Across the Green Grass Fields

Regan lives in fear of being different, and is willing to do whatever it takes to fit into her best friend Laurel's rigid version of girlhood - but when Regan doesn't start puberty when her friends do, her parents reveal that she is intersex. Regan, unwisely, trusts Laurel with her secret, and ends up running away from school in tears - and never making it home, as she discovers a door in the woods, with the (familiar-to-readers) words "Be Sure" over it. Regan steps through and finds herself in the Hooflands, where all creatures have hooves and humans are exceedingly rare - and expected to be heroes. Regan falls in with a family of unicorn-herding centaurs, with whom she lives for the next six years - five of them in hiding from the show more Queen. But at last destiny comes calling, and Regan rides off to be a hero.

Read this in one great, satisfying gulp. As usual with most of the Wayward Children series, there's little in the way of denouement.

Quotes

It was like [adults had] drawn a veil of fellow-feeling and good intentions over their own childhoods as soon as they crossed the magic line into adulthood, and left all the strange feuds, unexpected betrayals, and arbitrary shunnings behind them. (10)

"When a human shows up in the Hooflands, it means something bad's about to happen." (Pansy the centaur to Regan, 58)

It was an amazing change from home, where she was sometimes catered to but never really listened to about important decisions. (75)

Humans were heroes and lightning rods for disaster, and none of the stories she'd heard about them...had ended gently for them, or for the people around them. (Daisy, 79)

"You understand this was for your own good."
"I understand you think this was for my own good." (the faun and Regan, 105)

...who didn't think she was weird or try to shove her into boxes she'd had nothing to do with building. This was her home. (129)

It takes so long to reach the inevitable (chapter title, 154) show less

I figured it out! I know exactly what these books are missing. . . more pages.
*sobs at how fast I read this book*

Regan's story takes us through another door, to an unknown world, teaching us that we never needed a savor in the first place. We just needed take a deep breath, analyses the situation and save our own damn selves.

It was magical, and excited. Full of character growth, and self actualization. In short, another fantastic installment of the wayward children.

I love how Seanan can take the most neglected children and give them the tool they need to become a well developed person. When each of these books are done, these kids that would have been bullies, abused, or neglected are shining brighter than they ever would have living show more in our modern day society.

The series is a testament to how every person has value, and a place in this world. We just need to be kind.

Note: Intersex Character. Trigger Warnings: bullying. show less

Oh, I like this. Nothing about the school, no overlap with the other stories, just one child's portal adventure. And some very deep ideas, and changes, in that adventure. Slow changes that shape her to make the big changes. Her destiny isn't at all what she thought it would be, and we don't get to see how it works out - but I hope she did save the world (she'll certainly have changed it). She may well end up (have ended up) at the school - there are so many characters there I can't remember most of them - but not in this book. I was hesitant about the pronouns, but that's how she thinks of herself so that's what I'll use. Nice that this isn't yet another quest out of the school - and for Seanan, it's a very happy story. Dark parts, but show more mostly happy. Lovely - possibly my favorite of this series. show less

I'll be honest: I'm downright angry about this book. My anger started around page 38 and never abated. You see, Seanan McGuire values representation. She does not apparently value correctly representing people. When the protagonist complained that she had not developed breasts and was short, I assumed we were getting some Turner Syndrome representation -- you know, a syndrome, that results in delayed puberty and short stature. When instead, McGuire declared her protagonist to have CAIS (complete androgen insensitivity) I was confused. It had been a while since I'd taken my general genetics boards but it took me only 30 seconds on google to confirm: girls with CAIS have normal breast development and normal height velocity with a normal show more age of maximum height velocity (growth spurt). I kept reading -- maybe the protagonist had a secret gonadectomy to explain those features? Maybe the mother was confused? But no explanation was forthcoming and it dawned on me: I don't think McGuire actually ever spoke to anyone with CAIS. And the more I thought about that, the more it upset me: McGuire refers to Regan multiple times as being "intersex," a term that many women in the CAIS community don't use to refer to themselves. I had originally felt okay with Regan reclaiming the term, but the more I thought about McGuire using it with apparently no community input the less good I felt about it. And I thought about how McGuire portrays herself as a champion of diversity and the harm caused by tokenism rather than true representation. This is not doing it right. Do better. Talk to people with disorders of sexual development and ask how they'd like to be portrayed. At the very least, do a five minute google search. (Failing all of that, I once again offer my services as a professional geneticist who will fact-check speculative fiction for the low cost of a free book.)

(I have other feelings about the book, but this really is the most important one.) show less

Regan is 10, fleeing from school after a conflict with her ex-best-friend, when she stumbles through a door to a magical world. The Hooflands are populated with unicorns, centaurs, fauns, kelpies, and all manner of equine-like beings. Regan's love for horses ("What are horses?" inquires one of her centaur friends) helps her to accept her new circumstances, and the centaur herd that first finds her is kind and loving, adopting her as one of their own. There's just one problem: humans are only known to appear in the Hooflands when a big change is coming. Everyone seems to think it's Regan's destiny to be a hero . . . everyone except Regan, who doesn't believe in destiny.

This may be my favorite of the series so far, right up there with In show more an Absent Dream. I suspect I just want every permutation of portal fantasy that McGuire can cook up, though I do love the stories based at the school, too. At any rate, this is a true stand-alone, so if you are just intrigued by the Hooflands, read without fear of missing any key details. My only criticism of this book is that the ending was pretty abrupt, and I want to hear more about what happened after. show less

She chose this world, where she could never be normal, over the world she had been made for.

The Wayward Children novellas will continue until the morale improves.

Seriously, though, this was one of the better ones, probably because the twee narrative voice McGuire affects in most of these is largely absent here. It's about an intersex kid who finds belonging in a fantasy world of centaurs and unicorns. I am not convinced the twist made a ton of sense, but I mostly enjoyed it up until that point.

First of all, I love this world. I am not—and never have been—as horse-mad as Regan is, but I still love the idea of the Hooflands. And McGuire did a great job of making this world seem real to me. My only real sadness (not really even a complaint) about this book is that we didn't have more time to see more of the other equine species. I loved the centaur herd that Regan came to think of as family, but I so wanted to see more of the other species as well.

I also love that so much of this story was about an internal conflict and growth. I love the nods toward the end of the book that Regan grew and changed and that the girl who had first arrived was not the same as the girl who was setting off to save the world. I love the way show more perception of who or what someone is was so integral to the whole story, and the way the main conflict was resolved at the end. While I would love for more set in this world later, especially more featuring Chicory, I don't think that story is something I'm likely to get. That's just proof, though, of how good a job McGuire did in crafting this story: while the main story arc is resolved, there is still more story to be told. In a good story, there should always be more that could be told. show less