Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All audiobook

Let’s talk about how good this book is. The writing is gorgeous, the story compelling. Our narrator is a GHOST telling the story of an orphan—but also revealing her own tragic story in the process. But the book is about more than that. It’s about what it means to be a woman, then and now. It’s about the secrets we are forced to keep and the ones we impose on ourselves. It’s about forgiveness and justice. It’s about survival and loneliness. Beautifully written and wonderfully told. XO

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight Thirteen Doorways is such a genuinely gorgeous book, I hardly know where to begin. Look, it's gut-wrenching, let's get that out of the way. I mean, it's orphans during WWII, you're probably not expecting sunshine and roses, right? The thing is, as hard as it is at times to read, there is a really inspirational aspect to it as well. It left me hopeful, that maybe humanity isn't doomed. Our mistakes are plenty, but there's still good, there's something worth fighting for.The characters are incredibly well developed, I rooted for them from the start. And not just because of their circumstances, but because I genuinely cared about them as characters. The story is told mainly through Frankie, one of the young women at the orphanage, and well, a ghost named Pearl. I have mixed feelings about paranormal, so I am extra happy to report that the author handled this magnificently. I absolutely was as invested in Pearl's story and observations, as she had such a special and unique insight into both Frankie and the world around them.And the stories were compelling, of course. Frankie is trying to keep her sister and herself safe in the middle of incredibly tumultuous times. There is a war raging around them, and they fear especially for all male family and friends, as they see young men in their own orphanage being drafted (and volunteering) for the war. I cannot comprehend the terror, frankly. Between worrying about your daily existence, and a looming global battle, Frankie had unfathomable courage.The range of emotions that this book made me feel was epic. I laughed, I cried, I was angry, happy, inspired. I haven't read anything with such impact in quite some time. Bottom Line: This is one of the rare books I would recommend to quite literally everyone I know. It's such a heartfelt, touching novel with current-era takeaways that should definitely not be missed.

Stunning and strange, at once luscious and harsh, with the contrast of the narrator's descriptions of ghosts in rich gowns with long flowing hair and the orphans she is drawn to with their rough plain dresses and cropped locks. This is a story about love, and identity, about family, and friendships. An unexpected story, sad and glorious. I hate to go into detail, because I don't want to spoil anything. But if you, like me, read and loved Bone Gap, read this immediately.

One day, a package arrived in the mail for me from Amazon Prime. I don't have a Prime account, so I thought my sister sent me a package because she'd told me there was another book she wanted us to read together. Sure enough, it was a book, but when I texted my sister, she told me she hadn't sent me anything. I checked my orders, but I hadn't ordered anything or been charged with anything by mistake. I wasn't sure what to do--did I keep the book or send it back? It came in my name. I thought maybe it was something to do with Goodreads, and I decided to keep it. Then, about a week later, I got another package! I opened it, and it was another book I hadn't ordered. Then, it hit me when I saw the title of that book. A co-worker of mine is pregnant and expecting to give birth in September. I'm scheduled to cover her class when she goes on maternity leave, and she'd told me she would send me these books back in March or April. I completely forgot because most things are not memorable in covid time. Somehow, even though I now know where this book came from, I'll never forget the feeling of receiving it as if by magic, and that's appropriate because Laura Ruby is a conjurer. In her author's note, Ruby tells us how this book was inspired by her late mother-in-law's stories of growing up during World War II in an orphanage. Ruby also says, though, that "it is...a story about girls. Girls with ambitions, brains, desires, talents, hungers. It is a story about how the world likes to punish girls for their appetites, and even for their love."This book is also about stories, and there are great stories within it. Two of the main characters tell each other and themselves fairy tales, fairy tales of which, as Ruby says about her own novel, "Every word is fiction. And every word is true." Fairy tales help the characters make sense of the depravities they've suffered for being girls who didn't do what they were told, for being girls who had their own hopes and dreams and wanted to forge their own paths despite the obstacles put in front of them by society's expectations of them. The two main plots are both very strong, and they both kept me wanting to know more. There are so many twists and turns and reveals that keep the book entertaining. I read quickly whenever I read because I wanted to know more and because Ruby's writing is so smooth and beautiful. What stands out to me more than the plots, though, are the friendships, the friendships among girls. The strength of these girls. The way they stand together and fight together. The way they fight each other but make things right. The way they struggle and suffer and go through so much yet maintain the desire to live and to keep living. The last fifty pages are the best pages of the entire novel. The climaxes and resolutions of both plots are gorgeous. I held back tears as I read the conclusion to three different stories, really, though two are part of the same plot. I loved everything about the ending. I was going to rate this 4.5 stars, but I couldn't think of a single reason to drop the rating. I love the writing, the characters, the plot, and the history. I love the different stories, the representation of diversity (each character of a minority background is represented with love and care, not diminished or put to the background, and the ending of one thread is so moving and honest that it gives great recognition to one of the minority cultures), and the themes. I love the progression of each plot and how there is so much conflict to keep the book moving but also beautiful passages of strong and moving writing. There were parts throughout the book that brought tears to my eyes, that made me laugh, that made me stop and think. Maybe one criticism is that some parts about the war were sort of skimmed over, but the war is meant to be in the background because it was in a very big way for the women who stayed behind while the men went across the ocean to fight.Overall, I think this book was excellent. It was brought to me by magic, and it maintained its aura from start to finish. I strongly recommend it to readers who think that girls deserve to live their lives without being questioned for their wants and desires, told they "can't" or "shouldn't," that girls should be celebrated for being wise and intelligent, funny, charming, desirable and desiring, to people who think that girls deserve a fair chance to be themselves, to tell their own stories, and to be the heroes of their own stories.

