The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune

For our first edition of Booktalk, I'll be writing my thoughts on this novel I recently read written by someone who I think may be one of my new favorite authors. I was first introduced Klune's work when I checked out his 2023 novel In the Lives of Puppets from my library. I was drawn to the book with the promise of a good story involving robots, and walked away feeling lots of feelings. Since then I've checked out the other works he's published in the 2020's, and I'm hoping to go through more of his older writings in the future. I've genuinely loved the stories I've read so far, and this one appears to be no exception.

The House in the Cerulean Sea follows Linus Baker, a middle-aged caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY), who is tasked with investigating an island orphanage run by a man named Arthur Parnassus. His wards are all children of supernatural/magical origin, although by this world's standards, they are especially rare and/or powerful compared to other magical children. Linus's job is to stay there for a month and make sure the orphanage is following the guidelines set by DICOMY, but as he grows closer to the residents of the island, he begins to question the true intentions of his employers.

This is genuinely a sweet story. A lot of time in the book is spent just learning about the different characters, especially the six kids who live at the orphanage. Many pages are dedicated to showing how Linus bonds with these children over the course of 3 weeks, as well as how he grows to understand Arthur. I actually really like how the kids are presented here, because they're weird as all hell, kind of like kids IRL. Adults writing children can be really hit or miss, either going too far into cuteness or too far into obnoxiousness, but I like them here.

I'm not sure if this counts as spoiler territory, as Klune regularly puts it in his stories, but the relationship between Linus and Arthur was really enjoyable. For a long time I thought I had a distaste for MLM relationships, thinking maybe I just didn't like it because I don't feel attraction towards men and thus couldn't relate, but it turns out that was not the case. It would seem I just don't like badly written MLM ships. Being involved in lots of fandom culture before, most of my exposure to MLM stories were very... bland. Very yaoi-ish, often taking the most conventionally attractive men in a story and pushing them together regardless of how they actually behave in canon. To me, love stories between men had seemed incredibly forced, and pandering to a mostly straight audience.

One of the things that helped me come to this realization were Klune's books, and this one is no exception. It's great to read about gay romance by someone who actually is queer. I like the fact that neither of them are perfectly pretty, and that they have a real reason to like each other. Writing this now, that sounds like a very low bar, but that's because it is difficult to find queer love stories that aren't filtered through a sort of ‘straight gaze'. I'm not sure if that's the proper term for it, but it's the closest I could come up with.

I also want to talk a bit about the worldbuilding. The House in the Cerulean Sea never actually mentions where exactly this is all taking place. I could only assume by some of the vocabulary used that it might be in the UK, but for all I know it could take place on a different earth-like planet where people happen to use british slang. The more solid worldbuilding is centered around DICOMY, a government organization that, in a nutshell, is an urban fantasy foster care system. It's not a 1:1 representation of the system though, as they have some nuances that remind me of Residential Schools and, surprisingly, Autism Speaks. Everyone working in DICOMY is an ordinary, non-magical human. They push for the magical population to either hide all of their magical aspects, or live in isolation for the safety of other humans. It's kinda hard for me not to draw a parallel to Autism Speaks, an organization infamous among the autistic community for painting autism as a curse and advocating for masking so intense it may as well be self-harm. I don't think Klune was attempting to make a perfect allegory though, and I personally prefer it that way. When writers try to make fantastical allegories for real world issues, it can get extremely messy and come off as ridiculous (looking at you, Detroit Become Human). Having DICOMY be a mishmash inspired by these types of groups, rather than an expy of them, avoids that problem.

Having said this, the worldbuilding is still fairly light, and that is perfectly acceptable for a self-contained story such as this. At least, I would say that if it were actually self-contained. After I started writing this, I've found out that there is a sequel in the works. I am excited to read it next year, but I am a little worried about Klune possibly falling into that allegory trap. It's one of my biggest pet peeves with sci-fi and urban fantasy, and I would hate for it to occur in a story I've really loved.