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A review by v1rgo
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
full disclosure i am traveling today and am very tired. thus this review is not articulate. read this for a book club, it was due tomorrow. unrated because i don't feel comfortable rating this because of the racist tropes.
the year just began but i think this might be the worst book i'll have read this year. the house in the cerulean sea was okay, but this was just incredibly bad. trite, dull writing, flat characters, dull dialogue, all of the things. such a fucking pain. shit pacing too. the dilemma mentioned in the blurb happens around 4/5 into the book.
anyways, i'm glad that man died! i wish he got guillotined! i just didn't see the point. stories about death and fear have been written before. stories that are actually good, believe it or not! stories about rich assholes realizing they were dicks have also been written before. this adds absolutely nothing new to any genre it tries to be a part of. frankly, i don't see the fascination with writing these stories about terrible people under late stage capitalism. like, if anything, a. my existential dread is Not just from general fear of death it's from capitalism and b. people that feel similarly are likely not terrible in the same way as these protagonists ! that would've been more timely but i digress. and the short story about the reaper girl was so bad! did anyone even edit it? it sounded like it was written in one sitting!!
also, can i say that i really don't like the author? i hate it when white people try to write about race by vaguely mentioning racism or poking fun at other white people. like, it just doesn't work! i hate talking about tropes so much, but frankly klune relies so heavily on tropes ie the reader's own feelings regarding a dynamic rather than creating unique dynamics (or even adding enough detail to the dynamics regardless!), that i feel like it's fair to hone in on this so much. VERY VERY VERY much hated the occurrence of the person of color but special because their eyes aren't black trope as well. (for anyone scrolling who hasn't read the book, this one character is in fact the love interest. make of that what u will!) :/ aside from that, i just don't like the way that his characters of color are always used to support the main character who is white. arguably, in cerulean sea, some had their own plotlines, but here, there's bare minimum development in any form. every character sounded the same.
i think the author is just trying to do the same thing he did with cerulean sea. and it worked a lot better with cerulean sea. his writing is very childlike and simplistic and well..
boring, but it was less noticeable because that book had kids in it. i don't want someone to hold my hand when discussing this sort of stuff. i don't think it's even fair to say that this book would've been better for kids; there are plenty of children's books out there that manage to tackle sensitive topics while retaining complexity.
death scares me a lot, but this didn't help at all. i think there's a misconception that talking about something heavy simply and lightly reduces fear, but that isn't true. for the most part, i think it's impossible to talk about sad things without being sad, or at least introspective. otherwise, it's dishonest. this book tries to convince you of many, many things: that the tea shop is a family, that hugo and wallace love eachother, that all of the characters are unique, lovely people you should root for. but it didn't succeed in doing so at all for me.
the year just began but i think this might be the worst book i'll have read this year. the house in the cerulean sea was okay, but this was just incredibly bad. trite, dull writing, flat characters, dull dialogue, all of the things. such a fucking pain. shit pacing too. the dilemma mentioned in the blurb happens around 4/5 into the book.
anyways, i'm glad that man died! i wish he got guillotined! i just didn't see the point. stories about death and fear have been written before. stories that are actually good, believe it or not! stories about rich assholes realizing they were dicks have also been written before. this adds absolutely nothing new to any genre it tries to be a part of. frankly, i don't see the fascination with writing these stories about terrible people under late stage capitalism. like, if anything, a. my existential dread is Not just from general fear of death it's from capitalism and b. people that feel similarly are likely not terrible in the same way as these protagonists ! that would've been more timely but i digress. and the short story about the reaper girl was so bad! did anyone even edit it? it sounded like it was written in one sitting!!
also, can i say that i really don't like the author? i hate it when white people try to write about race by vaguely mentioning racism or poking fun at other white people. like, it just doesn't work! i hate talking about tropes so much, but frankly klune relies so heavily on tropes ie the reader's own feelings regarding a dynamic rather than creating unique dynamics (or even adding enough detail to the dynamics regardless!), that i feel like it's fair to hone in on this so much. VERY VERY VERY much hated the occurrence of the person of color but special because their eyes aren't black trope as well. (for anyone scrolling who hasn't read the book, this one character is in fact the love interest. make of that what u will!) :/ aside from that, i just don't like the way that his characters of color are always used to support the main character who is white. arguably, in cerulean sea, some had their own plotlines, but here, there's bare minimum development in any form. every character sounded the same.
i think the author is just trying to do the same thing he did with cerulean sea. and it worked a lot better with cerulean sea. his writing is very childlike and simplistic and well..
boring, but it was less noticeable because that book had kids in it. i don't want someone to hold my hand when discussing this sort of stuff. i don't think it's even fair to say that this book would've been better for kids; there are plenty of children's books out there that manage to tackle sensitive topics while retaining complexity.
death scares me a lot, but this didn't help at all. i think there's a misconception that talking about something heavy simply and lightly reduces fear, but that isn't true. for the most part, i think it's impossible to talk about sad things without being sad, or at least introspective. otherwise, it's dishonest. this book tries to convince you of many, many things: that the tea shop is a family, that hugo and wallace love eachother, that all of the characters are unique, lovely people you should root for. but it didn't succeed in doing so at all for me.