Amazon.fr :Commentaires en ligne: The House in the Cerulean Sea (English Edition)

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A very human story

Commenté en France le 25 mars 2020

I'm an avid reader of TJ Klune's books, and this one did not disappoint. I've always felt that Klune is a master at bringing colorful characters together, which is something I look forward to every time, and the residents of the orphanage had me hooked immediately. The main character I took a little more time to warm up to, but as soon as he started to shed his corporate layers I was attached.
The story works really well as a stand-alone, but to be honest I wouldn't mind reading about all of the kids' future.

lea.R

5 stars

Commenté en France le 27 avril 2020

This is the only other TJ Klune book i've read apart from the Green Creek serie and i was not disapointed by it. This is such a feel good story, i loved everything about it but especially the characters. We follow a man who goes to investigate on this special orphanage filled with supernatural children and it ends up being this amazing delightful story of acceptance, love and family bond.
I truly enjoyed all of it, as someone who likes kids let me tell you these ones will really fill your heart with affection, the dynamic between the children and Arthur Parnassus their caretaker is beautiful and the romantic relationship developping between the main characters is truly adorable. Basically this story has a lot of feelings revolving around family dynamics and finding your place with the right people. It has a bit of everything ends well, people become accepting and they all lived happily ever after but i really think we can used some of that ideal.
It was lovely, everybody of any age should read it, also the audiobook is awesome.

tags: whimsical goodness, really interesting supernatural creatures, family bond, adopted children, m/m romance, hilarious dialogue <spoiler> everything Lucy says is literal gold i love him so much </spoiler>
content warning: talk of a genocide against a supernatural race, talk and on page action of discrimation, toxic workplace environment, specism against supernatural creatures

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Unknown

Nice

Commenté en France le 13 décembre 2021

It was a nice read but not as good as I expected it to be. I found the story and the relations with the protagonists a bit childish and shallow.

Bernard Crawlone

Fables ofLa Fontaine

Commenté en France le 28 novembre 2021

This book reminds me of the Fables of La Fontaine: it is written like a fairy tale while it is a serious topic: it is an advocacy for tolerance and respect of differences. Furthermore there is a lot of fun. Those who gave a 1 rating, complaining that it contains a gay story did not catch at all what this book is about. I feel sorry to see them remaining in their bubble, their mental cage.

Ce livre me rappelle les fables de La Fontaine: il est écrit comme un conte de fée alors qu'il s'agit d'un sujet sérieux: c'est un plaidoyer pour la tolérance et le respect des différences. De plus, il est très humoristique. Ceux qui ont donné une note de 1, se plaignant qu'il contient une histoire gay, n'ont absolument pas compris ce dont ce livre parle. Je suis désolé de voir qu'ils restent dans leur bulle, leur cage mentale.

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Teenietinybookreview

Patronising and exhausting

Commenté au Royaume-Uni le 10 avril 2021

To sum up this book.....two characters are trying to move a desk from a closet to a better spot in front of the window. They need to be careful they don't damage it. It seems like a simple bit of storytelling....the act of moving the desk from a small dark space to a larger brighter one is what is significant except one character 'Sal' makes a comment about how another kid cracked the corner of the table when they first put it in the closet. Sal takes a moment to say that even though things are cracked or chipped there's still good in them'..........This basically sums up how exhausting this book is.

Every paragraph, every page....there's an overbearing and preachy lesson. It feels fake and forced. It's like someone decided to write the book and start with the 'agenda' rather than the story. Yes, by all means, right a book about inclusivity and accepting your differences, but do it in a more natural way. Stop telling the reader the same thing on every page, stop making up trite instances to prove it's okay to be different. The book was exhausting. I'm three quarters of the way through and struggling to finish.

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Sue Eaton

Must Read Book

Commenté au Royaume-Uni le 19 mars 2020

A book about kindness, being different and found family. This book is wonderful with a quiet story about awakenings. It is realising that the world you know is not how you think it is, it is have a new world and new different people being revealed to you not in a loud splashy way but in a thoughtful, quiet way. It is the realisation that different isn’t scary and something to fear, but that different is actually pretty much the same as you, despite that packaging people may come in. The imagery in this book is profound from the drab, grey, rainy place where you are just another cog in the machine. To the bright, sunny, warm place you longed for in your heart but never thought you’d find. The characters are wonderful, full of light, love and resilience. The central theme in this book, like for a lot of TJ’s books is found family, choosing people to be your family and forging bonds of love and acceptance. There is another strong message in this book that a single voice can achieve great things, change can be achieved by doing small things with passion and conviction.

I loved this quiet book filled with kindness and love. I cried at the ending not because it was sad but because it was filled with such hope for the future.

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Jess Gofton

Whimsical and heart-warming

Commenté au Royaume-Uni le 8 janvier 2021

Now that I’ve read The House in the Cerulean Sea I can’t believe it took me so long to read it, but I’m so glad this story was my first novel of 2021.

40-year-old Linus Baker has been working as a Case Worker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth for many years and, though he leads a solitary and rather humdrum life, he takes pride in his work making sure that orphanages for magical, non-human children are taking good care of their charges. He never lets himself get attached to the children—until he’s sent to Marsyas Island Orphanage, run by a Mr. Arthur Parnassus, where six extraordinary, potentially dangerous children are living. There’s Talia the garden gnome; Chauncey the tentacle ‘monster’; Sal the were-Pomeranian; Theodore the wyvern; Phee the forest sprite; and Lucy, the son of Satan. Linus must live with them for a month, reporting back to DICOMY, and decide if the orphanage should stay open.

