This book was written by Alix E. Harrow who is a good writer, but I thought there was somethings missing from her book “The Ten Thousand Doors of January”. First of all, my wife bought the book on Kindle, and I picked it up on my Kindle. The book is recently published to the best of my knowledge and is selling fairly well. I think it is a book for teens but can be read by adults.
The writer does have a good style and the pages flow easily. The protagonist is a young lady, in her teen years named January. She is half black but is taken care of by her father’s boss in England while her Black Father searches the world for rate antiques for him. I think the color of their skin is supposed to play a part in the story, but I and some other Amazon reviews consider it incidental. You see the father’s boss is the antagonist. I think he is just a greedy selfish man.
Talking about Amazon reviews, some reviewers complain about Harrow’s prose. However, I didn’t have any problem with the prose.
Now for the book. I will try my best, but there will be “Spoilers” here. The Ten Thousand Doors is a way to get from one dimension to another. This is not a spoiler as it is early in the book. I like the idea and the doors appear to be limited to certain people, January and her father being two of them. This turns out how her father is able to get the antiques.
I like the general idea of the doors. Also, her father left January with a book to read when he gets in trouble, which happens. I love the idea of a book within a book. Here the author has the book for us to read. It was one of my favorite parts of the book. This is accomplished writing by Ms. Harrow. The book “The Ten Thousand Doors of January” is written in first person by January, but the book with the book is written by January’s father. You can tell it is a single voice.
Now come the “Spoilers”.
My problem with the book it ends too fast. What I mean by this is January’s problems are solved too easily. Toward the end I was wondering if this was the first book of a series, because I didn’t think January’s opponents could be defeated that fast and the issue with her father solved. However, both issues were easily resolved. Also, there was some issues with some of the side characters. One thing I like is interesting support characters and I like to follow them in the story. So you will see this as a common complaint from me. One lady was a maid who helped January throughout her life. She was again trying to help January at the end, but January leaves her behind to protect her and that is it.
As things come so easily for January at the end the ending felt kind of flat which hurts the rest of the book. I would give this book only 3 of 5 stars on Amazon.
