SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Under the Whispering Door by T. J. Klune

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune: https://t.co/R9HT5VrtM4

Shot Review: 9 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 7, 2021

Short Review (cont): A tremendous story about grief, featuring a scrooge like businessman dieing and being taken to a man supposed to guide him into moving on, with whom he falls in love and becomes determined to help, even when the forces of the universe turn against them.
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 7, 2021

Under the Whispering Door is the second adult novel by author T.J. Klune, author of last year's highly acclaimed The House in the Cerulean Sea (Reviewed here).  The House in the Cerulean Sea was a delight, the story of a man from an bureaucratic agency that deals with the running of orphanages for children with magical talents, who falls in love with an orphanage keeper of some of the strangest children possible, in a heartwarming gay romance with a set of characters who you couldn't help but fall in love with.  So I was very much excited to read this book, which in its description sounded in some ways like the last one.  

And Under the Whispering Door is indeed going to be a little bit familiar to readers of Klune's last book - it also features a heartwarming M-M relationship between a man whose heart defrosts throughout and another with tremendous empathy, and a cast of really great characters who form a very cute family.  However, the tone of the book is very different, with this book dealing heavily with the impact of Grief and guilt and how people react to it all, and what they need to try and move forward.  It's pretty well done for the most part, both different and similar to the last book, so if you liked that The House in the Cerulean Sea, you'll like this - and if you haven't read that book, it's worth giving this one a try.  

Trigger Warning:  This book deals with Death, Grief, and a few death tropes, including Suicide and Death of a Child.  


--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------------
Wallace Price was a cold, heartless man in the end, as one of the partners at his law firm.  And then one day he woke up....or well, didn't, but found himself floating above himself, somehow.....dead....at his own funeral.  A funeral attended only by his partners and ex-wife, who all laughed at how big an asshole he was.  

And then Wallace notices one other attendee of his funeral, a woman he's never seen before, who can see him and introduces herself as his Reaper, Mei.  But to Wallace's surprise, she doesn't take him to heaven or hell, but to a small tea shop in a rural village run by a man named Hugo, who explains he is there to help Wallace come to cope with his own death, until he is ready to move on.  

But as Wallace spends time with Hugo, Mei, and Hugo's dead grandfather and dog, Wallace realizes there's so much more to life that he never experienced, and that he doesn't really want to pass by.  And that Hugo, this empathic sweet man who only wants to help, is carrying his own guilts he can't let go of.  And so when Wallace finds himself suddenly working on a cosmic deadline, he makes a choice his old self could never have imagined, to help Hugo in turn....
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Under the Whispering Door starts like a type of story you will recognize immediately - The Scrooge (or A Christmas Carol) type story, with protagonist Wallace being a joyless cruel soul whose first act is firing someone who is in a rough position.  And so you'd expect it to proceed in certain ways, with Wallace's spectral guides teaching him to be kind and caring, so that he's a better soul in the end.  

And well, this book does do that to some extent, but it kind of speedruns through that whole plot, as Wallace mellows rather quickly, and the story isn't really that interested in a long grueling full plot of redeeming him.  Wallace realizes how much of an ass he was in life, and when he comes to terms with his death, his own funeral makes clear to him how he was the one in the wrong, making him not want to stay that way in death as he settles in.  This book isn't trying to do much of a riff on A Christmas Carol, really.

Instead, it's a measured multifaceted look at grief and guilt and the various ways that people go through it.  And so we first have Wallace's own grief for his life, and what was left of it as he tries to cope with what he became and what he hadn't realized he lost and the opportunities he lost to try and regain it.  We also have the grief other such newly departed people face, such as a man who was murdered and finds himself in rage, or a little girl who died from a disease who wanted her parents, or a man who committed suicide after losing his beloved, and isn't as willing to listen to rules about moving on.  And then, we have the grief and guilt about one's own mistakes, especially from someone who cares about others - in this case Hugo - deals with the mistake he's made that he can't seem to make up, mistakes that resulted in others suffering in ways that Hugo can't seem to solve.  

And more than just showing the different ways feel grief, this book shows Wallace, Hugo, Mei and the others learning to move past it, with the assistance of each other.  Whether that be by pranking a fake medium who's causing another stress, or by convincing a woman grieving for a daughter that it's time to move on through direct confrontation or by explaining to someone that they can't keep feeling guilty for a failure that wasnt actually their own fault, and that you are there for them.  The story really works in showing how a group of people can come together to help themselves and others move forward, growing closer all the time.  

And yes there's also a heartwarming romance between Wallace and Hugo, as well as the family growing tighter together, which will remind readers of The House in the Cerulean Sea, and it's just as enjoyable here as it is there - even if the way that romance ends here is perhaps a bit of a predictable copout.   The result is a novel with wonderful prose, characters, dialogue, and themes that is very much worth your time and definitely recommended.