“Beyond the Doors” by David Neilsen

• 03/08/2018
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BEYOND THE DOORS

David Neilsen
Crown Books for Young Readers (2017)
ISBN 9781101935828
Reviewed by Avery Stout (age 14) for Reader Views (03/18)

“Beyond the Doors” by David Neilsen really puts your imagination to the test, with doors that open to people’s memories, and turn into horrible nightmares if you visit the memory too many times. The Rothbaum children: Janice, Zack, Sydney and the youngest Alexa, have their lives turned upside down when their father goes into a coma after being pulled from their burning house. The social worker, finding no living relatives and unable to locate their mother; insist that the children be split up into foster homes.

But fate has something else in store for the children, who find themselves being sent to their Aunt Gladys home. The Rothbaum kids have never met their aunt and are in for a surprise when they arrive at her house. After much coaxing she lets down a huge drawbridge for them to enter a house unlike any other – it’s round and has no doors other than the hundreds of doors lying in stacks all over the house. Why are there no doors on the rooms in the house and what are the stacks of doors for? Soon the Rothbaum kids will learn a secret about their family that no one would have expected.

I really enjoyed the story line in “Beyond the Doors” by David Neilsen. What a great imagination to come up with doors that you can hook up to a machine and visit the owner’s memories. I loved the scary twist the author puts into the plot as the children try to put their family back together and save memories from being erased. I read an advanced reader’s copy so some of the pictures had not been added yet, the scary parts in the book would have been nice to see, but that is where your imagination comes in. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes an adventure/mystery.

“Beyond the Doors” by David Neilsen is funny, mysterious and a little scary all wrapped into one great book.