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A review by reneedecoskey
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I’m way late to the party on this one but every bit of hype this book received is well-deserved. It skyrocketed to the top of my TBR last week after I saw an Instagram post TJ Klune did about book banning and realized that he lives in Fredericksburg. So… fun fact, there.
Linus Baker lives a fairly mundane life. He lives in a gray city where it always rains. His cat, Calliope, tolerates him (sort of). His neighbor, Mrs. Klapper, gives him a hard time. He spends most of his life working (and free time is for listening to records). Linus works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth and does his job well.
After being summoned by Extremely Upper Management, he is sent on an assignment to an island in the sea, hours from home, where a man named Arthur Parnassus is operating an orphanage housing what they’ve deemed some of the most dangerous magical youth. Linus is to go and observe for a month, report back, and see if the orphanage ought to remain open.
The island is like nothing he’d ever seen before. The children (which include a sprite, a gnome, a wyvern, a shapeshifter, and the literal antichrist, among others) are like nothing he’d seen before. He is terrified of them — especially Lucy, the antichrist, until he gets to know them. He realizes that they’re all just sweet, sometimes mischievous kids who want to be loved and deserve to have a family that supports them, which is what they’ve created on the island — a home for a found family. But outsiders, including his employer, don’t see it that way. They want the children banished. They fear what they don’t understand and it manifests as hate and vitriol and discrimination.
Woven through that story is Linus maybe not so much accepting his sexuality as confronting it for the first time.
This book is an absolutely beautiful allegory for what’s gone on in our world in the past few years and explores themes that include diversity, lgbtq+, family, and seeing people for who they actually are rather than what your fears tell you they are. It’s charming, poignant, and often funny (especially Lucy). 10/10 would recommend. 5/5 stars.
Linus Baker lives a fairly mundane life. He lives in a gray city where it always rains. His cat, Calliope, tolerates him (sort of). His neighbor, Mrs. Klapper, gives him a hard time. He spends most of his life working (and free time is for listening to records). Linus works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth and does his job well.
After being summoned by Extremely Upper Management, he is sent on an assignment to an island in the sea, hours from home, where a man named Arthur Parnassus is operating an orphanage housing what they’ve deemed some of the most dangerous magical youth. Linus is to go and observe for a month, report back, and see if the orphanage ought to remain open.
The island is like nothing he’d ever seen before. The children (which include a sprite, a gnome, a wyvern, a shapeshifter, and the literal antichrist, among others) are like nothing he’d seen before. He is terrified of them — especially Lucy, the antichrist, until he gets to know them. He realizes that they’re all just sweet, sometimes mischievous kids who want to be loved and deserve to have a family that supports them, which is what they’ve created on the island — a home for a found family. But outsiders, including his employer, don’t see it that way. They want the children banished. They fear what they don’t understand and it manifests as hate and vitriol and discrimination.
Woven through that story is Linus maybe not so much accepting his sexuality as confronting it for the first time.
This book is an absolutely beautiful allegory for what’s gone on in our world in the past few years and explores themes that include diversity, lgbtq+, family, and seeing people for who they actually are rather than what your fears tell you they are. It’s charming, poignant, and often funny (especially Lucy). 10/10 would recommend. 5/5 stars.