#just because u re using common tropes that bring warmth to the reader doesnt mean u have to be unoriginal

[notsp1derman]

a displeased review of the house in the cerulean sea, by tj klune

[may contain spoilers]

First of all, let me tell you all my experience with this book. I saw a bunch of people talking about it, recommending a sweet queer-found-family-cozy-fantasy comfort book, saying how this was one of the best reads of the year. This book was HUGE on tiktok and other platforms, and even as of today it still has 4,4 stars on goodreads.

So after a bit of stalling, when I next wanted a comforting read, I picked up the house in the cerulean sea, and I wasn't nearly as impressed. The writing was exaggerated to the point that every character felt like a charicature defined by a one or two traits: the Plain and Normal main character; the Intolerant and Bitter boss; even the CEOs were called only Extremely Upper Management lmao

So I thought "okay, so this is some sort of satyre right?" nope. It's just a normal YA fantasy book that desperately wants you to think it's cute and funny. The author wanted to write witty dialogue so much that every character has the same personality; everyone sounds like a snotty 13 year old really proud of the "sick burns" they deliver; everyone, even the children (half of whom are also so sarcastic, of course), uses every possible opportunity to embarass and shame the protagonist.

Which, by the way, I was already getting annoyed by. He was never pathetic by his appearance or way of living, as all the characters tried to express by their dialogue, but his trait of being so emphatetic for a second just to be painfully ignorant of the power of is actions the next get on my nerves SO FUCKING MUCH. Linus Baker's knack for saying "this isn't my jurisdiction, I only have a small, simple job" clashes so hard with the author constantly telling us how we should like him because "he's good with children and also responsible!!", which just makes him seem an average white man unable to see his privilege.

And all of this could be simply averted if Klune just made Linus a very innocent man, who was told a lie by DICOMY that all the kids from the orphanages he closed down were in better places, or even adopted. This would even make his development a lot more sympathetic, because he would suddenly discover everything he believed was a lie. But no. Linus does know, from the way he feels guilty or changes the subject or gives excuses for DICOMY the second someone questions it. How could I root for him when he just chooses to ignore what he doesn't want to acknowledge and with the author trying so hard to paint him as an inoccuous man?

Clearly, I wasn't really finding the house in the cerulean sea neither comforting nor well written. So, after almost a 1/3 of the book, I went into goodreads to see if there were other people disliking the book as well, or if I was just the biggest and bitterest asshole on the planet. And then I found out about the Sixties Scoop.

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that a white man really got inspiration from a terrible situation that brought a lot of pain and trauma, sterilized and made it cutesy and admitted to it on an interview.

"Let me be up front about something: I’m a white dude. There really isn’t much I should be preaching about. I’m queer, and a loud one at that, but the marginalization I’ve faced because of this isn’t to be compared to others facing bigotry. It’s not a contest. It sucks across the board, but I’m a mid-thirties cis man in America. I’m privileged in ways others are not. I know this, so when I wrote Cerulean, I knew I had to do so carefully, to make sure that what I’d decided on to be the central theme of the story wouldn’t be lost."

I'll not jump to conclusions, he really does seem to have had good intentions, but despite all of that, sometimes it still isn't a good idea to follow. I'm a white person myself, but I've seen a lot of the struggles of the indigenous people of my country even near my home, so I get the indignation against a government that never does shit and the want to help as much as we can, specially because of our privilege. But telling the story of a minority group from a point of view you will never have just does more harm than good, even more so when the apparent moral of the story is "oh well, the problem isn't the organization at all, just a bunch of people in a room, so we just have to wait for some dude to get tired of it all and change things"

I'll try to be less bitter, alright? I get the existence of books that focus more on found families, queer happiness and comforting emotions than something more realistic. We all need to hope that things can be better and easier, so I'm not hating on the genre or anything. But it angered me to read how easy it was to change bigotry just with "the power of talking and morals!!1!", specially when the inspiration was a real life event that we KNOW wasn't just solved with some words and a pat on the back. I'll hand to Klune that things weren't exactly solved at the end of the book, and systemic discrimination and oppression still existed, but something about the solutions and the tone of the book just didn't seat right with me.

All in all, I think the main problem was just that things didn't fit well together. A hopeful but realistic story inspired by a real event that talked about disrupting the organization and stripping down positions of power of bigot people maybe would work, but that's too much pain and delicate themes to fit into a "clean and cute" comfort book. I also thought the moral a bit too simple and black-on-white for a YA book, but as long as it makes people more kind and understanding, I can't truly hate it.

I still don't hate the millions of people who loved this book, and I also don't hate the author. But I can't in good conscience agree that it was a good idea to do or a book well written at all. Sometimes we have to use our privilege not to tell the story of others, but to force an opening and have them tell their story themselves, from their perspective. Also, I hope he is donating at least a bit of the huge profit he made with sellings to organizations related to the cause he chose to speak about in the first place.

edit: I would like to say that after posting this I've seen more people talk about the problematic stuff online, and make better points in a clearer way than me. So this is just to say that this is definitely NOT a super hot take I had. There are a lot of people more qualified to talk about this subject than me. It's always nice to research different opinions!

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