For our next joint review, we decided to step away from thrillers to throw ourselves into a fantasy. The Book of Doors is a story full of magic, emotional moments (both sweet and sad), and powerful friendships.
Gareth Brown created a world where Cassie inherits a book from her one of her regular cafe customers after he passes away. She quickly learns the book is magical – it can transport her anywhere in the world by just thinking of the place and opening a door.
She’s quickly thrown into unfortunate and suspenseful situations as there are many magical books in the world, all with different abilities, and many book hunters who will literally kill to get their hands on a book.
Throughout this story, we get to see our characters experience so many different emotional and intense situations. Some heartfelt, some depressing, and some straight up wild. We get to see unique friendships develop, some that withstand impossible and unique situations.
Book Stats
- Publication Date: 02/13/24
- Publisher: William Morrow
- Format: ebook
- Pages: 418
- Narrator POV: Third Person POV
- Kindle Unlimited 🖤
Ronni’s Review
Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Let me just start by saying, Shayna has bad taste. Just kidding! This is one book, however, where we are just on opposite sides of the scale. I absolutely adored this book and it is one that I will be adding to my physical bookshelf.
We read this book a few books ago and I’m still thinking about it! Everything from the magical books, which I wish I had, to the hidden library and the endless options… it was just a magical story!
The characters were easy to connect with and I was so relieved when…. some things that are spoilers happened. Also, I don’t cry easily but this book had me in tears when it came to some of the scenes with the grandfather. It really put me in a “what-if” mindset. What would we do if we had the power to go back and visit some of the people in our pasts that shaped us? Who would we visit? Who would we avoid? It just really sent me into a mini-spiral. It also made me miss my grandfather.
The writing in this book was a little different from what I typically read but I really enjoyed it. I would not have picked this one up on my own but I’m glad it was a book club choice because it has become one of my absolute favorites!
Shayna’s Review
Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5
Let me start by saying, Ronni is a jerk. Also kidding! 😂 I’m not a huge fan of third person point of view, but I still enjoyed the way Gareth Brown wrote and found the plot interesting. Books and magic? Yes, please! It wasn’t going to take much to keep my attention on the story.
I felt like this story started really strong. I mean, right off the bat we had a death. Granted, we didn’t know the character, but it was still a powerful way to start a book. And from there, we quickly meet many characters and are thrown into the world of magical books and the people who want them. I did enjoy many of the characters and how they interacted with each other.
I do feel like in the second half of the book, there’s just too much back-and-forth time travel chaos. It felt like things started getting really messy and difficult to follow at times.
I loved the full circle moment at the end of the book. I don’t want to spoil, so I won’t go into detail, but I did enjoy the similar situation that occurred at the beginning and end, but before and after you get to know characters and gain some perspectives. I thought that was really well done, which says a lot because I don’t often like the end of books. 😅 By that I mean I’m usually disappointed in how things wrapped up (or didn’t wrap up) and whether or not I had closure, etc. So I’m thrilled to say the end of this book was enjoyable.
Also, I felt like our main bad guy, “The Woman”, really could’ve had a wonderful villain origin story. I wanted so much for her character to have good reason for becoming the way she was, even if it was a misguided or fucked up reason. Instead, I was extremely disappointed in how she became this person. Not a fan of that plot point at all.
All in all, I gave this 3 stars because there were things I really liked and things I really didn’t. I felt like the story overall was solid and mostly well done, aside from the few things I listed above.
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