However, I can't help but wonder how I would have felt about it had I not seen so much hype surrounding it. There are some hyped books you get, and an instinctual feeling sets in and you know that it’s deserved. Love and kindness virtually radiate from Klune’s words and ever so tenderly spiral around you like a soft, warm blanket. To travel to a clandestine orphanage on Marsyas Island, where six highly magical, highly dangerous children live. And if, regrettably, you have misplaced your heart somewhere on this treacherous road known as life.

The book starts off just with a weird humorous tone - the heads of the corporation that the main character, Linus, works for is referred to only as "Extremely Upper Management". For instance we learn that gnomes exist but have been greatly reduced in numbers (indigenous people parallel perhaps) but we never learn beyond that. I completely get the hype around the book, and have to say it is one of my favorite reads of the year so far. And that’s kind of the theme of the whole book is, is to raise your voice for those who don’t have one.If you're looking for help with a personal book recommendation, consult our Weekly Recommendation Thread, Suggested Reading page, or ask in r/suggestmeabook. It’s a lovely lens to tell the story through, and I am so glad that Klune decided to tell it this way.

Caseworker Linus Baker of the Department in Charge of Magical Youths (DICOMY) has the distinct appearance of someone with a stick up his ass. All in all, The House in the Cerulean Sea is a cracking, charming novel, and I find myself hoping for a sequel. I was incredibly put-off by the fatphobia while reading it, as well as the love interest being the "master of the orphanage" (which is also a conflict of interest + there’s an uneven power dynamic . I’m not a professional book reviewer who has a broader job to review books, and liking or disliking a book is less central to how she goes about it.

TJ KLUNE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door, In the Lives of Puppets, and the Green Creek Series for adults, the Extraordinaries Series for teens, and more. TJ KLUNE is a Lambda Literary Award-winning author (Into This River I Drown) and an ex-claims examiner for an insurance company. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. It remained fuzzy until I stumbled across the Sixties Scoop, something I’d never heard of before, something I’d never been taught in school (I’m American, by the way). There is darkness at the heart of the DICOMY, and though Linus is part of the organisation he has no idea what happens once he has filed his reports and done what has been asked of him.

See, Linus Baker walks through life like a wound-up clock ticking dutifully through the seconds: he has a routine, rules that he follows with a stony rigidity, and a comfort zone that he’s sealed himself inside of. If you’re looking for a book that will bring you shameless joy and fill your heart to the point where you think it might burst, then look no further than this one.Finally, after years of sitting in the shadows, spending time with his cat and the records he plays on his Victrola, he has been given the opportunity to see the water, visit the beach and get out of the stifling office where rules are paramount.

Management hires him for a top secret mission: they want him to investigate Marysas Island Orphanage where six extremely dangerous kids reside: a gnome, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, a sprite and an baby Lucy Morningstar! An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place – and realizing that family is yours.Linus had never experienced love and Arthur seemingly hadn’t allowed himself the luxury of feeling anything for anyone but the children in his care. While there was a bundle of good messages at its core (don't be ashamed of who you are, don't judge others by outward appearance, change can happen) the story itself struck me as aggressively shallow.