Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune (Review)

Thank you Macmillan-Tor/Forge for sending me an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

Two Second Review

★★★★½ // 4.5 s t a r s

In the most basic sense, Under the Whispering Door is about Wallace, a man who unexpectedly dies and is taken to a waystation (of sorts) in a terribly out-of-code house where he finds a (slightly crazy) women, a dead man's ghost, a dead dog's ghost, a guy known as the ferryman, and heaps of (peppermint) tea.

The Book

Trigger Warnings: death, anxiety, depression, murder

Release Date: September 21, 2021

Publisher: Tor Books

Genre(s): Young Adult, Contemporary Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, Romance

Series?: no

Page Count: 384

Storygraph Review…

Premise:

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace Price from his own funeral, Wallace suspects he really might be dead.

Instead of leading him directly to the afterlife, the reaper takes him to a small village. On the outskirts, off the path through the woods, tucked between mountains, is a particular tea shop, run by a man named Hugo. Hugo is the tea shop's owner to locals and the ferryman to souls who need to cross over.

But Wallace isn't ready to abandon the life he barely lived. With Hugo's help he finally starts to learn about all the things he missed in life.

When the Manager, a curious and powerful being, arrives at the tea shop and gives Wallace one week to cross over, Wallace sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Review

When I was filling in the stats on Storygraph for this book, one word stuck out greatly. And that was "reflective". I honestly don't think a better word could be used to describe yet another one of TJ Klune's incredibly heartfelt, queer-y, and just plain happy novels. It had the writing we're all used to from Klune and the dry humor that popped up sometimes truly had be dying. The book also took on character development to another level (more on that).

So, the book starts off with Wallace, top-tier asshole at this point in the book. We see him at his worst (?) when he fires a lady for one (?) incorrect action (that might not have even been her fault) and also revoked her daughter's scholarship. If that's not enough, Wallace truly felt there was nothing wrong with his actions. Fairly quickly though, our main character dies. Well, not actually. Ghost Wallace is at his funeral, where only the partners at his firm and his ex-wife are present (and a mysterious Asian lady he's never seen before). He questions why no one else is present and after some seriously heartfelt speeches (note sarcasm) from the guests at his funeral, Wallace is whisked off by Mei to see himself get buried and then ends up at Charon's Crossing.

This is your resident Greek Mythology nerd speaking, even though they explain Charon in the book I feel the need to say. Charon is the ferryman the Greeks met at the entrance to the Underworld. He would board them onto a boat (after taking payment, usually a coin like a danake) to be taken across the River Styx to Hades. They would then face judgment to decide which areas of the Underworld they would end up in: Elysium, the Fields of Asphodel, or (rarely) Tartarus. Yeah, bye that's all.

Moving on, Wallace then meets Nelson, Apollo (the dog), and Hugo. That leads way to a paragraph about the characters (shocker). Nelson is the other resident (human) ghost at Charon's Crossing. He hasn't actually crossed through the door in the ceiling on the fourth floor of the house that clearly defies gravity (as evidenced by the cover) because he is staying there for his grandson, Hugo. Hugo is the ferryman who helps people cross through the door, he's the one who talks them through their death. Makes them accept it and not do anything completely rash (though he gives them all the freedom). There's Mei, the Reaper. She is the one who actually goes and gets the people's ghosts of those who died (like Wallace). And Apollo is just a super cute ghost dog.

The themes included in this novel were also so great. The way TJ Klune manages to weave heartbreak and love and death and life and grief and happiness altogether is so amazing. Death obviously being the most obvious considering the premise of the book, but somehow Klune was able to write that sometimes serious subject in a way that wasn't harsh or anything, and just showed how death was just a part of life. Simply that it was inevitable, but not final.

One thing, the thing that dropped my rating by half a star, that I disliked was the character development. I'm all for it don't get me wrong. I loved Wallace's development don't mistake that either. The only think I found lacking was the speed. I feel like though it was written out, it wasn't written enough. The book wasn't short, and any more might've made it tedious, but I feel like since it had a few chunky time skips we missed a lot of actual written progression of Wallace's personality.

❝ Everyone loses their way at some point, and it’s not just because of

their mistakes or the decisions they make. It’s because they’re horribly,

wonderfully human. ❞

Ultimately though, Under the Whispering Door is a near perfect novel that I absolutely loved almost every second of, that will get you cackling and half-crying, and truly will leave you thinking about it for at least a few days.

Tropes…

— found family (aka TJ Klune's second biggest strong suit)

— stuck together (reluctantly, my ass)

— almost cottage-core tbh

— older gay men (TJ Klune's biggest strong suit)

— the man who's rude but the guy he likes makes him nice

Read…If You Liked…

• The House in the Cerulean Sea

• The Midnight Library (the odds of me reading this at basically the same time as UtWD tho)

• Scythe (death…)

Watch…If You Liked…

• The Good Place (i've watched all of two episodes, but the similarities are undeniable)

ADD UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR TO YOUR GOODREADS AND STORYGRAPH SHELVES

random q to drop comments <3

What's the best standalone you've ever read?

(I love The Song of Achilles, but since that's pretty darn

basic, I also adore If We Were Villains [as we know])