The House in the Cerulean Sea

Un libro que me compré en un aeropuerto, por leer algo mientras mi avión se retrasaba. Y menuda maravilla.

Es una historia muy tierna, con humor a veces sutil, a veces desternillante. Unos personajes que te dan ganas de abrazar todo el rato y, creo que lo que más me gusta, unes niñes que puedes creerte. En definitiva, personajes con buen diseño.

La historia, pese a ser previsible, te hace disfrutar del viaje. Que al final, es de lo que se trata. Me gusta el slow burn, me gusta la representación positiva que hace (de hecho, me encanta que la orientación de la gente no suponga ningún drama, los dramas van por otro lado) y una reflexión interesante sobre la bondad humana. ¿Se nace o se hace?

No sé si estaba más tierna de lo habitual, pero me ha gustado mucho. Tanto, que me he hecho una lista de música con las canciones del libro.

I'd seen the cover of this book around on social media a lot but hadn't really paid attention until someone said the magical phrase WERE-POMERANIAN.

Of course I was immediately all in.

I can not even begin to describe how delightful this book is. Linus is an inspector for group homes for magical children. He cares deeply about the kids and thinks that he is doing the best for them by making sure that they are cared for by the book. His eyes are starting to be opened to the fact that not everyone around him may be as benevolent as he is. When he is tapped for a secret inspection of a home for dangerous children all his assumptions fall apart.

I highlighted so many quotes from this book. The banter was so much fun. These are just a few.

“I am evil incarnate,” the dastardly voice said. “I am the blight upon the skin of this world. And I will bring it to its knees. Prepare for the End of Days! Your time has come, and the rivers will run with the blood of the innocents!” Talia sighed. “He’s such a drama queen.”

...we talked about the locust plague. That’s only to be done under direct supervision.

Because it’s better not to know if we’re about to die. That way, we don’t start screaming right now. It’ll be a surprise. We can always scream then.

I was a bit disappointed in the Pomeranian. He turned into a Pomeranian whenever he was scared. It would be more on brand to have him turn into a Pomeranian and then blindly run at whatever he was scared of intending to tear it to shreds regardless of size discrepancies.

If you haven't read this book, go get it right now. Seriously. Right now. You won't regret it.

I really thought I was going to like this book, but I simply didn't. There are so many issues with it, starting with a few and getting worse and worse.
To begin with, it's so easy to guess how the book ends after Linus is introduced in the first few chapters. A simple character that always follows the rules ... what else could happen other than him changing and/or having an 'epiphany' about the fact that rules and laws aren't everything? Argh.

The first thing, and probably my biggest issue is with how creepy the book came across in several situations. I thought it was weird that one of the main characters literally shared a private room with one of the children but ignored it because I was waiting for the actual reasoning behind it or an explanation, which never happened. In general, very little gets resolved in this book.

The second time I got creeper vibes was when Linus was talking to Sal about him showing his room, telling him that he, "Doesn't need to do anything he doesn't want to do." In connection to that I should probably mention that the book is a collection of superficial sayings, 'inspirational' life quotes, hipster tropes and so on. At times I felt I was scrolling through a tumblr blog from 10 years ago reading through this book. All the adults know better and seem to be preaching shit to each other and the children every chapter. It felt awkward and was way overdone.

Another situation that felt off and completely out of place for me was Linus and Arthur talking about 'hearing sounds from one of the children's rooms', referencing masturbation. I'm far from prude, but this felt invasive, unnescessary and downright creepy, again. I literally grimaced during that passage.
Since we're already talking about Linus and Arthur ... to me, there was nothing. Absolutely no chemistry. The book feeds you little mentions of Linus finding Arthur attractive, beautiful, him liking the sound of his voice or how he moves and does things, but it had absolutely no effect on me. Especially since it comes out of nowhere. He's barely interacted with him and those thoughts suddenly pop up. He barely knows this guy and is absolutely smitten. Again, it felt superficial and pretty silly.

Before I move onto the other characters, big fucking TW for fatphobia. Linus' weight is mentioned again and again in negative ways. The way he looks at himself, the way society perceives him. That he's not sporty, that he's not thin, that he doesn't fit into clothes, that he shouldn't have too much to eat or sweets and the like. It is mentioned so many times that after a while you're just waiting for it to come back up. I couldn't help but roll my eyes, but this content could absolutely be dangerous to children or especially young teens struggling with their perception of themselves; which you know, is a thing for basically every teen at some point. The short mention of Talia saying that there's nothing wrong with being round doesn't protect you from the criticism, Klune. Especially since she's a gnome. Linus weight comes up again and again after, the way it's written is pretty disgusting at that point.

