In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut.
In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.

Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

Lush and richly imagined, a tale of impossible journeys, unforgettable love, and the enduring power of stories awaits in Alix E. Harrow’s spellbinding debut–step inside and discover its magic.

There was somewhat of a hype surrounding this book pre its release, so I was super excited to finally get a chance to dive into it. Even just based on the summary, the mere concept of The Ten Thousand Doors of January was enough to capture my attention almost immediately. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this and I love how fresh and original the idea is. I usually have quite mixed opinions about parallel universes and alternate dimensions for more-often-than-not they end up being little more than convenient solutions for when an author writes themselves in a hole. And I despise that.

But that wasn’t what happened in The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Right at the beginning, Alix E. Harrow introduces us to the concept of Doors as places where the barrier between worlds is so thin it allows for objects, creatures and even people to wander right through it. But Doors are more than just simple doorways- they bring revolution and change to the worlds and they are where all of our myths and legends, stories and folktales originate from. January—a teenage girl of mixed origins living in New England as the protégé of a Mr. Locke, one of the richest people of the early 20th century and her father’s employer—has first found out about Doors by accident, when she quite literally stumbled upon and through one when she was seven. Her rather strict upbringing meant that their existence was quickly driven from her thoughts as nothing more than a childhood fantasy. That is, until she stumbles upon a rather peculiar book titled only The Ten Thousand Doors. What she discovers in it not only confirms the existence of Doors but also sets her on a journey across the States in pursuit of the truth about her father’s disappearance, the true nature of Doors, and herself.


This book was beautiful, both inside and out. With its exquisite writing, so poetic and fitting of the time period the story is set in, breath-taking world-building and that stunning cover, I couldn’t help savouring every inch of it. It has a certain aesthetic that made me feel almost as if I were a classy 1900s lady, sitting on her settee on a chilly fall afternoon and devouring the newest adventures of her favourite heroine in exotic, faraway lands. Kind of like January was at the beginning of the book.


I think that Harrow managed to perfectly represent the amount of control society (especially men) had over young girls at that time and the amount of pressure they were constantly under to be all prim and proper and posed, no matter how much their spirit and character suffered because of it. January was the prime example of a girl whose personality was almost completely stiffened, before she finally found the strength to stand up for herself and fight back. It horrified me how much of an influence Locke had over both her and her father and how he used them to fulfil his own goals. I am so proud of January for tearing herself out of this claws. She is such a fierce, strong-headed heroine that fights for her freedom one inch at a time, even when everything and everyone goes against her and she herself feels like giving up. Hers was a deeply saddening and emotional story that left me feeling wrecked.

What really struck me about this book was how real all the characters seemed. Even the ones with less page-time didn’t feel unfinished. Each had their own motives, own agendas, different ways to look at life that defined them, yet a lot of them were also types of people we meet in everyday life. I think pretty much everyone has their own Locke, their own Jane, their Samuel… Maybe not all of them and maybe not at the same point in life, but there are always people who try to either control or oppress us, people loyal to us, people we love and who love us. And either subconsciously or not, we identify those people with these characters, and that’s what truly makes them so genuine.


It’s quite hard to write a stand-alone with both amazing world-building, well-rounded characters and a dynamical, well-paced plot. Of course, it’s manageable, but in most cases, at least one of the three has to suffer. Unfortunately, here it was the plot. Or rather, the pacing. However much I enjoyed Harrow’s beautiful writing and the plot itself, it wasn’t enough to keep my attention forever (especially since I have an attention span of a goldfish). Things just tended to drag on and on, especially in the first part of the book and during chapters which January read from The Ten Thousand Doors (the book January found; not to be confused with the Ten Thousand Doors of January, which is the book I am currently reviewing xd). If I were to read this a second time, knowing what I know now, I might have been able to stay focused, but as it is, I have to admit it got quite tedious from time to time and it took me a rather long time to finish it

If it were not for the pacing issue (or maybe if I wasn’t so easily distracted), this could have easily been a 4.5- or 5-star read. The plot, while not all that dynamic, was certainly mind-boggling. Even though I guessed one of the bigger twists and had some suspicions about another one, I think it’s more about me jumping to the weirdest of conclusions than the story being predictable. I had absolutely no clue as to where the story was going almost until the very end, where it all wrapped up rather neatly. In my opinion, some things ended off just a bit too conveniently, but overall, I’m really glad that nothing was left hanging, yet we still got that little hint of there is more and what comes next.