Come Tumbling Down

by Seanan McGuire

Other authorsRobert Hunt (Cover artist), Rovina Cai (Illustrator)
Hardcover, 2020-01

Status

Available

Call number

PS3607 .R36395

Publication

Tor.com (New York, 2020). 1st edition, 1st printing. 208 pages. $19.99.

Description

Fantasy. Fiction. Mythology. HTML: The fifth installment in New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire's award-winning Wayward Children series, Come Tumbling Down picks up the threads left dangling by Every Heart a Doorway and Down Among the Sticks and Bones When Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sisterâ??whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justiceâ??back to their home on the Moors. But death in their adopted world isn't always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome. Eleanor West's "No Quests" rule is about to be broken. Again. The Wayward Children Series Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky Book 4: In an Absent Dream Book 5: Come Tumbling Down… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member MillieHennessy
Jack is one of my favorite characters and the Moors is my favorite place we’ve visited in the series so far, so I was very excited for this. I hate to say it, but I was a little let down This is still a great addition to the series, but it didn’t live up to how much I enjoyed Down Among the
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Sticks and Bones.

I can’t really pinpoint why this book didn’t reach whatever diaphanous expectations I had. But I didn’t really get the atmosphere of the Moors again because the story was mostly about Jack’s thoughts and feelings on the situation she found herself in. I wanted more of the world and the creatures and people who inhabit it. I felt like overall, this book took place more in the kid’s heads and it wasn’t wholly successful for me. I also think the ending was anti-climactic.

In all, I’m still glad this story exists and I’m still eager to see what other adventures McGuire brings us on. I’m hoping she continues to let her characters explore more worlds and I’d really love to take a trip through Eleanor West’s doorway! If you like the series, chances are you’ll enjoy this book.
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LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
Rich and strange - like all the Jack and Jill stories in this series, rather grim and gory, and not my favorites. There's quite a lot of mental disturbance of one sort or another (and some physical disturbance, at that). But there's also love and friendship and alliance, and some vivid adventures.
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I quite like Bones - better than Pony, anyway. Jack does some neat maneuvering with the rules of her world. Definitely worth reading, and probably rereading.
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LibraryThing member Tsana
Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire is the latest novella in the ongoing Wayward Children series. It’s another ensemble story, but as you can probably guess from the title, the story is mostly about Jack (and to a lesser degree, her sister Jill). While I have enjoyed all of the Wayward Children
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books, only a couple of the prequels are needed, in my opinion, to enjoy and make sense of Come Tumbling Down. The first Wayward Children novella, Every Heart A Doorway, can be thought of a direct prequel to Come Tumbling Down, and Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a prequel to both, giving the origin story of Jack and Jill. The other novellas are great and provide background on the side characters in Come Tumbling Down, but aren't as essential to following the story.

This was a pretty dark story. But that's true of this entire series, so if you've come this far (even if you only read the prequels to this book), you should have some idea of what to expect. Come Tumbling Down engages more directly with what it means to be a monster and about becoming monstrous. As the blurb suggests, there is also a quest, which a band of heroes sets out on. Although Jack's story is the most central in this book, I enjoyed the way in which the narrative jumped around to follow different characters as they stepped into or out of the action. It was Jack's book, but Christopher and Kade and Cora and Sumi were important parts of it, and they all had a little bit of character development.

It seems that this marks the end of Jack's story (for now, anyway), which seems fitting after playing a central role in three books. I have enjoyed the story of Jack and Jill, and I have also enjoyed the ensemble cast nature of this book (and also Beneath the Sugar Sky). Honestly, I will be happy to read either type of story (ensemble or single character focussed) set in the world of the Wayward Children.

If you haven't read any Wayward Children books, I highly recommend them. In particular, I suggest starting with Every Heart A Doorway, both because it's the first book written and also because it's where we first meet Jack and Jill. It's not that Come Tumbling Down doesn't work standing alone... but I don't think it would be as enjoyable without at least some background on the characters and world building.

