Monday, January 6, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Beyond the Black Door by A.M. Strickland




Beyond the Black Door is a YA Fantasy novel by debut author A.M. Strickland.*  It's a book about a 17-18 year old girl who finds herself in the midst of secret societies and a conspiracy that threatens to overtake the world, and who in the midst of it all finds herself struggling to determine who she herself is - and what that means.  In particular, our protagonist is ace, and struggles with what that means, especially in a world where she has a magical power aided by being near others while she and they sleep.   

*Strickland identifies as genderfluid with she/them pronouns.  For this review, I'll be using "she"  as that's what's used in the bio in the book and she seems to use both, but take note. 

The result is a well done YA novel, with a protagonist who is easily likable to go along with one really strong secondary character.  It never really breaks out into something special for older readers - young adult readers who may be dealing with less fantastical versions of the same issues will likely find this better than older more sure readers - but the aforementioned characters are well enough done, the plot is nicely executed from beginning to end, and the story features enough clever moments to make it all come together.


------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
Ever since she was a little girl, Kamai has known that she and her mother have a special power: the power to soulwalk in her sleep, to enter a nearby sleeping person's nehym, the dream structure that represents their soul.  Kamai's mother uses that power in her job as a courtesan to enter her client's souls to gain information.  But what Kamai has never known, and has always wondered, is why Kamai does not have her own nehym, and why in every soul she enters she sees an ominous Black Door, forever closed - a door Kamai's mother tells Kamai to never, ever, open.

But when Kamai's mother is killed seemingly by the people she really works for, the Twilight Guild, Kamai finds herself untethered and unsure....and so she opens the door.  Inside, is a strange dark being who calls himself Vehyn, to whom Kamai can't help but feel a little attracted.  But Vehyn is clearly not human and Kamai knows she cannot trust him and his intentions, especially as he seems particularly eager to declare her to be his.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, Kamai finds herself forced to be part of a royal society she wants no part of, especially if it will require her to get married or even just to have sexual relations - an idea she finds discomforting.  But as Kamai deals with Vehyn, and also tries to figure out her place in the world, she finds herself at the center of a conspiracy to not only change the royal society forever, but to change the entire world instead, and Kamai's opening of the door may be right at the heart of it all.....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beyond the Black Door is the story mainly of Kamai, as she attempts to figure out who she herself is.  Sure there's secret societies and a conspiracy to bring the world under the potential sway of evil, to go along with sacred myths of divinity that turn out to be true, but the story centers itself upon Kamai's own personal path of self-discovery, and only by finding her personal answers can Kamai handle everything else.

This works fairly well, and Kamai is an excellently done character.  Kamai is ace (asexual), so while she may find herself attracted to people of either gender, she finds herself disgusted with the idea of sex itself.  And with Kamai's only mentor - her mother - dead, and Kamai's blasphemous magical power requiring her to sleep nearby someone when she sleeps, Kamai finds herself questioning if her feelings are okay, and whether she needs to suck them up and go against them....and finds she can't quite do that.  Kamai's interactions with Vehyn, in which she finds herself attracted to him and worried about whether that is another sign of her wrongness, especially due to his clear connection to her soul, also go to this theme.  And it all comes out really well in the plot, as Kamai finds herself having to figure it all out to get a grip on a path forwards in real life, not just in her dreams.

The book adds in two other interesting characters, most notably Kamai's guard and friend Nikha, who has her own closeted identity, as someone thought to be a woman who wants to be involved in what is deemed a masculine task: being a guardsman of a noble or the royal family.  And then there's Vehyn himself, who is a bit more interesting than you'd think, given his setup originally as seemingly a being who as an antagonist wants to control our young woman heroine, but is a bit more complicated than that, up through the ending.  But still, this is mostly Kamai's story from beginning to end.

The result is a story that works really well for what it is, which is paced quite nicely and comes together well from beginning to end, but one which never manages to break out into something better than good.  As I said before the jump however, if you're in the target YA age group and struggling with the same issues as Kamai, this book may work much better for you. Which is what YA is for, so that's hardly a complaint.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)