The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Author: TJ Klune
Title: The House in the Cerulean Sea
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2020
Genre: I don't even know. Magical? Romantic? Marvellous?

Links: Bokus / Book Depository / Goodreads

I am an avid Klune fan. His books are the chocolate to my biscuits, the hot bath to my aching limbs, the red wine to my end-of-the-week-tired-ass-mom-nights. I've read and loved (and not reviewed?!) his How to be a Normal Person and How to be a Movie Star, the two first books in the Green Creek-series (it kills you slowly and you're thanking him every step of the way) and his wonderful Tales from Verania, which makes you laugh and cringe and love. The House in the Cerulean Sea was therefor quickly on my radar, even though I was a tiny bit skeptic. A cinnamon roll caseworker investigating orphanages for magical youths didn't sound that much like my cup of tea (I'm here for the romance, after all). But it's Klune, so I clicked the wish for an ARC on Netgalley and I got approved. Still, I waited a bit, wanting to read it a bit closer to the publish date. Then I started and this is how that went:

The beginning is gray and dull and very Klune in it's dry humor. I was thinking that this is going to be a Green Creek kind of book (nothing wrong, just beware of guarding your heart, dear ones). Then we arrive at the island and we have explosions of colors. Linus (sorry Mr. Baker, you're Linus to me) is scared out of his mind, but quite the competent caseworker, not easily chased away by such things as threats of death and the end of the world, thank you very much. The children's well-being is what's important after all. And he is such a compassionate person, so caring and sweet, handling children so wonderfully. And so he, slowly, but steadily, falls deeply in love with the whole lot of them, Talia, Theodore, Phee, Sal, Chauncey and Lucy. And Arthur. Of course Arthur.

Gaaaaaahuuuys! This is so sweet! I don't think I've read anything so fluffy and sweet by the master before, but I'm all here for it. The whole growing relationship between Linus and the children and Arthur (and Zoe, of course) is the major part of the book, but it's also so amazing to see how Linus starts being happy. Klune really has a talent for developing his characters - not only the narrators, so to speak, but also everyone around them.

This book is for you who wants a sweet, sort of coming-home story with children who are not like others (for example, one is basically a blob - a fine one at that - and one is the Anti-Christ, so *shrug*) and a slow, languid falling in love. But also if you want to read about prejudices and the unfairness of it all - how it can be if the need to be registered and judged for who you are where a thing.

5 of 5 bellhop hats and shovels and buttons and records and poems and trees

/ Denise