The House in the Cerulean Sea (TJ Klune)

The House in the Cerulean Sea
TJ Klune
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: 40-year-old Linus Baker is everything a good caseworker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth should be: observant, objective, adherent to the 900-plus-page Rules and Regulations volume that outlines what is and is not his concern, and utterly without a personal life, unless his cat Calliope counts. He tells himself he doesn't mind the loneliness, that he hasn't time for a boyfriend anyway - but he also tells himself he's happy in his tiny drab home, sitting at his tiny drab desk, living in a city so dreary the sun hasn't made an appearance in his memory. But at least he helps the magical children in his caseload where he can.
When Linus finds himself summoned to Extremely Upper Management, he's sure he's been sacked, though for what he cannot imagine: nobody writes a more thorough report. Instead, he is sent to inspect an orphanage run by one Arthur Parnassus, a classified place where only the strangest and most dangerous of magical children are sent, from the tentacled sea creature Chauncey to the boy Lucy, the literal Antichrist. For one month, Linus is to live in a guest house on Arthur's island and give his assessment of conditions and of the master himself. He's sure this job will be the death and damnation of him... but what he finds in the house on the cerulean sea is not at all what he expected, and what he learns will shake him and his understanding of the world to the core.

REVIEW: I've read nothing but praise for this book, so I had very high hopes going into it. Those hopes were met more or less across the board in this fairy tale for grown-ups set in an alternate-modern world where magical creatures are segregated and shunned. Linus is the typical bureaucrat, if one who actually cares about his job; he shows great concern for the welfare of the magical children, for all that he still believes in the mission of DICOMY and doesn't think to question why none of the kids in these "orphanages" are ever adopted or what happens to them when they grow up. Indeed, he points out how much better things are now than they used to be, when magical beings were openly hunted down, to near-extinction in some cases. On a personal level, he's sad and lonely and utterly miserable, but he rationalizes away his every nonconformist impulse. Once outside of the city, though, surrounded by the blue of the sea and colors he'd forgotten existed, Linus can't hide from reality or himself so easily, though of course he isn't transformed overnight. A colorful cast of characters comes to life around him, from the emotionally dented children to the mistrustful villagers to Arthur himself, who has a secret that could destroy the orphanage if it comes to light. Linus constantly struggles to regain his old, boxed-in worldview, but the walls keep collapsing as fast as he tries to rebuild them. The whimsical tone is bright and colorful, if with some dark edges and truths swimming in the depths, and the tale has a hopeful tone that change is possible. The ending feels slightly drawn out, but is a near-perfect conclusion. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an optimistic fairy tale, the perfect antidote for a genre that has skewed a little dark in recent years.

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