Come Tumbling Down, by Seanan McGuire (2019, fantasy novella)

[lb_lee]

"That was her true gift to them: she taught them how to keep hoping in the face of the world that told them their memories were delusions, their lived experiences were lies, and there dreams were never going to come true. Perhaps that was her secret for engendering loyalty in a student body that was otherwise disinclined to trust adults, listen to them, or answer when they called. She believed."

Blurb: Jack and Jill were twins sent to a Gothic mad science world, and when they got kicked out, they came to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children until they could return. Now Jack's back again, having been bodyjacked by Jill; can she get her own body back, save her twice-dead mentor, and keep her undead girlfriend going? Lucky for her, she has other wayward child heroes to help her...

Why is it worth your time?: The Wayward Children series is a weird edge case; many a gateway system, fictionkin, or walk-in can sympathize with the longing to return to a world very unlike this one, and McGuire expresses that longing and need beautifully. It also has one of the best depictions of body dissonance I've ever seen; Jack and Jill might be identical twins, but their bodies are NOT the same, and Jack KNOWS it. The whole series may be well worth a look, though even Come Tumbling Down doesn't exactly have bodySHARING, just bodyswapping and theft.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate focus, bodyhopping, otherworld, enmity, setting-specific

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in hardback, paperback, audiobook, and ebook.

Misc Notes: Though Come Tumbling Down is #5 in this series, if you only want the Jack and Jill books, you can read #1 (Every Heart a Doorway) and #2 (Down Among the Sticks and Bones). Honestly, I would've preferred to have read #2 first. If you want those books, #1 is available in Hebrew, Portuguese, and German, while #2 is available in German and Portuguese.

Comments

Content Warnings

[lb_lee]

Multiple murders, undeath, dismemberment, resurrection, body horror, and Jack has OCD which combines BADLY with being trapped in a body that isn't hers. Jill also has a very messed-up (though nonsexual) relationship with her vampire Master.

[acorn_squash]

I love this series! I gotta ask, did you get a plural vibe off of Sumi? In Come Tumbling Down, we get this:

Sumi shuddered—not as theatrically as she normally would have. This wasn't something to be seen. It was something she felt all the way down to her bones, which were the only remaining part of her original body.

“My parents,” she said. “They were like Nancy's but the other way around, chasing monochrome instead of spectrums. They didn't understand. Thought if they threw enough gray and gray and gray at me, I'd forget I'd seen rainbows and learn how to be their little sparrow-girl again. She died in Confection and I rose from her ashes, a pretty pastry phoenix. I need my colors. It keeps me breathing when I see me in the mirror at midnight.”

And in a later book, Where the Drowned Girls Go, there's this:

There was so much more she could have said, like the way the war was still echoing in her ears, the way she could hear the screams of the wounded and the weeping of the captured. She could have told them about the wisps she wasn't sure were memories, the little fragments of the Halls of the Dead, her voice hollow and stolen from her mouth, her hands motionless by her intangible sides. Most of all, she could have told them about Sumiko, poor shade, discarded self, who was stirring more and more, because Sumi had been the necessary armor to survive Confection, and Sumiko was the necessary armor to survive the Whitethorn Institute.

...not to mention her occasional sudden, drastic shifts in demeanor.

[lb_lee]

Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that, but that’s a good point! Sumi has yet to be a POV character for very long, so I feel like I haven’t got to see much of her inner experience yet.

[acorn_squash]

She's my favorite character; I really wish we got more of her :( I hope she gets her own book someday, but McGuire's characters of color rarely get priority.

[lb_lee]

Yeeeeeah, I feel the same way about Christopher! He’s my fav!

[acorn_squash]

I know, right?! There's "Skeleton Song," but that's just a short story. He deserves more!

[lb_lee]

Ahhhh, if only a fanfic writer would come to our rescue!