Coming-of-age stories are possibly just not for me anymore. The book-driven portal fantasy is nice enough, and the helping of "remember how bad turn-of-the-century racism is" is not bad if a bit forced, but … I just didn't care about the predictable story. If only there had been a bigger focus on the portals, or the portal writing, or the portal worlds … I can appreciate why this book is popular, but it felt more generic than it should have to me.