If you've read the first book, Every Heart a Doorway, then you know twin sisters Jack and Jill, who were packed off to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children when they found their way back home at the age of seventeen. This is the story of what happened first.
Their parents thought children would be the perfect addition to their perfect life. Jacqueline was her mother's perfect daughter, dressed like a princess and always quiet and polite. Jillian was her father's perfect daughter, thrill-seeking and adventurous. He would have preferred a son, but he worked with what he had. When the girls were five, they learned that grown-ups can't be trusted. When they were twelve, they discovered the impossible staircase at the bottom of a trunk in the attic and found that their life up until then could never be enough to prepare them for land filled with danger and magic.
I absolutely loved the first book in this series and actually, if you read this book first and then read the other book, it still makes sense. I enjoyed how the author narrates the story so that you get insight and perspective from the two girls, but you also get an outside view of their life and their parents. One of the points that is made in the story is that even if people (like parents) try to force children into roles, their inner, natural self will come out at some point. Until Jack and Jill discover the staircase, they aren't happy in the strict roles their parents have forced them into since birth, but they haven't been able to break free of them. When they go down the steep, winding stairs into a different land, they can at last be their real selves . . . although that means being apart, and placing each other in danger. This story is an interesting way to explore relationships, sense of self, and has some dark undertones to it, which I really enjoyed.
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