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A review by emmah36
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
02/22
I thought being magical was a metaphor for being LGBTQ+ but NOOOOOO. Oh my god this is disgusting. I was scrolling through the reviews on here and I learned that this book was inspired by Indigenous residential schools. And he thought this was okay for him to do.... why? The message of the book has completely changed now that I know this. Residential schools did NOT help children. The "House in the Cerulean Sea" is a desirable place to be. Residential schools ARE NOT AND NEVER HAVE BEEN desirable places to be. Not for the children at least! Not to mention there are barely any people of color in this book... but now you're telling me it's supposed to be about indigenous people? So he has essentially white-washed and romanticized a real and horrible and not so distant history of GENOCIDE. I don't know what to feel right now. I'm so disgusted.
My feelings about this book just did a 360. I'm removing my rating entirely. It just feels wrong to to rate it at all.
This quote from @thefourthvine articulates how I feel so well:
"I hoped that the author just didn't realize he was appropriating the genocidal traumas of indigenous people. However, guess what? He FULLY did know what he was doing. He read about Canada's Sixties Scoop and went, "Hey, you know what? I, a white man, should not write a book about this. So I'm going to. But I'm going to make all the kids monsters instead of indigenous! That will solve all the problems with appropriation and using genocide as the background of a love story!"
It does not, T.J. It super, super does not. It makes it worse.
And it also means that Linus, the asshole protagonist who readers are supposed to care about, is literally a baby-stealer and genocidal monster. And the big arc of this book is about how this monster meets a hot man and finally learns, after seventeen years of torturing and stealing children, that Tolerance Is Good and Prejudice Is Wrong. Because the man is hot and his kids are cute."
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02/20
For the majority of this book I thought I was gonna give it three stars. Then the ending came. I'm a sucker for found family, especially if it's cheesy and queer. and this- is very cheesy and very queer.
Objectively 3 stars, subjectively 5.
There were certain parts of the book that were a little meh and some of the activism elements felt a lil off, but the book made me feel warm and safe and happy so... I'm giving it 4 stars.
As for the activism stuff... There was a lot of fatphobia. And it was very White. I got annoyed at how shocked Linus was about bigotry. When he stood up for the children and for Arthur, it was weird. It felt like white saviorism but for magical people... Non-magical saviorism.
I thought being magical was a metaphor for being LGBTQ+ but NOOOOOO. Oh my god this is disgusting. I was scrolling through the reviews on here and I learned that this book was inspired by Indigenous residential schools. And he thought this was okay for him to do.... why? The message of the book has completely changed now that I know this. Residential schools did NOT help children. The "House in the Cerulean Sea" is a desirable place to be. Residential schools ARE NOT AND NEVER HAVE BEEN desirable places to be. Not for the children at least! Not to mention there are barely any people of color in this book... but now you're telling me it's supposed to be about indigenous people? So he has essentially white-washed and romanticized a real and horrible and not so distant history of GENOCIDE. I don't know what to feel right now. I'm so disgusted.
My feelings about this book just did a 360. I'm removing my rating entirely. It just feels wrong to to rate it at all.
This quote from @thefourthvine articulates how I feel so well:
"I hoped that the author just didn't realize he was appropriating the genocidal traumas of indigenous people. However, guess what? He FULLY did know what he was doing. He read about Canada's Sixties Scoop and went, "Hey, you know what? I, a white man, should not write a book about this. So I'm going to. But I'm going to make all the kids monsters instead of indigenous! That will solve all the problems with appropriation and using genocide as the background of a love story!"
It does not, T.J. It super, super does not. It makes it worse.
And it also means that Linus, the asshole protagonist who readers are supposed to care about, is literally a baby-stealer and genocidal monster. And the big arc of this book is about how this monster meets a hot man and finally learns, after seventeen years of torturing and stealing children, that Tolerance Is Good and Prejudice Is Wrong. Because the man is hot and his kids are cute."
___
02/20
For the majority of this book I thought I was gonna give it three stars. Then the ending came. I'm a sucker for found family, especially if it's cheesy and queer. and this- is very cheesy and very queer.
Objectively 3 stars, subjectively 5.
There were certain parts of the book that were a little meh and some of the activism elements felt a lil off, but the book made me feel warm and safe and happy so... I'm giving it 4 stars.
As for the activism stuff... There was a lot of fatphobia. And it was very White. I got annoyed at how shocked Linus was about bigotry. When he stood up for the children and for Arthur, it was weird. It felt like white saviorism but for magical people... Non-magical saviorism.