This book is beautiful and sad, full of surrealism and yet fully grounded in real life. I will often say things like, "I don't need any more WWII historical fiction," but books like this remind me that I just need books that take their period seriously, that open it up to you and make it feel absolutely real. I enjoyed BONE GAP but I liked THIRTEEN DOORWAYS even more.The ghost-as-narrator device still isn't used all that often, which I think is for the best. If you're going to use it you need to have a good reason and you need to do something interesting with it. Here Ruby does exactly that. Even though the ghost spends most of her time watching our protagonist, Frankie, the device works well then and I always enjoyed when the ghost's own story came into the picture.Adult readers who avoid YA shouldn't avoid a book like this. Ruby's prose is deft and lovely, even though the book is about teenagers it brims with emotion.

this one’s a finalist for the National Book Award, and for good reason. Frankie’s father leaves her and her sister, Toni, at an orphanage to be sure they’ll be cared for. but then he shows up one day, and he’s married, and he’s leaving town—without them. Frankie and Toni are alone in the world with their friends and the ghosts that watch over one. this one gave me chills all over my entire body. I highly recommend.

This book blew me away because it did the previously unthinkable ~ it made me love a story narrated by a GHOST. Excellent and original historical fiction with multiple storylines based on the author’s MIL’s real childhood. Well, real childhood plus ghosts 😉

I don't know if it's my tastes or the content being published more now but I've been reading SO many books in the past year involving religious institutions that are actually pretty analytical of them. Some more than others but still a pretty interesting shift.The switching of POVs between our alive character and our dead character didn't totally work for me all the time. They were going through a lot of similar things but I didn't find their voices to be all that different from each other. At times I forgot which of them I was reading for a few lines. I had to pause and reread.The strongest take away for me was the role of women of the time. Frankie was by far the most interesting and likable character in the book. Then there's Toni, the nuns, Frankie's step mother, her own mother and then our less than alive friend. They all represented pretty much all of the options women had: mental hospital, find a husband and keep em for survival, be boy crazy, shunned and disowned for being out of social norms. It's pretty depressing but interesting really. Frankie & Toni's dad was a particularly manipulative piece of garbage but he did seem to fit the time and social norms sadly.The ending was abrupt and a bit chaotic but it honestly strengthened the book for me. Frankie and Toni's ending being clean and organized wouldn't have fit this whole book. I liked that there was that final show down between them and everyone else.

