It took me way too long to pick up TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea. Based on the cover alone I should have known it would be a favourite, it’s just soothing to look at, but it’s deeply therapeutic to actually read.
The perfect balm for the pandemic Cerulean Sea follows Linus Baker, a caseworker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. His job is to assure magical orphanages are being run properly, and he is good at it. So good that he’s sent to an orphanage full of magical youth so unique and powerful it’s been kept secret from the greater population. There he meets Arthur Parnassus and his host of magical charges who baffle and amaze Linus and throw him into a way of life he never knew existed.
I’m gonna be up front here this is the cutest, queerest most comfortable book I’ve ever read, and though it’s very cheesy in places it’s never overwhelming or cringey it’s just sweet and honest. It manages to tackle prejudice and acceptance and parenthood and even the endless drudgery of government jobs without ever being too heavy or too much. Everything is wrapped up in comedy and sweetness and enjoying the small things in life in the way only children sometimes can.
I’ve got to admit I am a massive fan of the concept too. There’s no fantasy concept I love more than just our world but with magical creatures living in it alongside humans. Give me sirens in bands and centaurs pulling ploughs and vampires as night watchmen any damn day of the week and I will pretty much inhale it, but Klune adds a little something extra with the sinister government departments in charge of registering and controlling these magical creatures. Somehow though, completely miraculously, this sinister feeling is present and real but never takes away from the comforting nature of the book, it’s always lingering but the found family trope is too well wielded to make us feel anything but joy and acceptance.
I’m really just itching to read everything TJ Klune has ever written so here we go.
Let Us Look At Goblin Men 