A review by jwells
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
This is a bit hard to review. I kind of had the same feeling that I had about House by the Cerulean Sea, which is that it's a book about feelings, at the expense of being about either plot or characters.  I don't mind if the plot of a book is a character arc, or the plot is a relationship's evolution. Neither of those seems quite right to say about this book, though. Straight up a book about feelings. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that Klune is an Enneagram Four. (I've never met him, and that's just an unscientific guess based on reading a couple of his books, but I'm guessing a head-type didn't write this book. LOL)

I guess it's supposed to be about  Wallace's character arc. Wallace learns not to be an asshole. That's not much of a spoiler; we see in chapter one that he's an incredible asshole, and presumably the story isn't going to be about How Wallace Stubbornly Remained an Asshole, The End.  I wasn't in much suspense about what was going to happen.

A lot of the book felt slow, like I was impatiently waiting for him to catch a clue. (It's probably good all around that I don't have Hugo's job.) I loved a lot of the secondary characters. Mei was great, and so was Nelson. But a lot of the time I didn't have the feelings that I felt like I was supposed to be having. I was waiting for stuff to happen.

Until the epilogue, that is. I was quite irritated that the book could leave me fairly cold, and then  make me cry over the stupid epilogue. 
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