Reviews

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Only show reviews with written explanations

crazface's review against another edition

Go to review page

Postponed....

takeahikedani's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Opinions are just that, opinions, and everyone is at liberty to form their own. As another review mentioned, I won't tell you how you should feel about this book. But multiple things can be true about something and coexist separately without alluding to the other.

My friend let me borrow this book to help get me out of a reading slump and it did just that. Prior to reading it, I found out that it was a problematic read due to where the author drew his inspiration. Going into it knowing that I thought I would see what others were seeing, come to the same conclusions, and get that icky feeling so many have mentioned about it. But, I did not and maybe that just means deep literary analysis isn't for me. I do see the loose parallels, but it didn't strike me as an attempt at a complete retelling. I still enjoyed the writing, feel good story, and had a hard time putting it down. My rating is based on that feeling alone. It's cliché and predictable, but that is part of what I enjoyed. It even offers LGBTQ+ representation, which I haven't personally found a ton of in my reading yet.

Do I agree TJ Klune should have started with this thought "I didn’t want to co-opt, you know, a history that wasn’t mine. I’m a cis white dude, so I can’t ever really go through something like what those children had to go through" and ended it there? Absolutely. But he didn't and deciding "I’m just going to write this as a fantasy” isn't a great take away. There are plenty of problematic authors out there (JK Rowling comes to mind) and I'm sure even more favorite books with unsavory inspiration we are unaware of as readers. Whether that determines if you completely write them off, give the book a bad review, etc. is up to you.