Though we might not like to admit it, many of us threw our lot in with the mean girl against the “weird” girl when we were kids. We chose what seemed like the relative safety of popularity over being considered strange and outcast by our peers. This choice is what sends Regan, our protagonist, through her door and into her journey to the Hooflands in this sixth installment of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. This book can be viewed as a standalone as it doesn’t reference any characters from the previous stories.
After finding out the hard way that her friendship with the popular girl wasn’t all she thought it was, Regan comes across a door that will be familiar to readers of this series. A door where a door shouldn’t be with the words “Be Sure” written on it. Regan opens the door to the Hooflands, a land of centaurs and unicorns and kelpies which seems like a dream come true for a horse girl like her. She is welcomed by a pack of centaurs who are happy to see her even though a human showing up in their lands means that something bad is coming. Regan will spend years learning living with the centaurs and learning skills for them before her time to be a hero arrives.
I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy this book since the whole “horse girl” thing has largely missed me. But Regan’s story is compelling and really struck an emotional chord. You can absolutely dive into this book if you haven’t read any of the other books in this series.
