I adore this series with everything in my contented little reader heart, and this newest installment — well, I always want to call each new installment my new favorite in the series, but at this point, I suppose they're all my favorites. That said, Where the Drowned Girls Go focuses on Cora, who we've spent time with before and who I was missing very much, but we also get to meet quite a few new characters and experience an entirely new setting — with a twist. Instead of visiting a new door, we finally get to meet the folks behind Eleanor West's Home's opposite: the Whitethorn Institute.

Where Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children is welcoming and supportive, Whitethorn is uptight, strict, and determined to rip the doors out of the children within its halls, by choice or otherwise. The book starts off with Cora, feeling ruined and broken by her experiences within the Moors, committing herself to Whitethorn in hopes that, if they can separate her from her door, they can separate her from what she found within the Moors, too. While many of the books in this series don't have to be read in a specific order, I will say that you'll definitely want to have already read Beneath the Sugar Sky and Come Tumbling Down before you pick up Where the Drowned Girls Go.

There is an incredibly small amount that I can say about the plot of this novella, because much of it hinges upon a surprise that I did not see coming and was entirely delighted by. That said, what I can tell you is that this book focuses strongly on bullying/harassment, and how society and the institutions children are placed in are entirely complicit in childhood cruelty. It also touches on strictness placed upon children and the ways that adults often mistake laws for love, much to the detriment of the spirits of those in their care. Time and time again, I'm enraptured by how clearly Seanan understands how common and easy it is for authority figures to hurt children while never even realizing it (as a parent who tries very hard to become more self-aware every single day with my child, this is a topic I'm very grateful for the exploration of in this series).

I love this series, this world, and these characters endlessly. I'm forever grateful for Seanan McGuire's writing and how lovely and eye-opening her social commentary is, just as I'm so thankful for the representation in this series (if you want literal pages of me crying over how wonderful the writing of Cora's fat rep is, see my review of Beneath the Sugar Sky). I already am counting down the days to the 8th piece in this series and can't wait to see what Seanan does next.

✨ Representation: Cora is fat; Sumi is Japanese-American; Kade is a trans boy; multiple other side characters are queer and/or BIPOC

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!