The House in the Cerulean Sea (Book Review)

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book. I really did. I may have been slightly hormonal while reading as I cried (often "happy" tears) throughout the entire thing. I also devoured the book in one sitting. The colorful characters, these poor traumatized children; "found family" is one of my favorite tropes.

I also love that Klune does not pull any punches when it comes to bigotry and prejudices; he makes sure you get the symbolism and allegory right away, unambiguously: "Just because you don’t experience prejudice in your everyday doesn’t stop it from existing for the rest of us.”
For all of those moments (many of which I highlighted in my notes), this is a perfect book for right now in 2020.

I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars for the following reasons:
-despite having queer characters and a lot of nontraditional aspects, the two main (adult) characters are still two white men.
-the Black woman character spends most of her time in the kitchen.
-the Black boy character is a "dog."

I realize that the above are not without nuance when reading the actual story, but I think it's important to also realize how the facts look "on paper," so to speak, without context, when attempting to be diverse and inclusive.

Lastly, Phee seemed to be the least developed character. I would not be surprised if an editor said, "You need more than one girl child character. Put in another one," and this is the result. I say that because in almost any of the given situations, you know the reactions of almost all of the children, where they are, and/or what they are doing (often because they are so unique). Except Phee. There is the one scene with her and Linus and Zoe, but other than that, I feel like she is an afterthought.

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