Read this on your Tough Days.

I’m starting to see a pattern in the kinds of Wayward Childrenbooks that become my favourites, this one included. And I like that.
I think Seanan McGuire writes books specifically for me sometimes. I felt that while reading Down Among the Sticks and Bones, and I feel that now after finishing In an Absent Dream because they’re about girls like me, lost in our own worlds, being swept off to an unlikely adventure.
When I read Down Among the Sticks and Bones, I felt the same thing that I felt while reading In an Absent Dream today: serene. I felt a deep sense of serenity in my chest, boring its way deeper and deeper in, settling like it’d finally found its home after a long search, the more I read. I wasn’t just happy. I was content. It was the perfect book–the perfect remedy for a day that had exhausted me.
If you’ve had a tough day, read In an Absent Dream. It’s a peaceful escape, and I cannot recommend it enough.
P.S. You don’t have to read the Wayward Children books in chronological order, so if you want to just skip around and read this first (or even read Down Among the Sticks and Stone), you definitely can.

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Escape To A World Of Logic And Rules

February 2022 | 4.5/5
This is the fourth book in the Wayward Children series, and a prequel to Every Heart A Doorway. We catch up with Lundy (the very same bitter and broken Lundy from book one) as a child who doesn't feel like this world is the one she belongs too.

She finds a door that opens up to a world of logic and reason, and finally feels home. Adorned in the hallway on the other side of the door are rules, always give fair value, ask for nothing, and curiously, remember the curfew.

Lundy makes friends in the Goblin Market, but frequently visits her former life on Earth, only to get irritated and find herself looking for another door back to the Market.
This world was fantastic. I loved it. With the first few books for used on nonsense worlds (they are fun too), the rules, the concept of fair value sucked me in. I went to bed that night and dreamt of a world with rules like the Goblin Market.

I've fallen in love with the series all over again. The way Lundy behaved in Every Heart A Doorway makes sense. It's really well done how the author brought the stories together. Each world we have visited in the series gives to its inhabitants, but it also takes.

If you felt like the series stumbled in Beneath The Sugar Sky, it's back to full throttle In An Absent Dream.

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