And DICOMY would prefer it if he didn’t fall in love with Arthur and his little family of misfits while he’s there.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is a big, warm, comforting hug wrapped up in a novel, and it’s one of the most hopeful fantasy novels I’ve read. If you’re looking for a book that will bring you shameless joy and fill your heart to the point where you think it might burst, then look no further than this one. It’s such a tender story and a love letter to found families.

As Arthur himself states, calling his house an orphanage makes no sense; no one is coming to adopt these children, as far as Arthur is concerned the children are his, and as such he is incredibly protective of them. Unfortunately he needs to be in a world where magical and non-human people are treated like monsters that need to be feared, to the point where some of the children believe it themselves. With Arthur, however, they’re given a chance at a childhood where they’re able to learn and play and express themselves without having to worry about being punished simply for existing. The orphanage might be where these children live, but Arthur is their home.

It would be so easy for this novel to be twee and so overly sweet it could cause cavities, but Klune writes these children so well and in such a way that it’s impossible not to fall in love with them. They all have their own strong personalities, and their own issues to work through, but at their heart they’re all children who are desperate to be loved and desperate for a place they can call home.

Linus and Arthur are also utterly lovely and it was so refreshing to read a romance blossoming between two adults in their forties, one of whom is a little overweight and whose hair is thinning. Linus isn’t a young Case Worker who’s fresh on the job and learning the truth behind some of the behaviour DICOMY’s strict rules are allowing, but a man who’s been trying to do his best for children for years and is finally able to discover the courage he’s needed to say what he really thinks when he falls in love with this little family, and having an older protagonist at the centre of this novel made the story all the more powerful for me. You don’t have to be 25 and classically handsome to change the world, and some of the smallest changes we make can make the biggest ripples.

This story reads like a Middle Grade novel from the point of view of the adults and it’s wonderful. I can’t recommend it enough.

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little bookworm

Joyous and Heart-warming read

Commenté au Royaume-Uni le 4 juin 2021

Linus Baker is a case-worker for the Department of Magical Youth. It is his job to inspect orphanages and schools for Magical Youth and offer his recommendations as to whether they are fit for purpose. Linus is good at his job, he knows the rules and regulations off by heart and is always objective. It is these qualities that lead to Extremely Upper Management singling him out for a special case. However, when Linus finds himself on the Island of Marsyas, tasked with inspecting the orphanage there run by Arthur Parnassus, an orphanage like no other, he is completely unprepared for what awaits him!

Having read rave reviews for The House in the Cerulean Sea, this was a highly anticipated read, and I was prepared to find myself disappointed if it didn't live up to expectations, however, thankfully that was not the case. I completely get the hype around the book, and have to say it is one of my favorite reads of the year so far.

The first few chapters revolve around Linus' rather drab and mundane life working at DICOMY. The author writes with a rather quirky sense of humour, which did gain my attention from the off, and once Linus is set his special assignment, I was intrigued as to what he would uncover at the Marsyas Orphanage. It wasn't until Linus arrives at the Island though that I fell completely in love with this book, and after that it really was just a glorious escape of a read, guaranteed to put a smile on my face. In fact, I'm not sure I've read anything quite as uplifting in a while; this book is like a syrupy treat!

The characters in this book were so vivid and full of life. The children at the orphanage in particular completely stole my heart, every single one of them, and often had me in stitches. I loved Arthur, and I also really enjoyed watching the change in Linus, how he was helpless but to fall in love with the children and way of life on the Island too, and just loosen up and learn to live in the moment, as opposed to by the rules. In fact I thought Linus made for rather a refreshing and unlikely hero, and I also enjoyed the little sprinkling of romance in the book too.

The book is not very heavy on plot or action, it is in essence a simple story, but that didn't lessen my enjoyment of it. In many ways this read like a sort of fable or fairy-tale for adults. It had strong messages and themes at its heart, and yes, sometimes these messages were hammered home a bit, and perhaps could have been conveyed a bit more subtly, but that didn't stop the themes from resonating.

This is a story about acceptance, of not judging people because they are different or fearing them for their differences. Whilst in the book these themes are explored in relation to Magical Beings and how they are treated and viewed by humans, they are of course just as translatable in real life. The book highlights the dangers of bureaucracy, whilst also championing the power of the voices of the few, because even if just one person makes a stand, it can trigger a change. The story also encourages one to be brave, both in terms of standing up for those around you and challenging views, but also in terms of living one's own life. It can be easy to become complacent, to accept one's lot, even if deep down one wishes for something else or to be somewhere else, and I loved this aspect of Linus' arc, in terms of how he found a more fulfilling life by being a little braver and more adventurous.

Overall, this was a really refreshing and heart-warming read, with a unique voice and style, important themes and wonderful characters who will stay with me for a long time.

7 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Júlia

historia maravilhosa

Commenté au Brésil le 18 avril 2021

a historia é bem "light" e é uma otima historia sobre amor, cuidado e te faz repensar sobre varios aspectos da vida e cotidiano, enquanto aborda assuntos importantes de forma sucinta, mt gostosinho de ler
comprei a versão mais simples por ser a mais barata e fiquei bem satisfeita, apesar de vir com essa borda amarela e a capa mais firme um pouco menor em relação ao livro em si, aprendi que mts livros estadunidenses tem versão desse tipo, particularmente prefiro capa dura, pois é mais dificil de estragar a borda. No entanto, devido ao preço no Brasil, acho que vale super a pena, só essa observação pois nunca tinha visto versões de capa assim

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