[Book Review] Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky returns to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the "real" world.

Sumi died years before her prophesied daughter Rini could be born. Rini was born anyway, and now she’s trying to bring her mother back from a world without magic.

My reviews for the previous books:
Every Heart A Doorway
Down Among the Sticks and Bones 

4 STARS 

Every time  I pick up one of the Wayward Children novellas  I fall in love with Seanan McGuire's writing, storytelling, worlds, and characters. I am honestly so happy that there seems to be plans of a lot of books in this series because I am always left wanting more. 

I loved being able to see some of the characters we were introduced to in book one, and I really enjoyed the new characters also. This book feels very much like we are getting the gang back together to go on a mission, and although being able to go through different worlds we only heard about in book one, I felt like there was something missing. I felt like because we had so many characters and things to do, I didn't get to know the characters as much as I wish we did. I did enjoy seeing Kade and Christopher again. I hope we get to see their worlds in the next books, especially Christopher's. Like I said, because we are so focused on the mission we don't get to know the characters as well as I wish we would. One character in particular, Cora, is a new character I was really excited to know more about. 

Although I loved this third book in the series, it's definitely my least favorite of the three.
Each book seems to have a theme that it focuses around. Every Heart A Doorway was about asexuality and it helps build this fantasy door and different world synopsis. Down Among the Sticks and Bones was about parental and societal expectations on children (and queer themes), and Beneath the Sugar Sky was about body shaming and fatphobia. However, I don't know if I was a huge fan of how it was done. I think the messages McGuire touches upon are good ones but the problem is that because the book was so focused on the mission, the body shaming/body positive themes were on the back burner and not developed enough because Cora is not the only character we focus on in this story. For me, it just wasn't focused on enough which made it felt like an after thought. In the first one Nancy is the main character and asexual, so that is a main theme. In the second, Jack and Jill are the main characters and both dealing with heavy expectations from their parents (and Jack is queer), so that is the main theme. But with this third book, there are so many other characters in the group that although we open the story with Cora, she isn't in it as much, so her character's message/theme isn't as prominent. I think as a fat girl, the topic of body positivity/fatphobia means so much to me, and I am just disappointed it wasn't more fleshed out. One thing I did like is that both Cora, who is a fat girl, and Rini, a skinny girl, are both very body positive about their bodies. But Rini is very confident and open about her body positivity, and Cora is very aware of how she looks to people depending on her attitude with her body or even if she complains about being hungry or tired of walking. Like I said, there are good moments in the story, I just was hoping for more. However, I do hope that we get more of Cora in the future.

The writing is always amazing and I love McGuire's story telling. I've said this before, but with how short these stories are I am always so amazed with how much story she can pack into less than 200 pages. It takes such amazing talent and although we are only getting snippets of the different fantastic worlds, they're so rich and unique. I need more moments inside Nancy's Underworld and I cannot explain how much I want to be in Christopher's world with the Skeleton Girl. 

I am mad it took me so long to get into this book series. It is so amazing and so well done. Although I didn't love this book as much as the other two, I still absolutely loved it and I cannot wait for the release of the fourth book so I can read it! I am so happy that I am all caught up becuase now I can focus on buying the first three for my collection and then hopefully I can buy the fourth one! 

Overall, I completely and wholeheartedly recommend this book series! If you are a lover of reading, magical worlds, if you've ever wished you could live in those worlds. This book series will speak to you. This series is one of my absolute favorites and I am so excited to keep continuing it as the books are published. 

Thanks for reading!