Beyond the Black Door by A.M. Strickland

Reviewed by GGGinny

What I drank: Prosecco. I cooked for myself for the first time in a while and that made me feel like celebrating.

Goodreads Overview:

Kamai was warned never to open the black door, but she didn’t listen …

Everyone has a soul. Some are beautiful gardens, others are frightening dungeons. Soulwalkers―like Kamai and her mother―can journey into other people’s souls while they sleep.

But no matter where Kamai visits, she sees the black door. It follows her into every soul, and her mother has told her to never, ever open it.

Drunk Overview: Kamai is a “soulwalker” aka she can see people’s souls when they sleep. The souls she visit all have the same black door that follows her in that realm. Turns out that her family is involved with more than one secret society and that she may be tied to what is funcitonally an eldritch being.

Drunk Thoughts:

• I wasn’t sure where the plot was going to be for a decent part of this book, but I was in for the ride. And I ended up enjoying what the plot turned into.
• Kumai is an interesting character; specifically I enjoyed her strengths and weaknesses.
• She had a tendency to trust, but rarely the right people, and to be cautious but again not around the right people.
• Which made it so much fun as she went through life, because sometimes she did make good choices.
• For example, she decided to trust the random person found behind a locked door, Vehyn, but took a bit of time to warm up to the guard that became her best friend, Nikha.
• Speaking of Vehyn, this isn’t really a surprise but the guy is kind of a dick and only tangentially tried to hide it.
• Frankly, there’s a really fascinating plot line about what makes love.
• In this case, there’s the idea that one person has had limited contact and falls in love with really the only person they’ve ever known, versus someone who has felt different from everyone finding someone who seems to understand them.
• This book also delves into the understanding of love versus sex. Kumai is ace and isn’t interested in anything physically intimate, trying to come to terms with how she’s different than everyone else (for some context her mother was a “pleasure artists” and courtesans are kind of an accepted part of society
• On top of that, the diversity in this book is wonderful; not just race, which is varied, but also gender and sexual identity.
• I really enjoyed all of the different characters who didn’t fit in our current societies binary.
• But I especially enjoyed the way the priestess explained the differences in gender and sexual identities. It was refreshing to see it explained so simply.
• But back to the plot. There were some delighfully complicated parts of this book.
• As I mentioned in my overview, there were multiple secret societies. Whenever a secret society shows up in a book, I always feel a bit suspect. The fact that there were duelling societies did make it more interesting.
• Also this book is YA, so there was kind of a love triangle. But it wasn’t quite as traditional as some of the most egregious options I can think about.
• This book did a nice job of foreshadowing a number of different things; specifically heritage, some of the soul spaces, and general plot points.
• Just in general, I felt this book was really well crafted.
• I’m gonna throw out some random feelings I had about this book.
• I really appreciated that Kumai wasn’t going to settle for soemthing that wasn’t going to work with here.
• Nikai, Kumai’s friend and bodyguard had a fantastic kind of a journey around their gender which was really wonderful to read.
• I did get a little tired of Vehyn as a character (mostly because he was obviously a bad guy, which Kuma didn’t really see). but I also find characters who blatantly say “I’ll tell you later” to be kind of frustrating.
• That being said, Vehyn was clearly doing it was leverage, which just build out his character.
• I really enjoyed the way the card game in this book helped make the different characters stand out. The way that they approached the game was great insight.
• That being said, I think this book did leave some loopholes that could have been exploited further (specifically a power that Kumai had that could have have more of an impact on plot).
• That being said, I did litke the web of characters that helped sohow the differences between said secret societies and the way that small things mentioned early ended up playing into things later.
• I think I’m at the point where what I’m saying doesn’t really mean much

What it Pairs With: Rich, sweet, red wine.

Rating: 4/5/5