The Door by Andy Marino (review)

Hannah’s world is pretty much limited to the lighthouse where she lives, the voices inside her head, and her overprotective mother. It turns out her mother was right to be cautious, as twelve-year-old Hannah is a very important person—one of very few guardians who keep watch over a doorway to the afterlife and make sure that it stays closed to those seeking to get in or out. After Hannah’s mother dies, Hannah enters through the door, determined to find her and bring her back to the living. Once in the afterlife Hannah quickly acclimates to the strange, fascinating world she finds on the other side, where dead people try their hands at various tasks, all designed to help them reach enlightenment and reach Ascension, a promised, happier fate beyond the city of the dead. The fogginess that creeps in on everyone in the world of the dead is introduced to splendid effect, as Hannah doesn’t even realize the pieces she is forgetting until they are gone or nearly so; the agonized reader will spot this coming and be forced to watch helplessly, just as the residents who’ve learned this happens must do. Thoughtful readers who have stuck through the twisty plot and fairly sophisticated otherworld concept will likely adjust well to the uncertain ending, even while they may wish for more clarity about Hannah’s fate. Not since the equally haunting and engrossing Half World by Hiromi Goto (BCCB 9/10) has there been such an intriguing look at a limbo world that awaits the dead, and what happens to a mortal girl who dares to find her own fate within it.