TJ Klune is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Extraordinaries, and more. Being queer himself, TJ believes it's important—now more than ever—to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories. You can find him online at tjklunebooks.com, or on Instagram @TJKluneBooks and Twitter @TJKlune. You can find more of my reviews of TJ's work here.
When a Reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he's definitely dead. But even in death he's not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days. Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.
I read the first chapter of Under the Whispering Door and couldn't help but laugh. Klune has an amazing talent to make people laugh, especially with his spot-on critiques of how the world is. The first chapter details a regular day for Wallace in the office—and within that space Klune is able to comment on how destructive, thoughtless, and unempathetic the corporate environment truly is. The first chapter does work to create this commentary, but it also teaches us briefly not to like Wallace. Or, shows us that he is not going to be an immediately likable character, like Mei is. Instead, we jump into this journey and exploration of death with a character who is stubborn and an ass. As this novel is a journey of Wallace learning how to live, it's also the space we need to find points of sympathy for Wallace. It's brilliant that Klune can simultaneously get readers invested in the story, while not making the main character immediately likable. In a sense, we work for the analysis on life and death, and work for the sage advice that Wallace also has to work to get. In that sense, this book is not easily digestible or a quick read. We really have to sit with the heavy themes of this book if we want to take anything meaningful out of it, and in this way Klune redefines the novel.
The second way in which Klune redefines the novel (especially a fantasy novel) is by taking the focus away from the action, and towards the human people at its core. If you're hoping to read a fantasy book with a twisting plot, I would have to say that Under the Whispering Door might not be the best choice for you. This novel is chock-full of conversation and discussion: about death, about life, about everything in between. A lot of the novel's focus is centralized around Wallace's growth. While there are elements of a plot—which come in rather late into the story, but are there nonetheless—this novel's main tension is Wallace's character's journey through this strange in-between. Much of this book is philosophical discussions about death, living, grief, and how to be a good person. All of these discussions are thoughtfully crafted, gorgeously articulated. It just means that this book is probably better in small doses, and jumping headfirst knowing that this is going to be heavier than some of Klune's other more popular novels.
Klune is a magician with words. He is ever thoughtful, and patient, and lets his characters come into their own on the page. This is the reason so many readers have fallen in love with The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door, despite the books being so vastly different. Some of Klune's concepts about death aren't entirely new—we have been theorizing about death and grief for as long as we've all been alive, after all—but I've definitely never quite seen the messages portrayed or delivered in such a creative, quirky, or thoughtful way. That is where the power in this novel (and all his other novels) come from. While the ideas on death or the concept of grief don't have to be "new" or fresh, they just have to be true; and there are so many creative ways to deliver the truth. Knowing that a lot of Klune's experience in writing this novel comes from a deeply personal space allows readers to buy into this story, and into these concepts and messages more. He didn't have to share that with us, but he did, and it makes the entire story that much more powerful.
There are obviously so many characters to love in this book, and each of them are distinct and hilarious and lovable in their own ways. Every time I think about each of the characters, or when I try to think about who might be my favorite, I keep coming back to Cameron. Unlike Nelson or Hugo, Cameron wasn't on every single page. He existed as a taboo, and then as a curiosity, and then as someone the other characters could finally have the chance to know, before he then become a hope. There are so many people in the world like Cameron, people I felt like I was finally seeing for the first time—maybe that's just a side effect of viewing Cameron through Wallace's eyes, but it truly was such a thoughtful and moving portrayal. While I wished to see more of Cameron's life, I felt like the amount of space he occupied in the novel—both physical and mental space—were perfect, and same for a bunch of the other smaller characters like Cameron. Klune knew how to portion out the novel so that we'd buy into Wallace's growth and his relationships with the Freemans, while also providing moving stories that help Wallace come into his own, and to give us an ending that we so desperately hoped against hope for.
TJ Klune has a plethora of other spectacular novels, and I'm sure he's hard at work writing a new novel that will soon stun us. For more TJ Klune, you can find him online at tjklunebooks.com, or on Instagram @TJKluneBooks and Twitter @TJKlune. You have find more of my reviews of TJ's work here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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