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
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LibraryThing member tapestry100
Holy shit, Seanan McGuire doesn't disappoint in the fifth volume of her Wayward Children series. Picking up Jack and Jill's story from their introduction in Every Heart a Doorway and their backstory in Down Among the Sticks and Bones, we are returned to the Moors this time, and we are given a much
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wider view of this dark, terrifying, and beautiful world. This time out, there is another quest, even though Eleanor West continually forbids them, as Kade, Christopher, Cora, and Sumi help Jack take back something dear that Jill has stolen from her.

The continuing beauty of McGuire's Wayward Children, apart from her always fantastic narrative, is her inclusiveness with her characters. She makes such an important part of what makes these characters themselves, yet it doesn't feel forced. Sometimes I feel like authors have a checklist that they use to make sure they tick off all the important or proper points to show representation, and while this is needed in so many ways, it still comes off clumsy. McGuire writes her characters with such ease and understanding, it simply feels natural.

There is so much under the surface of Come Tumbling Down: what makes a person uniquely that person, and how devastating it can be when something happens to make that person not feel like themselves, however insignificant it may appear to others; how important it is to have people understand that every single person is unique, and surrounding yourself with people that understand you for who you are can make you so much stronger. It's OK to need help and to ask for it.

These characters are so near and dear to my heart. Sumi is becoming a favorite; her no bullshit view on life hides such a powerful caring for those around her, I think she's become one of the strongest characters in the series. And of course, Jack and Jill... I adore these girls and their crazy duality. I want to always see more of Kade, he's just so interesting to me.

As with all the books in this series, there is an overwhelming sense of hope throughout, but there is always a sense of sadness and loss that underlines this hope. We lose people in our lives, things are taken from us, life takes unexpected turns, but we can still find our way out of that loss.

This will always be the series that I push on my friends. I have reread the entire series before the release of each book next year, so some of the earlier are like dear friends I'm catching up with after a while. Another part of the magic of McGuire's writing: even after multiple readings, these books have not lost any of their magic.

I dearly hope that McGuire can continue writing these stories for years to come. There is so much potential, so many stories, so many characters that I want to learn more about: Kade & Christopher, Sumi's continuing story, more worlds to explore, Eleanor's finally going home. It will be a sad day when these stories come to their close, but it will also have been one hell of an adventure getting there.
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LibraryThing member LisCarey
Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children carrying the body of her twin sister, Jill, whom she had just killed in righteous rage at Jill's murders among the other residents of the school. She took Jill's body back to the Moors, the world their Door took them to--and where death is not
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quite so permanent as in ours.

When a Door appears in the basement room that used to be Jack's and is now Christopher's he recognizes it as being from the Moors. He doesn't recognize the young woman who steps through, carrying what is either Jack or Jill, either unconscious or dead.

The truth turns out to be more complicated, of course. The body is Jill's body, unconscious. The person inside that body is Jack. The young woman carrying her is Alexis, Jack's lover. Jill, still determined to become a vampire, can't do so in a body that has already died once, so she stole Jack's. Jack's OCD won't let her live indefinitely in Jill's body, especially knowing what Jill has done with it.

Alexis has brought Jack back to the school to get help recovering Jack's own body.

