See? This is how you write diversity!

In writing this, I have literally just finished Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, and I have to say, it was love at first page. Anything that has to do with traveling to other worlds, escaping the one we live in, is directly in my wheelhouse, and this book hit all of those feelings, good and bad.

On a brief side note, I’m trying to read 100 books in a year (this one being #5), and I have to say I’m having so much fun I can’t stand it. Challenge yourself, because sometimes, when you do, you can find experiences like this book, and your day just gets a little bit better. Anyway…

This book is in my wheelhouse not just because of the traveling to other worlds, although that would have been enough for me. But it stands out even more because of how progressive it is, and I really have to applaud this book for its examples of diversity, and how to make writing other characters that are different than you look easy. I think there’s a lot of layers here as to how that’s done, and I think it deserves some dissection, in an educational way, to see how the different layers support each other. We’re heading into another world that contains spoilers, and this book is super short, so read it first and appreciate it for yourself and then come back!

The Art of Being Different

First one we can point out, in no particular order, is some cultural diversity that I think serves the book well. In building worlds analogous with our own, and making space for various kinds of people to inhabit that world, sometimes we can forget that we’re not the centers of the universe. This can lead some well-to-do books into more Western-centric territory, and when those people are then asked questions concerning diversity as it relates to their world, they haven’t made room for those other people, and their answers fall short (if your initials are JKR, would you please stand up?).

Here, we see an artful handling of that problem. In summary, our main character, Nancy, is sent to a school for “wayward children”, or more discreetly, kids that have been transported to other worlds and had adventures, and then come back the real world, and are dealing with the aftermath. That’s a great premise, and it would have been so easy for their to have only been one such school or facility, based out of America or England, that would accept kids from all over the world to cater to. But that would have been denying many of the needs of the wards who came from other countries and cultures, and so, there are many schools around the world that run the same operation, seeing to the needs of kids based out of those cultures. The worlds are more or less suited to the needs of the children who travel to them, which would be different spanning different peoples, and so their needs upon returning to the “real” world would also be diverse.

Beyond that, there are POCs represented in the story as significant characters. One of them dies, which is a shame, but there is an embracing of other cultures and races for the kids that go to the school, even when they’re from the same region, which is nice to see. What’s more, the character that dies was important and characterized in many ways, that we feel the weight of that loss, rather than just a needless death for the sake of the plot. Good job there, making me feel things.

We can point to sexual diversity as well. As teenagers, the people attending the school are sexually active, but in different ways. The protagonist, Nancy, is asexual, but not aromantic. Meaning she would like to date and have an intimate relationship with someone, a physical one, just not a sexual one. It’s the first book I have ever read that has an asexual main character, and it was just such a relief to cut sex out of the running of things that might have happened throughout the course of the book. Not only that, but all of her friends and peers respect her choice, and don’t admonish or shame her for it. They accept her as she is, and respect her personal wishes, allowing her to have more agency and more healthy relationships among her friends. Another plus!

But then, for the hat trick, we have an example of a well written, fleshed out trans character in Kade, a trans boy that also attends the school. Upon reading this, I could not help thinking, “what an interesting idea for this world! How would they deal with something like that?”. We get an explanation and another character totally different from some of the others attending the school who is accepted for who they are, and everyone uses the right pronouns…

It’s amazing.

It struck home with me that, while there would seem to be a killer on the loose at school mutilating children, the worst thing another character can do is mis-gender someone. That’s the thing that steps over the line, and the other characters absolutely won’t stand for it. It’s a sad but poignant moment that really landed with me. Gold star there as well.

Now all of that would be enough for me, but I think there might be an even deeper level I could talk about: a diversity of choice. All of these characters attending this school, staff and students included, are ostensibly protagonists of their own story. Thus, they all have trauma and pain and longing that they’re dealing with, that deepens each character’s experience that much more, even the ones we don’t like or agree with. Seeing into their worlds humanizes them, hearing about their adventures and what they’ve had to endure makes them more relatable. Hell, some of them are child soldiers, have taken lives and fought wars against tyrannies and vicious opponents. And now they return, most often to their parent’s houses, and have to return to their lives as before?

Impossible.

Thus, we see the children are allowed to be themselves in this space, in all their strangeness and all their choices. After all, all of them just want to go back to their adventure worlds, even if they don’t want to admit it. There’s no right or wrong, no moral standing that the books takes, about whether going back is a good thing or not. For the kids that don’t want to return, that’s fine for them. For the kids that want to return no matter what, who can blame them? Especially for the girls attending the school, there’s a progressive lens to view the choices that girls have and the agency they have in their lives. In this stage, these girls are making their own choices, even if they’re bad ones, and learning something from them. There’s no moral about needing to let go of fantasy or magic – if the character thinks that, it’s a product of that character’s choices, rather than the author standing on a soapbox and taking a stand one way or the other. I think that’s really powerful, especially for any girls that would read this book. Make your own choices, live your life the way you want to live it and where. No matter family or friends or relationships, ultimately, you have choice, and if you don’t, the book would tell you to find or create a world where you can make those choices for yourself, so you can live comfortably in your own skin.

Just Read It

It’s so worth it, and it’s so short. It comes in, doesn’t overstay the welcome, and then it’s done, but it was worth the small amount of time it asked from me. I already have the next book on hold and I can’t wait.

Read this, then keep reading.