Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire

“Stories had to have beginnings, which meant someone had to be where they were beginning, or there was no purpose to them. She was just at the beginning of a story, that was all, and this was perfectly possible.”

-Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire

It feels impossible that I’ve just read the tenth book in the Wayward Children series. Ten. I feel like I just picked up the first one, and here I am trying to hold my heart together after finishing the newest installment, Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear. The thing about this series, is that it is incredibly special. But everything Seanan McGuire has ever written is really special to me. The Wayward Children series is about children who find doors to other worlds. They go through them, they are shown seemingly impossible things, they either stay, choose to leave or are pushed out. And no matter what happens, I find myself reading these with tears in my eyes and warmth in my heart. When the world feels like a lost place, a door appears, and whether the character finds themselves or not, they must be sure to cross.

This newest release in the series follows a young girl, Nadya. Born in Russia, she is abandoned by her mother and grows up in an orphanage. She does her best to help the other children get adopted but does not try to get herself adopted. She is missing part of one of her arms and only has one hand. Having been born this way, Nadya was used to nothing else, but it is not long before she realizes this makes people see her as something incomplete.

When Nadya is adopted by an American couple who move her to Colorado, her world becomes so much of what she doesn’t want. It’s not long until she feels out of place, uncomfortable in everything the world expects of her. And it’s not long before she finds a door.

The door leads Nadya to Belyrekka, the Land Beneath the Lake, a world of layered water where she finds people and creatures who love and accept her for who she is. As always with these books, I don’t want to say too much. They’re short and they deserve to be read entirely without any spoilers or hints of what is to come.

All I can say is that Seanan McGuire has done it again. I dried my tears with the edge of my blanket, trying to hold back all the emotions that this book made me felt. It was gorgeous, beautiful, absolutely goddamn perfect, and I can’t recommend this book or this series enough. I think I’m getting to the point now where I want to head back to the beginning and reread them all. I want to be reminded of all the characters and worlds that have come before. Tor.com please keep publishing these books, indefinitely, for as long as there is a story to tell (and I have a feeling there’s so much more to come).