The character of Helen, the town's major, came out of the blue for me and was WAY too supportive, quickly. It made absolutely zero sense, especially with how prejudiced the town as a whole was towards magical beings. With a soft major like that, I doubt people would've voted her into office. I doubt that a simple interaction with Talia would've had that huge of an impact for her to be not only supportive, but protective of children and beings she barely knows. No explanation to why the towns people were so negatively prejudiced either. No connection to the former orphanage's "master" either. What the heck.

Talking about magical beings, this is probably the first and only fantasy book I've read and disliked. Maybe because the fact that they're magical has very little impact on the story, since it's so flat. That might even be the point of the book, that you could project it onto (other) minorites in general ... but if you're trying to sell it to me, don't call it fantasy and magical when there's very little of it.

The reasoning for 2 instead of 1 star is the fact that I did like a few of the characters and how they were described. The children are likable in general. Zoe, Phee and Chauncey are precious. Even though I liked both Zoe and Helen I thought the ending of the story and them two getting involved felt again, out of place, out of nowhere. Just don't include it if you don't have time for the buildup. It feels empty (and tokenizing) to include relationships that way.

The ending of the book felt rushed, diminishing all the issues raised within the book, especially with DICOMY. We also never find out about any of the schools or the futures of the (registred) magical beings that were part of the system in the past.

The writing style is simplistic and super repetitive; the characters regurgitate the same stuff over and over again. It's easy to follow and obviously geared towards Young Teens or even younger children, and I get where the 'simple, wholesome' description in a lot of people's reviews comes from. Because it is indeed simple. 'Wholesome' is very subjective. To me the book, the writing and the content was weak, downright annoying and uncomfortable.

I really thought I was going to like this book, but I simply didn't. There are so many issues with it, starting with a few and getting worse and worse.
To begin with, it's so easy to guess how the book ends after Linus is introduced in the first few chapters. A simple character that always follows the rules ... what else could happen other than him changing and/or having an 'epiphany' about the fact that rules and laws aren't everything? Argh.

The first thing, and probably my biggest issue is with how creepy the book came across in several situations. I thought it was weird that one of the main characters literally shared a private room with one of the children but ignored it because I was waiting for the actual reasoning behind it or an explanation, which never happened. In general, very little gets resolved in this book.

The second time I got creeper vibes was when Linus was talking to Sal about him showing his room, telling him that he, "Doesn't need to do anything he doesn't want to do." In connection to that I should probably mention that the book is a collection of superficial sayings, 'inspirational' life quotes, hipster tropes and so on. At times I felt I was scrolling through a tumblr blog from 10 years ago reading through this book. All the adults know better and seem to be preaching shit to each other and the children every chapter. It felt awkward and was way overdone.

Another situation that felt off and completely out of place for me was Linus and Arthur talking about 'hearing sounds from one of the children's rooms', referencing masturbation. I'm far from prude, but this felt invasive, unnescessary and downright creepy, again. I literally grimaced during that passage.
Since we're already talking about Linus and Arthur ... to me, there was nothing. Absolutely no chemistry. The book feeds you little mentions of Linus finding Arthur attractive, beautiful, him liking the sound of his voice or how he moves and does things, but it had absolutely no effect on me. Especially since it comes out of nowhere. He's barely interacted with him and those thoughts suddenly pop up. He barely knows this guy and is absolutely smitten. Again, it felt superficial and pretty silly.

Before I move onto the other characters, big fucking TW for fatphobia. Linus' weight is mentioned again and again in negative ways. The way he looks at himself, the way society perceives him. That he's not sporty, that he's not thin, that he doesn't fit into clothes, that he shouldn't have too much to eat or sweets and the like. It is mentioned so many times that after a while you're just waiting for it to come back up. I couldn't help but roll my eyes, but this content could absolutely be dangerous to children or especially young teens struggling with their perception of themselves; which you know, is a thing for basically every teen at some point. The short mention of Talia saying that there's nothing wrong with being round doesn't protect you from the criticism, Klune. Especially since she's a gnome. Linus weight comes up again and again after, the way it's written is pretty disgusting at that point.

The character of Helen, the town's major, came out of the blue for me and was WAY too supportive, quickly. It made absolutely zero sense, especially with how prejudiced the town as a whole was towards magical beings. With a soft major like that, I doubt people would've voted her into office. I doubt that a simple interaction with Talia would've had that huge of an impact for her to be not only supportive, but protective of children and beings she barely knows. No explanation to why the towns people were so negatively prejudiced either. No connection to the former orphanage's "master" either. What the heck.

Talking about magical beings, this is probably the first and only fantasy book I've read and disliked. Maybe because the fact that they're magical has very little impact on the story, since it's so flat. That might even be the point of the book, that you could project it onto (other) minorites in general ... but if you're trying to sell it to me, don't call it fantasy and magical when there's very little of it.

The reasoning for 2 instead of 1 star is the fact that I did like a few of the characters and how they were described. The children are likable in general. Zoe, Phee and Chauncey are precious. Even though I liked both Zoe and Helen I thought the ending of the story and them two getting involved felt again, out of place, out of nowhere. Just don't include it if you don't have time for the buildup. It feels empty (and tokenizing) to include relationships that way.

The ending of the book felt rushed, diminishing all the issues raised within the book, especially with DICOMY. We also never find out about any of the schools or the futures of the (registred) magical beings that were part of the system in the past.

The writing style is simplistic and super repetitive; the characters regurgitate the same stuff over and over again. It's easy to follow and obviously geared towards Young Teens or even younger children, and I get where the 'simple, wholesome' description in a lot of people's reviews comes from. Because it is indeed simple. 'Wholesome' is very subjective. To me the book, the writing and the content was weak, downright annoying and uncomfortable.

Puoi trovare questa recensione anche sul mio blog, La siepe di more

So che la stragrande maggioranza dei pareri su questo romanzo verte sul fatto che sia molto tenero e dolce – e avendo già letto altro di Klune non ne sono sorpresa – ma l’aspetto che mi ha colpito di più è il fatto che La casa sul mare celeste mi è sembrato una critica al queerbaiting di J.K. Rowling e al modello piuttosto conservatore di famiglia che emerge dalla saga di Harry Potter. E se siete tra coloro che non nutrono simpatia per il comportamento di Silente nei confronti di Harry Potter, correte a procurarvi questo libro.

Klune non ha mai fatto mistero di ritenere che, se vuoi scrivere un personaggio gay, allora rendilo esplicitamente tale all’interno della storia, non uscirtene anni dopo la fine della saga con un Ah, comunque io Silente l’ho pensato gay. È vero che fino a tempi molto recenti scrivere un libro per ragazzз con un personaggio apertamente gay sarebbe stato impensabile – e quindi nessuna CE avrebbe approvato una scelta simile da parte di un’autrice sconosciuta – ma è anche vero che il potere contrattuale di Rowling nel tempo è cresciuto abbastanza da portarmi a pensare che avrebbe potuto fare qualcosa se la questione le fosse davvero stata a cuore (I doni della morte è del 2007, proprio il periodo in cui le cose inziavano a cambiare in questo senso).

Klune deve pensarla un po’ nello stesso modo perché ha fatto sì che La casa sul mare celeste avesse il suo Silente esplicitamente gay e che fosse anche un Silente portatore di un modello familiare sano, dove anche l’amore paterno viene celebrato, laddove in Harry Potter veniva piuttosto svalutato – e capisco che sia un riflesso delle terribili esperienze di vita di Rowling, ma la figura di Madre Santa© di Lily Evans non fa un favore alla rappresentazione delle donne.

Ho appprezzato molto che per fare questo Klune non abbia scritto una specie di anti-Harry Potter, ma una storia originale con alcuni riferimenti alla saga di Rowling (dettagli che potremmo chiamare fan service, se si trattasse di omaggi): uno in particolare mi è sembrato così sfacciato che sono portata a chiedermi se non sono io ad avere le traveggole, visto che mi sento molto sola in questa mia interpretazione.

Per quanto riguarda il difetto più grande de La casa sul mare celeste, che moltз hanno identificato con un eccesso di zuccherosità, secondo me, sta nel fatto che Klune lo ha scritto in un tempo ridicolmente breve – se non ricordo male, appena tre mesi – e, se se la fosse presa con più calma, magari si sarebbe reso conto che il suo coinvolgimento per le tematiche che affronta ha preso il sopravvento sul suo talento di scrittore e molti dei discorsi appassionati dei personaggi risultano grezzi e piuttosto ingenui anche per una storia di questo tipo. Un gran peccato, per me che l’ho trovato un romanzo così interessante.