Eleanor West has a Rule: No Quests. Awkward, but rules are meant to be broken, right? Christopher, Cora, Kade, and Sumi let Eleanor know where they're going and head off to the Moors with Alexis and Jack. What follows is an adventure that makes sense in the Moor, and more broadly in the universe of the Wayward Children and the Doors that take them to the worlds that suit them. The Moors, like the other worlds we've seen in this universe, is complex, detailed, and very much lived-in. Jack and her friends need to make hard choices in a complicated situation, and there's little to no chance of them all coming out the other end alive. Yet there's real warmth and friendship and loyalty, and also humor.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.
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LibraryThing member AngelaJMaher
An adventure the likes of which only the Wayward Children, who are growing up quite a bit, could have. Absorbing and darkly delightful.
LibraryThing member flying_monkeys
I enjoyed finding out what happened after Jack took Jill back through their door in Every Heart a Doorway, and getting a bit more of the two sisters' stories. But I felt "the quest" and subsequent "battle" were over in the blink of an eye. Still, a satisfying ending... for this particular story.
LibraryThing member jpeterman
It was good, but I think may be over the wayward children series. This is a short jaunt into Jack & Jill's door. Well-written, and it was an engaging story. I read it but just felt kind of meh afterwards. I've loved the stories up to now, so I may continue.
LibraryThing member SpaceandSorcery
This new installment in McGuire’s Wayward Children series held the double incentive of following up on a previous story, Down Among the Sticks and Bones - one of my favorites - and I was eager to move back to the world of the Moors, its delightful Hammer Horror mood and the characters of twins
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Jack and Jill.

The last time we saw them, Jack was carrying back to the Moors the body of her sister Jill, that she herself had killed (not that death is exactly final there…); now the novella opens on Eleanor West’s Home and the arrival, after a lightning storm, of Alexis (one of the Moors’ dwellers) with an unconscious Jill in her arms - only it’s not exactly Jill, since there has been an exchange of bodies between the two sisters. Jack-as-Jill asks her former schoolmates to follow her to her world and help her regain her body, one of the compelling reasons for it being that otherwise the carefully maintained balance in the Moors will be thoroughly upset.

That’s as much as I feel entitled to share, since both the group’s journey and the quest’s final outcome must be explored without spoilers, so I prefer to concentrate on the story’s main components - and to get it all off my chest right away, I’m sorry to report that Come Tumbling Down ended being something of a disappointment. Don’t misunderstand me, I enjoyed reading it and I still look forward to the next novellas in the series, but in this case - not unlike what happened with Beneath the Sugar Sky - the overall result fell a little short of the mark.

The writing was as good as ever, as was the world-building, but the characterization seemed to lack the in-depth look I’ve come to expect from Seanan McGuire: as was the case with the third novella of the series, this is a choral story and this choice seems to have diluted the strength in characterization that’s typical of this author when she concentrates on one or two individuals only.

The writing style is as mesmerizing as expected, moving from weirdness to gallows humor to drama with seamless transitions, and it’s the true glue that keeps the various elements together. The further look into the world of the Moors is both fascinating and scary: we shift from the dual perspective of the main players - the vampire lord and the mad scientist - to see other parts of the realm, and learn that other kinds of monsters dwell here. The peek into the domain of the Drowned Gods and its human-inhabited village is truly horrifying and it carries some delightfully fearsome Lovecraftian vibes (Innsmouth, anyone? :-) ), that together with the march of resurrected skeletons at the height of the story makes for the highest point of the tale.

The core concept of identity at the root of the series is still strong: the young people at Eleanor West’s academy share a feeling of alienation with our primary world and can find fulfillment and a sense of belonging only by crossing the magical doors leading them to the various alternate worlds they inhabit for a while. Here that quest for identity gains a new layer of meaning: the body exchange perpetrated by Jill and suffered by Jack might not look like such a tragedy from the outside, since they are identical twins, but through Jack’s own words we learn that what we do with out bodies, and how much our minds form connections with them, creates unique bonds that go way beyond simple muscle memory, and whose severing causes intense trauma.

Where all of the above created a strong foundation for the story, the characters felt a little unsubstantial this time: I could not connect emotionally with any of them, not even when some truly horrifying things happened, and what’s worse I’m still puzzling over the need for the whole group to travel to the Moors, since their contribution to Jack’s “mission” was quite minimal, if any, especially during the final showdown - something that happened far too quickly and with the kind of ease that belied Jack’s passionate request for help.

