Under the Whispering Door

Klune's second installment in what I like to call his "sickly sweet queer fairy tale" series went about as expected. And what I mean by that is that this is the spiritual clone of House in the Cerulean Sea. Not successor, not sequel. Clone. That's not to say it was bad, quite the opposite. But it was obviously predictable and equally juvenile.

This book follows Wallace, a bastard of a lawyer who drops dead one day and is met with his Reaper and the realization that he has death's journey ahead of him. He is brought to a tea house (because of course it is) that doubles as the way station where he will remain until he "crosses over" to the next chapter of his existence. He meets a zany cast of characters, comes to terms with his less than stellar life, redeems himself, falls in love. The whole 9.

Forgive me, but I'm going to be comparing this to Cerulean throughout because, again, they were largely the same book. Had I read this before Cerulean, I think I would have given it 5 stars and Cerulean 2 stars. In some very basic ways, this book was "aged up" compared to Cerulean; there were no children, the topic of death (including murder, suicide, traumatic accidents, etc.) was discussed at length, and the romance felt a bit more mature. But I didn't read it first, so it's going to suffer the lower score.

The book was constructed fine. The story beats, though predictable, were paced well. There were no moments where it dragged on or felt rushed. The writing was very Klune: straightforward and basic. The relationships were... fine. The romance felt unrewarding and out of place, but the friendships I found to be touching and well fleshed out.

The book's biggest weakness (and Klune's biggest weakness as a writer, in my opinion) are the characters. Wallace is supposed to be a real asshole, and we get about 1.5 scenes where he is an asshole before he comes to terms with his death and starts to repent. The other characters actually continually reference how much of an asshole he was in life, but we weren't really SHOWN that, all we see is a man who almost immediately works to make up for being such a (supposed) terrible person. Nelson and Mei were characteristically indistinct. They had the same sense of humor and the same voice. Hugo was a cardboard cut out of a love interest, obviously written to be wise and deeply caring, but coming off as two dimensional and completely lacking in personality. We got no narrative reason for Hugo to fall in love with Wallace or vice versa, making the romance feel completely unearned.

This is really a shame, because I feel like Klune fancies himself a character writer, but I wish I saw more improvement in that front, particularly if he wants to continue to venture out of YA and into the adult space (to be clear, I think both this book and Cerulean would easily be considered younger YA if it weren't for some select language). Though this review feels harsh reading it over, I did find this book to be overall enjoyable. It was a pleasantly sweet read. And I will continue to read his books, but I think I could do with a genre change (let's try something like Murmuration next!). If you're a fan of any of his other works, pick this up.

Das Buch hatte an sich spannende Elemente (Tod, Fährmann, Reaper, Trauer, Menschlichkeit, Abschied, Ankommrn, Bürokratie, zweite Chancen uvm), sympathische Motive (Teepflanzen), aber es fehlte das Herz und etwas, das alles zusammen hält. Die Story war an sich ja ernst, wenn auch gleichzeitig eine Liebesgeschichte… aber zwischendrin waren vermeintlich lustige Szenen (zB eine nervende Streamerin die mit ihrem Oujia-Board versucht aufreizende Seancen zu halten), die einfach nur unpassend waren. Als würde man einen gewöhnlichen Roman lesen und auf einmal Szenen aus einem Buch für Grundschulkinder einzelne Kapitel füllen. Es brach den Lese-/Hörfluss doch erheblich. Leider leiden auch die Charaktere daran, quasi keinerlei Ecken und Kanten zu haben – außer dem Protagonisten, der aber nach seinem Tod direkt eine 180° Wende hinlegt und plötzlich auch nur noch friedlich und freundlich ist. Neben den unpassenden Szenen brach das für mich der Story das Genick. Die Charaktere waren größtenteils flach (ok, der Fährmann war ziemlich gut), der Protagonist wie erwähnt unglaubwürdig, zwischen dem Traumpaar gab es keinerlei Chemie und jede Wendung war vorhersehbar. Schade. Kurzweilig war das Buch trotzdem und taugt gut für ein paar Stunden Aufräumen.

3.5 stars, rounding to 4.

I loved The House in the Cerulean Sea. In fact, it was probably my favorite book in 2020, so I rolled into this one with ridiculously high hopes. And in some ways they were met: the writing is smart, I got attached to the characters, the humor was dry and LOL funny, and the book touched on Big Themes about how we live and what happens to us after. But ultimately it fell a bit flat for me – even though I definitely cried at the ending. In many ways it was TOO similar to Cerulean Sea, making it feel a bit formulaic. And the author wasn't subtle with the points he was making, so this read like more of an allegory than just a novel.

Don't get me wrong – I'm a fan. Klune's books are sweet, funny, and wholesome, like a cozy mug of tea.