There is a Door in this Darkness by Kristin Cashore (review)

Reviewed by: There is a Door in this Darkness by Kristin Cashore April Spisak Cashore, Kristin There is a Door in this Darkness. Dutton, 2024 384p Trade ed. ISBN 9780803739994 19. 99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781101614181 10. 99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 8-12 Wilhelmina is dealing with a lot: she's still mourning the loss of one of her beloved aunts, the upcoming election could change the nation if Trump is reelected, and her two best friends are in the same quarantine pod without her during the early days of COVID-19 restrictions. She deferred college, and this leaves her with even more time to spend in an overcrowded apartment with her younger sibs, distracted parents, and great-aunts while worrying about what the 2020 election will bring. For readers who spent pivotal years of their own in online schooling, distancing, masking, and trying to protect vulnerable loved ones, this may be all too painfully familiar, as days creep by and Wilhelmina struggles with being both too close to people at home and increasingly isolated outside of it. But Cashore weaves silvery little threads of magic into the gray quilt that is weighing Wilhelmina down; messages appear via visions, birds, or simply out of the sky, all pushing her toward an End Page 317 unlikely connection with a kind, patient cutie at the donut shop and a tentative sense of hope that the world may yet endure, and Wilhelmina perhaps even thrive within it. Ultimately, the bits of magic that her three aunts showed her during their summers together still exist, and finding them will lead Wilhelmina toward more light than she has known for years. Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois