Under the Whispering Door delivered on all four – so much so, that I almost forgot that I was reading a story about death. The redemption arc the author was going for just felt very rushed and unearned the way it was.I start each TJ Klune book with a few expectations in mind: queer characters, Klune’s trademark sense of humor, the found family trope, and a warm, fuzzy feeling inside by the time I’ve turned the last page. Had Wallace been introduced as this sweet guy from the start, I would’ve found his development and the romance with Hugo so much more believable. Change is hard, and you can’t convince me that a person can change that completely in such a short time, not even with a motivator so powerful as Death. After his passing, he flips a complete 180 to be a sweet, kind-hearted and selfless guy. Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Wallace is introduced as an undeniable and almost irredeemable jerk. Secondly, the development of these characters just didn’t work for me. Linneus is Wallace, Arthur is Hugo and the antagonist is a heartless bureaucrat who loves to do things by the book. So much so that the characters as well as the plotline feel like beat-for-beat recreations of its predecessor.

As Wallace reflects on his selfish ways in life, he finds friendship, compassion and love like he never had before his death.įirst, calling it “a spiritual sequel” to The Cerulean Sea is a nice way of me saying the two books are very similar. There he meets Hugo, a Ferryman who helps spirits like him cross over, and the other unlikely ghosts that inhabit the teahouse. Yet the afterlife isn’t quite what Wallace expected it to be: no heaven or hell awaits him, but a charming but inexperienced reaper, who plucks him away from his own funeral and takes him to a remote Teahouse.

We follow Wallace Price, a cold and calculating lawyer with a heart of stone, on the day said heart gives out. Although I can’t really say it let me down, it didn’t live up to my anticipation either. After his wonderfully cosy feel-good novel The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door was one of my most anticipated novels of this year. Klune seems to be in luck with me picking up his books at the right place and time. What better time to read a novel that reads so much like A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens than in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Under the whispering door