It's not a perfect book but I can't remember ever really getting impatient with it or wanting to put the book down so I don't have a reason not to rate it a 5!This book is a ghost story when it comes right down to it. Our narrator is named Pearl, and she's the ghost telling the story. Pearl flits around 1940's Chicago but is repeatedly drawn to several places in particular. The lake, a little wooden house with a happy young couple, and an orphanage. Pearl watches.Sometimes she tries to get people to see her, but mostly she's a spectator.One of the people that Pearl watches most is Frankie, a young girl living in the orphanage along with her little sister Toni and older brother Vito. Frankie's mother is dead, but her father is not. It wasn't all that unusual for parents who could not care for their children to put them into orphanages, and that's what's happened here. In fact, Frankie's dad visits his children every other weekend and brings them extra food and toys. Frankie is based on the author's mother in law, who was in fact put into an orphanage by her own father. One of the saddest parts of the book is seeing and understanding that so many children were given up by their parents for reasons ranging from destitution to disinterest. How horrible to feel that your own parents don't want you. Frankie has a good sense of herself, but she's essentially institutionalized and doesn't know how to trust or rely on herself because she's never been allowed to develop her independence. An independent child is a lot of trouble for an institution- they don't go along with the procedures that are always followed to make things easier for those in charge.Frankie finds ways to have joy in her life despite being overseen by those who don't care and those who resent her happiness.Meanwhile, Pearl is slowly coming to understand more about herself and her own story, finding that the story she's told herself all along may not be everything there is to know.A lot of the book involves blind spots- places that people can't or don't want to look because of the pain in seeing memories or people as they truly are. It's about girls who are constrained and what happens to them when they struggle in those constraints. It's also a gorgeous story in itself. I am so over WWII books, but I really enjoyed this one. Perhaps because the war, while always there, is not the focus of the book. The characters really came alive, flawed, frightened, fascinating. I'm very up for another book by this author now- she's really impressed me.

Many thanks to EdelweissPlus and the publisher for providing me with a DRC of this title to review. All opinions are my own.If you had asked me at about 10% into this book if I was going to keep going, or even what I thought of it in general, I would have told you it was DANGEROUSLY close to being in my small DNF pile. The only thing that kept me going were: a. the author (I LOVED Bone Gap ), b. other reviews who mentioned a similar struggle getting going, and c. the buzz surrounding this book and potential award list talk. I am SO GLAD I kept going. By the time I got past 25%, I was hooked. The last half flew by. Highly recommend for readers who are interested in the time period(s), magical realism, ghosts, feminism, allegories, life in general.My ONE complaint: I cared about one of the story lines so much more than the other one, which made it hard to stay as invested, especially at the end. I liked Frankie well enough, but the story of Pearl and her ghost, her history, her death, everything, was incredibly engaging and one that I didn't want to give up to read about Frankie's family. Overall, this is a solid book with a twist on a ghost story. Highly recommend.

This book casts a spell that stays long after the last story page and the author's note have been read. A ghost story and an historical novel, a meditation on how our lives are lived over the lives of those who have gone before us, about the endurance of prejudice and oppression, the triumph of love and self-love, the slipperiness of memory, the rock of truth. This story that takes place during WWII and in the decades leading up to it about two sisters rejected by their father and growing up in a Catholic orphanage, their strategies for survival, and the ghost who watches them from the afterlife, is so beautifully drawn. As the worlds overlap, memories are recovered and secrets revealed, we see all the young women in this story strengthen and endure - and reach for happiness. The language is beautiful, the pacing and construction of the novel brilliant. A page turner. One to be kept on the shelf and reread. Brava!

I finished this minutes ago and I need to write down how it made me feel. At first I held this book and tried to sleep but I couldn't, so here I am.This book is ferociously beautiful, a supernova explosion of the most gorgeous, compelling, fierce writing - ever, in my memory of reading. It's a well-written work that hadn't particularly shaken me until the last 50 or so pages, but holy hell (apt). It's the most gratifying and emboldening ending.I just love it. I have no words.

Because I've married into an Italian family and have had the pleasure of hearing many stories from the older generations, this book spoke to my heart..... This is a story, but it follows so close to the realities I know happened to many families during this time...Popsugar 202 Challenge - 20+ Letters in Title

This is a story about young women who dare to hope in the face of life's smothering difficulties. This is a story about injustice, betrayal, pain, and loss, but this is also a story about friendship, love, laughter, and loyalty. Most of all, this is a story about persevering even while knowing it would be easier to simply give up.