Under the Whispering Door
A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND INDIE BESTSELLER
One of Buzzfeed's "Best Books of 2022"!
An Indie Next Pick!
A Locus Awards Top Ten Finalist for Fantasy Novel
A Man Called Ove meets The Good Place in Under the Whispering Door, a delightful queer love story from TJ Klune, author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The House in the Cerulean Sea.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through. 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 a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.
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Community Reviews
While Klune's tale of life and death was unique in various ways it was moderately lack luster in many others. The characters for the most part were pretty likeable and entertaining though somewhat cliche. The book had a plethora of different diversity in race, sex, age and sexual orientations but not in a sense that it seemed to matter. Everyone treated everyone as perfectly normal which is the ideal world to live in. The unique concepts of reapers and shepherding the dead spirits to the beyond could have been expounded on a bit more. The idea was a good one and kept things interesting though left the reader wanting more of an explanation. The overall message about living life to the fullest and opening yourself up to the world via relationships was well received and left the reader with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside by the end. This adventure is worth the read just to appease the curiosities of how everyone faces the reality of death, grief and loss.
Trigger warnings at the end in case they are potential spoilers.
After reading TJ Klune's House in the Cerulean Sea, I was dying to read another whimsical and magical story. Naturally I was very excited to get approved for an ARC of Under the Whispering Door. It was very good but is definitely not at all like House. This story is about death and therefor it is incredibly sad. Klune writes about death in a very respectful manner and I love his take on the afterlife. Honestly, if I knew this is what the afterlife was like maybe I'd be less scared to die! However, as respectful and delicate as he is, it does not detract from how sad death can be.
This book is for you if you want a story with magic and whimsy, a found-family trope and can handle discussions about death and are not offended by agnostic/atheist ways of thinking. This book is not for you if you are devoutly Christian and/or if you have severe anxiety about death and dying.
My rating overall is 4.5 out of 5. It was a good read with wonderful and loveable characters and a Christmas Carol vibe.
TW:
-Many forms of death. Death by murder, death by suicide, death of a child, death of a parent, death of a pet, death by cancer, lots of death
-Depression
-Christian blasphemy
After reading TJ Klune's House in the Cerulean Sea, I was dying to read another whimsical and magical story. Naturally I was very excited to get approved for an ARC of Under the Whispering Door. It was very good but is definitely not at all like House. This story is about death and therefor it is incredibly sad. Klune writes about death in a very respectful manner and I love his take on the afterlife. Honestly, if I knew this is what the afterlife was like maybe I'd be less scared to die! However, as respectful and delicate as he is, it does not detract from how sad death can be.
This book is for you if you want a story with magic and whimsy, a found-family trope and can handle discussions about death and are not offended by agnostic/atheist ways of thinking. This book is not for you if you are devoutly Christian and/or if you have severe anxiety about death and dying.
My rating overall is 4.5 out of 5. It was a good read with wonderful and loveable characters and a Christmas Carol vibe.
TW:
-Many forms of death. Death by murder, death by suicide, death of a child, death of a parent, death of a pet, death by cancer, lots of death
-Depression
-Christian blasphemy
TJ Klune has a knack for writing beautiful stories filled with sympathetic characters with whom one can’t help but fall in love. A lovely tale, which I highly recommend.
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