Scan barcode
A review by emiliedeeann
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
5.0
Linus Baker lives a simple life as a caseworker for orphanages of magical children. He has a cat. He has a house. He has his music. He goes to work in the rain and usually forgets his umbrella. One day he is called on a top secret assignment to observe Master Arthur Parnassus of the Marsyas Orphanage for a month. There he meets six magical children (considered more dangerous and unusual than other magical children) and embarks on a journey of compassion and unlearning implicit biases.
This is a feel good book. I found myself smiling like a dork pretty much every time I picked it up. It’s also very funny — I laughed out loud countless times — as well as quite tender. It brought tears to my eyes several times. While it is very well written and the characters are wonderfully fleshed out, I couldn’t help but wonder why it wasn’t marketed as a YA novel due to its plot and characters. However, toward the end of the book I realized this story serves a somewhat nostalgic reminder for adults who may feel they’ve outgrown their liberated youth. It brings some magic back into mundane life while pushing hopeless people to find hope again and demand change. This book is a joy to read. I could tell it would be one of my favorites from the time I read the plot summary.
This is a feel good book. I found myself smiling like a dork pretty much every time I picked it up. It’s also very funny — I laughed out loud countless times — as well as quite tender. It brought tears to my eyes several times. While it is very well written and the characters are wonderfully fleshed out, I couldn’t help but wonder why it wasn’t marketed as a YA novel due to its plot and characters. However, toward the end of the book I realized this story serves a somewhat nostalgic reminder for adults who may feel they’ve outgrown their liberated youth. It brings some magic back into mundane life while pushing hopeless people to find hope again and demand change. This book is a joy to read. I could tell it would be one of my favorites from the time I read the plot summary.