Take a photo of a barcode or cover
sarakomo 's review for:
The House in the Cerulean Sea
by TJ Klune
2021: Mehhhh I did not think I would go so against the current on this one, but that was my experience with it!
First off, I had a really hard time getting behind Linus as a narrator. So the premise is that he cares sooooo much about these kids that he must protect them, but also he works for the governmental department that is in charge of shutting down the schools that house and teach them? And if the schools are not up to par, he never once thinks about what happens to those children that he just displaced? He cares deeply about *every single child*, yet just punches in and out and never follows up and knows zero adult magical creatures?
The world building was very subpar in my opinion. If this is a world in which both Emma Lazarus and Buddy Holly exist (so, presumably the one we are currently living in, because he quotes the poem from the Statue of Liberty, which means that France and America and NEW YORK must exist!), why on earth was the country and year of the story not better established? On top of that, it was mind boggling to think that there was magic that existed in this world, and that they weren't using it! It made no sense that the boat captain would complain about new-fangled computers, but Linus had to use the post office to mail all of his letters back to the Department. Also, why are you still using a post office IF MAGIC EXISTS?! Don't even get me started on the record players....
The Harry Potter excuse (that the magicians hide themselves from the rest of the Muggles using magic) doesn't work because there's literally a governmental agency for magical children who sends a Muggle to investigate the magical island. Also, what happens to all of these children once they grow into magical adults? Furthermore, what happened to all of their parents to cause only magical children to become orphans?!
This is all in addition to the controversy surrounding this book, criticizing Klune for using the horrors of the Sixties Scoop (where the Canadian government removed Indigenous children from their homes and placed them with unrelated white families) as inspiration for this book. Klune skates right over any of the trauma / discussion of what happened to have all of these orphaned magical children in the first place, and turned it into one of the most predictable books I've read in a while. And this wasn't a YA novel, so why gloss over it all?
+1 for a happy gay romance, -3 for there not being a fucking therapist anywhere on Marsyas Island.
First off, I had a really hard time getting behind Linus as a narrator. So the premise is that he cares sooooo much about these kids that he must protect them, but also he works for the governmental department that is in charge of shutting down the schools that house and teach them? And if the schools are not up to par, he never once thinks about what happens to those children that he just displaced? He cares deeply about *every single child*, yet just punches in and out and never follows up and knows zero adult magical creatures?
The world building was very subpar in my opinion. If this is a world in which both Emma Lazarus and Buddy Holly exist (so, presumably the one we are currently living in, because he quotes the poem from the Statue of Liberty, which means that France and America and NEW YORK must exist!), why on earth was the country and year of the story not better established? On top of that, it was mind boggling to think that there was magic that existed in this world, and that they weren't using it! It made no sense that the boat captain would complain about new-fangled computers, but Linus had to use the post office to mail all of his letters back to the Department. Also, why are you still using a post office IF MAGIC EXISTS?! Don't even get me started on the record players....
The Harry Potter excuse (that the magicians hide themselves from the rest of the Muggles using magic) doesn't work because there's literally a governmental agency for magical children who sends a Muggle to investigate the magical island. Also, what happens to all of these children once they grow into magical adults? Furthermore, what happened to all of their parents to cause only magical children to become orphans?!
This is all in addition to the controversy surrounding this book, criticizing Klune for using the horrors of the Sixties Scoop (where the Canadian government removed Indigenous children from their homes and placed them with unrelated white families) as inspiration for this book. Klune skates right over any of the trauma / discussion of what happened to have all of these orphaned magical children in the first place, and turned it into one of the most predictable books I've read in a while. And this wasn't a YA novel, so why gloss over it all?
+1 for a happy gay romance, -3 for there not being a fucking therapist anywhere on Marsyas Island.