The other major point of contention comes from the concept that in the Moors death is not a permanent state: we go from Frankenstein-like electrically induced revivals, to the unexpected resurrection of people who seemed to tragically lose their lives, and what it all comes down to - at least for me - is the fundamental irrelevance of any dramatic turn of events. Granted, there is always a price to be paid for a return to life (or something approaching it), but in the end it removes personal stakes or any emotional impact attached to the loss of a given character.

While somewhat frustrated by the way this much-looked-for installment turned out, I still hope that the next one will be more in keeping with the series’ overall tone and mood.
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LibraryThing member m_mozeleski
Seanan, you take a piece of my heart, and wrap it all up in a bow, and then
You push it
Over
A
Cliff
LibraryThing member bookbrig
There are so many things I enjoyed about this. Pony! Storming the castle! Sumi! Raising the dead! Anyway, as always I'm delighted and happily anticipating the next installment.
LibraryThing member litwitch
The Wayward Children series has been a favorite of mine since I finished the first book, so you can imagine my excitement when I was approved for this arc!

I devoured it as soon as possible and let me tell you - it did NOT disappoint. Although it didn't beat the 4th book in terms of my favorite in
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the series, it came close.

This story is much darker than the rest, yet in the end I felt so peaceful. Jack and Jill's story ended tragically, of course, but in the best way possible.

As always, Seanan wrote with such beautiful imagery, making this trip back to the Moors one I won't soon forget!

In an attempt to avoid spoilers, I'll leave it at that. 5 stars! Not a bad way to start 2020.
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LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
Jack and Jill are some of the best characters in the Wayward Children Series. Jack, with her can do, slightly psychotic attitude, and Jill, who is similar put together, but with a gothic sensibility.

The world is fun as well, this book shows more of that world, and adds in a Lovecraftian vibe with
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the people of the sea. However, while the story is fun, it could have been longer. Everything happens in one night and that includes a war.
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LibraryThing member reading_fox
My least favourite of the series, back with Jack and Jill finishing off their tale with help from Kade, Cora, Christopher and the revitalised Sumi, but somehow I just don't care for them as characters, nor the world in which they're at home - I guess is kind of the point of the series, everyone's
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different, but this is too different to be entertaining.

Jill has managed to swap bodies with the fastidious Jack and so being in a body that hasn't died, can be imortalised by her Master the vampire lord of her part of the Moors world she finds comfortable. Jack fighting revulsion at every moment returns to the School for Wayward children to gather some allies and reclaim her body and humanity before it's too late.

I just didn't care. Not even the Drowned Gods and Cora held my attention and she's my least worsat of the bunch.
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LibraryThing member ladycato
I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

I must preface my review saying that it's hard to review the Wayward Children novella series, in particular, because two of the previous volumes were SO GOOD. As in, top-favorite-stories-of-any-length-of-all-time kind of good. Those
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books being Every Heart a Doorway and In An Absent Dream. They set an incredibly high bar. The second novella of the five, though, faltered in a lot of ways for me as it followed twin sisters Jack and Jill. This new release, Come Tumbling Down continues Jack and Jill's story.

Fortunately, I liked this much more that the first part of the story, perhaps in part because it also follows other students from the school as they help Jack save the Moors. The Moors are in a pretty dire condition, too--Jill, fully devoted to her vampire master, has stolen mad-scientist-Jack's body and prepares to become a vampire herself. As a person with OCD, I truly loved and appreciated how McGuire wrote about Jack's situation. Not only is Jack upset at being stuffed in her sister's body (twin or not, it's not hers), but she endures severe OCD; she knows she will lose all functionality if she is not returned to her own body soon.

