Cora Miller was an unremarkable teenager, right up to the day she fell through a door that shouldn't be there, into a world that shouldn't exist, and became a mermaid. She became a hero.

This book isn't that story.

Later, Cora fell into a darker, harsher reality and then, worse still, was thrust back into the mundane world in which she'd been born, and where she'd been miserable. Her parents, though relieved by her return, can't help her readjust, so they enroll her in a special boarding school for people like her ... people who fell out of the world and now are back, unable to adapt. The school, Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, helps them to accept the wonder of their experiences, heal their broken parts and find their place in this world again.

This book isn't that story, either.

When Seanan McGuire's Where the Drowned Girls Go begins, Cora is attending West's school, but she doesn't believe it's the right place for her. She still wakes screaming most nights, haunted by what she left behind. She appeals to West for a transfer to the Whitehorn Institute, a stricter school that promises instead to help her forget, to become normal again.

She didn't expect the brutal, callous deprogramming routine that awaited her there, although she went in knowing that, once inside, leaving again would be nearly impossible. The program at Whitethorn is devoted to rigid control and persuading students that their experiences weren't real. They must be taught that there's no place in this world for fantasy.

And, as if her cross-reality experiences and coping difficulties weren't enough, Cora also has to deal with mundane issues that face a lot of teenagers ... such as her weight, which is excessive, or her hair, which has layers of rainbow colors, a byproduct of her time as a mermaid that she is unable to tame.

Children, even those who have visited magical realms, can be cliquish and cruel. Oh, and then there's the headmaster, who isn't all that he seems, and the nameless, pitiless matrons who impose order on the school.

On the surface, Where the Drowned Girls Go is about the struggle of Cora and other students to rise above their programming and escape their inhumane prison-school. At its heart, the book is about identity and acceptance, about being who you are even if it isn't comfortable or a socially approved norm.

Previous to this, the novel Sparrow Hill Road is the only other book by McGuire I had read (and reviewed). I didn't know what to expect from this author on our second go-around, and I'm happy to say she did not let me down. While not a thrilling, action-packed adventure story, Where the Drowned Girls Go runs deep and steady, encouraging you to care about the characters even when they don't seem to deserve your concern. It's easy to see how a young-adult reader, perhaps one who is uncertain of his or her own identity or place in the world, might feel a certain empathy for Cora and her peers.

When I picked this book -- a novella, at precisely 150 pages -- up at a local bookstore, I didn't realize it was the seventh book in a 12-book (so far) series, collectively titled Wayward Children. From what I can tell, the story follows a loose chronology, but -- while some threads are continued from book to book -- it isn't necessary to read them in order to understand what's going on. Well, for the most part -- I will say some references to other characters and places in this book probably would have made more sense if I'd read the whole series -- but Cora's story here doesn't rely on what went before.

In short, it would have helped if I'd read the preceding six books, but I wasn't lost without them. I'm glad I read it, and I might be inclined sometime soon -- when the stacks of books in my house have been slightly reduced -- to pick up more from this series. Seanan McGuire is definitely an author I hope to read again.