Confessions of a Literary Addict

This review is spoiler-free!

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
Series: Wayward Children #6
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy
Release Date: January 12th 2021 by Tordotcom
Format: Hardcover, 174 pages
Rating: ★★★★★
Find it here: Goodreads

I was not a Horse Girl growing up, exactly (I was wholeheartedly a Young Cat Lady and uphold that status today), but something about this particular Wayward Children book really hit me in the right place. That would be why I gave this one a full 5-star rating, where usually I only give 4 stars due to the length always being not quite enough for me. That didn’t change with this one — it absolutely felt too short, maybe even more so than the first ones in the series did, I just felt that connection and went, “Yeah, five stars. No questions asked.” Maybe it was the particularly strong “weird child” vibe in this one, which I definitely was, that made the connection. Maybe I’ll never know.

And maybe upon rereading (which I definitely plan on doing one of these days), I’ll change my tune, but, for now. 5 stars! Much nostalgia and feels! Regan hit me right in the heart and made sure I felt it for literally the entire year afterwards!

My biggest problem with it would be the same problem I have for all the books in the series: I WANT MORE. They’re such short books, and that’s not even remotely a bad thing, but they’re also so well written that I wish they were longer so I could stay in the world for a little bit more. I’ll forever think about the fourth book in the series, In An Absent Dream, because it was probably the only book in the series where I was actually upset there wasn’t more. Usually I can get over it, but I still think about how I wanted to know how a specific fight (which I won’t mention in detail just to be safe) went in full detail, and it just wasn’t there. Horse Girl energy kind of saved that for me in this one, but only just. I still would have loved for it to be longer.

I think what was also really cool for me was, in this one, Reagan was a rarity in a sense that every human would be. In her own world, she was a rarity for being intersex, but in her horse world, she was a rarity simply for being human. I thought that parallel (at least, I think it was supposed to be a parallel) was really cool! I would love to see some of the kids from Eleanor’s school drop down into it for an adventure. In the very least, I NEED to see more of Reagan, and I can’t wait for the series to continue.

(By the time this is published, actually, I think the next book will be out. Yay! Review for that will also be coming at some point!)

Thanks for reading!