"The Book of Doors" by Gareth Brown: A Book Review

TLDR: 5/5 stars. Very nice mood-reading fantasy/sci-fi novel about magic books.

Oh, the book of doors. I'm nothing if not a sucker of magical books. There's a kid in every adult, and whenever magical books are mentioned, mine awakes. This book was a breath of nostalgia and wonder, even though I've never read it before. It reminded me of why I started reading as a child––or rather, why I continued. The book of doors is a wonderful story of magic, friendship, villains and books. I rated this one as highly as I have based on feeling more than anything. Right off the bat, I can tell you I recommend this book highly. I had a great experience reading it, I'm sure you will, too.

The book is about Cassie Andrews, who is gifted a book by an old man that sits in the bookstore she works at often. This book turns out to be the book of doors. The book of doors allows the user to open any unlocked door and step out through an entirely different door, locked or unlocked, anywhere on the planet (and, as we find out later, anywhere in time). Naturally, this great power comes with people who hunt it. Thus begins the game of cat and mouse.

Like I mentioned earlier, this book was a relief of sorts to me. I hadn't read in a long time due to my own work as an author––I saw many words everyday in my own books, I didn't feel much for adding more words to that. Not the type of books I was reading when I stopped, anyway. The books I read before I stopped were often either non-fiction or deeply philosophical books. And though they're great to read, I missed the whimsy. This book gave me that. Yes, it's serious, and yes, a lot is at stake. But the whimsy of magical battles, secret missions, trips to the past, and a friendship with an old man felt like coming home.

This book, though magic books are not something ground-breaking, was still sufficiently creative in its magic system and world building. I was surprised when the story told me where the books had actually come from. It was a bit "chosen one" esque, but in the grand scheme of things, I didn't mind it as much as I would've in other books.

The characters did feel a bit flat at times, they did not wholly escape their tropes, roles, whatever you want to call it, but they worked in the context of the book. Sometimes, as long as the story is written well––which this one is––it doesn't matter if we don't get the highest level of character building. And that is not to say that these characters weren't thought out. There was a rather large cast of characters, but all felt unique in tone and behavior, and complemented the story. Like mentioned before, I loved the friendship that Cassie built with the old man who gave her the book. 10/10.

I chose to do a spoiler free review for this book, so this is where the review ends. If you ever feel like a fantasy story that makes you feel like a kid again, this is the one. It's not by any means child-like in writing, but it gave me the same feeling I had all those years ago. And for that, I can only thank Gareth Brown for writing "The Book of Doors", and I hope I convinced you to read it based on this review.