-reread august 2018-

i LOVE this book!
it’s dark and brutal but at the same time has so many true and real moments in it!

there are so many sentences in this that just speak to me in the best ways. not really “quotes” in the ways that its something that makes a lot of sense to just say them outside the book, but just quotes that are so true or real or just honest about specific things that are mentioned... i love it!!

i already mentioned on my review from my first read that i loved the OCD aspects of this but they where just as if not even better in this reread!

i just love this book and i have the feeling that it is one of the books for me that i will reread yearly from now on, simply because i just love the experience each time!

i really hope that one of the future books in this wayward children’s series will feature jack and jill again and how they manage the moore’s again after everything that happened both in this book as well as in every heart a doorway!

- first read - july 2017-

This was FANTASTIC!

I enjoyed this book WAY more than the first one -which honestly i just found strange and not that great especially with all the huge hype surrounding that first book!

I loved how the story started, how the parents clearly are not good parents but at the same time they are not horrible people they just have no idea how to be a parent!

I loved how this book showcased a real sibling relationship, where you can HATE your sibling/sister so much that you want to hurt them -destroy something they love simply to show them that you as their sibling know exactly where it hurts them the most!- but it also shows the side that you would literary do everything in your power to help your sibling stay save no matter how much you hate them at the moment, you love them way more!
It might sound completely strange to some people, but too me that kind of sibling relationship the exchanging love/hate is so much more real to me than constant love-y dove-y siblings.
I don't know anyone that has a sibling that ALWAYS loves them, sometimes you are jealous for no reason what so ever, sometimes you HATE them, sometimes they are the best person in the world, but no matter what you feel for your sibling? The moment they really do need you for what ever? You're there for them, to help. No questions ask.
To me that is just how siblings work.

i personally wouldn't kill for my sister and i know she wouldn't either! So there is that aspect of the story that i found a bit extreme, but thats okay, we all knew that Jill is a bit on the crazy side! So clearly her hate and jealousy would take this enormously huge turn into the worse!

The writing was fantastic, i loved the details we got in this book, to really get a feeling and understanding for this world the twins walk into.
I love the darkness this story has, but at the same time the realistic moments it has in those dark moments that somehow in my option makes those moments a bit lighter -and at the same time even darker, because clearly most of those really horrible moments are the most realistic ones!


I really loved how Jack and Jill are identical twins, but they are so different from each other while at the same time also having quite a few similarities.
I loved how McGuire describes and writes about how children can and can't be what their parents dreamed up for them to be and become, and i loved how he included the moments where its clear that both twins want what the other has, but at the same time they don't really want exactly what the other has and what role the other one plays because parts of what their parents tried to molt them into is what they like.


I really, really loved how realistically this book portrays one version of OCD in and with Jack.
Her "fear" of dirt that her mother managed to drill into her so deeply that it clearly became a huge compulsion she has no longer has any control over is my option one of the best portrays of this type of OCD i have seen in a book - ever i think.
Its wonderful how it is woven into the story, and how clear it is that everyone around Jack knows exactly that it is nothing she can control and most people do not try to force her into uncomfortable possessions because of that knowledge, but rather let her do what she needs to do in different ways.
And i love that its also not this big huge plot twist or hang up in the story. Its mentioned, its talked about because its clearly a big characterisation of Jack, but at the same time its not constantly mentioned or that someone tries to help or "Heal" jack of her "Problem".

Its just nice to see people not understanding but at the same time not really caring that Jack has OCD in the clear compulsion way, because if you have it you know it and no matter how much you want to explain it to others, you can't. It will never -ever!- make sense to anyone how and why specific things function to and for you while others just don't, but its wonderful to see in this book that nobody tries to make it a big deal out of not understanding why Jack can do somethings with dirt while others are horrendously awful to her and she can't even touch it with bare hands.

It was just a great representation in my option of one form of OCD and it was wonderful to see and i think that McGuire did a fantastic job in showcasing this version of it and it was such a marvellous surprise to have that in the story and it really made me love this book more!


And even though i am normally not a fan of open endings AT ALL (read: i HATE them with such a passion that i could rant endlessly about the stupidity of open endings!) i didn't mind this one at all. It was an open ending, but at the same time, thanks to the first book in this series we already know where those two end up in, and with what we get in those last few sentences we also more or less know what will happen up until the start of the first book. So while it clearly is an open ending, it also isn't at the same time?
I have no idea if that makes even kind of sense.

I just enjoyed the writing and the characters (for the most parts) in this!


The only real "negative" thing i have to say about this is that it reminded me a LOT of this strange mixture of both Dracula and Frankenstein.
That could be just a "Me" thing in this book, but there were just so many moments with the "master" and the "doctor" i just had this constant reminder of two those classics respectively.
I am not saying that its necessarily a bad thing that we can clearly see a connection to those clasics, but at the same time i think McGuire could have done a bit of a better job at not making it look as if he was retelling some aspects of those classics.
But again. Maybe thats just a personal thing...? No idea.



All in all?

READ THE BOOK.

I mean clearly, didn't you see me ranting on about what i loved?
I think its a big step up from the first book and this one deserves the hype the first one got and this one hasn't, so just go read it and then tell others to read it as well!