The novella feels slow to start, due to the amount of back story that must be addressed, but the characters are charming and the action soon picks up as the motley adventurers arrive in the horror realm of the Moors. For me, this didn't deliver the emotional resonance of the two previous volumes that I loved, but it's still a fun, enjoyable read, and a satisfying conclusion for Jack and Jill's story.
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LibraryThing member MontzaleeW
Come Tumbling Down
(Wayward Children #5)
by Seanan McGuire

I loved this book! Jack is back and in Jill's body! The vampire is going to use Jack's body to turn Jill into a vampire. This is such an awesome story! Jack and her girlfriend show up at the Wayward Home through a doorway and seek help. The
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teens agree and follow Jack back through to the Moors where they have strange experiences, one after another! Loved it!
Read these books in order!
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LibraryThing member lavaturtle
Jack is one of my favorite characters in this series, and I'm glad we got to see her again. This is a good ending to her story. The Moors are nice and evocative, and the supporting cast of students is pretty great too. For a very unforgiving setting where unkind things happen, there's a kindness to
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this story.
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LibraryThing member KittyCunningham
I like this series. I would like to see more of the other children now that Jack and Jill seem to be situated.
LibraryThing member renbedell
The novella series continues with a group of children at the School for Wayward Children joining Jack's quest to find Jill to get Jack's body back. It is fun portal fantasy, similar to the other books in the series. If you have enjoyed the past books, you will likely enjoy this book as well.
LibraryThing member fred_mouse
I continue to love the Wayward Children series. I haven't loved all of the individual books, but this one I certainly did, sitting and reading in a single sitting. There are some subtle discussions about the tropes of horror movies, of portal fantasies, of hero and/or quest fantasies, but layered
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over that is a beat perfect b-grade horror movie in words.

The world building of the Moors continues to delight -- the necessity for the different groups, the way that the ecosystem requires a balance of monsters, with Mad Scientist being just one of the many. Similarly, McGuire handles a complex cast of characters beautifully, giving them each such a depth and roundness of characters that I can love them all in their beauty and flaws. I loved that we got to learn more about the Moors, that we got to see the Cthulu mythos style fishing town and priests of the Sleeping Gods, and that these did not appear to come with the many drawbacks of the Lovecraftian writings.
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LibraryThing member Stevil2001
“Have you noticed that the doors come for us when we’re young enough to believe we know everything, and toss us out again as soon as we’re old enough to have doubts?”

This is the fifth "Wayward Children" novella, and the fifth to make the Hugo Award for Best Novella ballot... I think I could
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pretty charitably describe myself as being over them. This one isn't as twee and affected as some of the others, but I never cared about any of these people and what they did.
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LibraryThing member sarahlh
I enjoyed this just fine — I’ll always love a Jack and Jill centric story — but a lot of this book was buildup that just made me anxious for the inevitable action, a lot of the plot beats were very reminiscent of BENEATH THE SUGAR SKY, and I wish all the important, juicy moments hadn’t been
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delegated to the last third of the book. I still have a soft spot in my heart for these characters, and I did appreciate the world building in the opening chapters surrounding the school itself. So, a solid three star read.

PS: I’d kill for a Kade centric book after this; it’s about time he got the spotlight. And honestly, after this book, I think that’s what McGuire is setting the series up for next.
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LibraryThing member jennybeast
Where the heck did my review go? I read this book. I loved this book. I said a lot of pithy things about it and now my review has vanished. Boo. It's a good one, and it's great to return to the Moors and learn more about Jack's past. Excellent book!

LibraryThing member wyvernfriend
Jack comes back to the school to get help from her fellow classmates. Jill has stolen her body in her quest to become a vampire and Jack is going slowly crazy. She needs all the help she can get in this world of darkness but it's the world she belongs to, it's the world she feels at home in. The
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decisions she has to make almost break her but the adventure shows her that there are some people who care for her.
This one went some dark places.
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LibraryThing member tuusannuuska
Sadly not my favorite in the series. An okay read but didn't really make an impression or have much impact, which is pretty surprising considering how much I liked Down Among the Sticks and Bones.

Awards

Hugo Award (Nominee — Novella — 2021)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2020-01-07

Physical description

208 p.; 5.59 inches

ISBN

0765399318 / 9780765399311

Local notes

Inscribed (San Francisco, March 2020)
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