaim her autonomy. When she stumbles through a door into the watery world of Belyyreka, she not only finds herself in a land of wonders but in a place that finally feels like home—where her differences are celebrated, not erased.
The world-building in Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is nothing short of magical. The author brings Belyyreka to life with vivid imagery, from the majestic giant turtles that glide through the water to the eerie child-eating amphibians that pose constant threats. The concept of ships that sail beneath the water adds a surreal, almost dreamlike quality to the narrative, and the aquatic setting feels fresh and different from the previous worlds explored in the Wayward Children series. Fans of the author’s intricate, atmospheric world-building will be delighted by the lush, immersive details of this new realm.
At its heart, this is a story about belonging, and the author handles themes of identity and acceptance with her signature emotional nuance. Nadya’s struggles to reconcile her sense of self with how others see her is deeply relatable, and her discovery of a place where she is truly accepted for who she is—prosthetic arm or not—is profoundly moving. The Drowned Girl finding her home in the river is a powerful metaphor for self-acceptance, and readers will find themselves rooting for Nadya as she fights to protect her new world and the people who have come to matter to her.
The book is not without its darker moments. Belyyreka, like all The author's worlds, is beautiful but dangerous, and Nadya faces plenty of challenges as she navigates the trials of her new life. The tension between the idyllic world and the lurking threats adds a compelling edge to the story, keeping readers on the edge of their seats.
The only slight drawback is that at times the pacing can feel uneven. While Nadya’s internal journey is beautifully fleshed out, some of the external conflicts—especially the dangers posed by the amphibians and other trials in Belyyreka—could have been explored more deeply. Nonetheless, this is a minor quibble in an otherwise enchanting and thought-provoking story.
Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is a wonderful addition to the Wayward Children series, offering readers a poignant and magical journey of self-discovery and belonging. Nadya’s story will resonate with anyone who has ever felt like they didn’t quite fit, and the author's lyrical prose and imaginative world-building will leave readers eager to see where the doors lead next. Whether you're a longtime fan of the series or a newcomer, this is a book that will sweep you away like a powerful tide and leave you deeply satisfied.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

So we all try to imagine if we'd like/would survive each world Seanan McGuire introduces us to, right? Take me to Belyrekka (or the Trenches). I volunteer as tribute.

Of all the Wayward Children stories, this one hit me the hardest. Nadya is a character we meet in Beneath the Sugar Sky and I'll admit I had completely forgotten who she was. This didn't impact my enjoyment of Adrift, however. Nadya is a character study in resilience. Her forced cultural and physical assimilation was heart-breaking to read and her absolute joy in Belyrekka was infectious. I loved the world and the characters

if like me, you were agonising over the end of Adrift, I'd recommend pulling that one off your shelf so you can see how her story continues)