I'm here to save the world

I’d been kind of hoping to read the entire Wayward Children series last year but was thwarted by publishing schedules, meaning I only just got my hands on my library copy of Across the Green Grass Fields, which was published in January. At any rate, I’ve finished the series now! It’s nice to feel like I have completed a series; that doesn’t happen much anymore.

 

Though this is a Wayward Children book it does not interact with any of the other Wayward Children books; neither the school nor any previously known characters appear in it, which seems a bit odd for a series ender. But it is still very definitely of the same series, with similar vibes and themes, and of course the basic premise of a portal fantasy.

 

Our wayward child in this one is Regan, a certified Horse Girl and the daughter of a veterinarian, which works out quite well. Regan is also intersex--an XY girl with androgen insensitivity. When she reaches her preteen years and fails to hit puberty, Regan thinks this is a problem, even though the actual problem is that Regan’s best friend Laurel is a huge bitch and has surrounded herself and thus Regan with other catty conformist types. At any rate, Regan runs off to have a cry in the woods and accidentally falls into horse girl utopia, where she is adopted by a kindly family of centaurs, who are humble unicorn ranchers. When humans arrive in the Hooflands, it is always to save the world, Regan is told, usually from terrible monarchs, but Regan is only ten and doesn’t want to be a big damn hero yet, so she and her new friends spend a few years hiding from the terrible queen that everyone figures Regan is there to overthrow. 

 

The actual saving the world part is packed in pretty tight at the end, because Seanan McGuire knows what Horse Girls want to read about, and that is daily life as the only human living in a herd of unicorn-rancher centaurs. In true YA fashion there is a certain amount of making the subtext text re: using fantastical creatures to explore what a person is, which has been a bit of an ongoing theme in this series so I was expecting it, and it’s fine. 

 

Overall the story is deeply charming and a lovely bit of escapism for enormous fantasy nerds who have read too many portal stories, as it is intended to be, and I’m glad I read it, and I’m glad I read the whole series.