Don't You Wish You Were Here?
The House in the Cerulean Sea is a fantasy novel by TJ Klune, published in March 2020.
Linus Baker is a social worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He has been working the job for seventeen years, and now he is forty, rotund, and alone. Linus is charged with a special assignment by Extremely Upper Management. The assignment is a month-long visit to a small island to evaluate the Marsyas orphanage run by Arthur Parnassus. The orphanage is home to six magical children, one of which is a six-year-old named Lucy, who is the Antichrist. As the month goes by Linus finds himself becoming increasingly attached to the children and their mysterious caretaker.
A sequel, Somewhere Beyond The Sea, is set for release in September 2024.
This novel provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Time Period: It seems to be 20 Minutes into the Past with Linus' office having computers but no mention of cellphones or internet. Though Mrs Klapper mentions her grandson having a gay church wedding implying modern day or even 20 Minutes into the Future.
- Anti Anti Christ:
- Although Lucy regularly (and hammily) proclaims he's evil, underneath it all he's a sweet kid who doesn't actually want to drown the world in blood and become a god-king.
- One of the protestors in the village holds a sign saying he's anti-antichrist.
- Arc Words:
- "Don't you wish you were here?"
- "See something, say something"
- "I am but paper. Brittle and thin..."
- Armor-Piercing Question: When confronting the Extremely Upper Management, Linus asks them what are the children's names. They say that one of them is the Antichrist, with Linus having to demand that they use his real name. After he asks what are the names of the other children, his superiors go silent.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Several of the characters, but most notably Arthur, who could burn the world if he wanted to but is more concerned with being a good dad.
- Big Brother Is Employing You: Although Linus genuinely cares about all the children in the care of DICOMY, the department itself is very obviously about controlling magical people, not helping them, even before it becomes obvious to Linus how bad they are. (The schools, for instance, which are the option if a child for some reason is deemed unable to stay in an orphanage, are clearly very bad.) For bonus Big Brother points, DICOMY employees are strictly surveilled while in the office and given demerits for things like accidentally getting salad dressing on their clothes.
- Beta Couple: Zoe and Mayor Helen get together while Linus is still struggling with whether he should return to the island or not.
- Book Ends: When Linus first comes to the island, the first person he encounters is Talia, working on her garden. When he decides to return to the island, the first person he meets is Talia again.
- Bothering by the Book: Linus is capable of using the rules as a weapon in a pinch.
- Bullying a Dragon: On the field trip into Marsyas town, a record store employee named Marty gets the bright idea to try an exorcism on Lucy. Since Lucy isn't a bad kid, he just throws Marty into the wall, but everyone knows he could've done a lot worse. Marty is acknowledged to not to be very smart and to have deserved what he got.
- City with No Name: The place Linus lives is only ever referred to as the city and the village on the mainland is just the village.
- Commonality Connection: Linus and Lucy are first able to bond over their similar taste in music.
- Creepy Good: Lucy and Talia. Lucy is the antichrist and loves to make morbid references to his powers, but is overall a very nice kid and knows better than to harm anyone. Talia is constantly threatening people with her shovel, but is, nonetheless, as sweet and friendly as all the other children.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Basically everyone on the island, but special mention goes to Arthur, Sal, and Phee.
- Arthur was a child of the orphanage that existed before the current one, one that had a particularly awful and hateful headmaster that took issue with Arthur in particular. When Arthur tried to warn the DICOMY about their mistreatment, his headmaster locked him on the basement alone for six months before an inspection managed to find him.
- Sal was abused by pretty much all the orphanages he went through due to the fact that his condition is infectious. He bit the hand of a woman that tried to harm him, and has ever since turned into a pariah, barely communicative until getting to Marsylas.
- Phee's kind had been sectioned without aid and thrown into famine. Phee watched her own mother die from starvation until caseworkers came to take her away and still tried to defend her mother's body by turning them into trees.
- Department of Child Disservices: While Linus himself expresses genuine concern for the children in his care, Arthur's comments and the level of abuse Sal was forced to endure both indicate that Linus is rare. There are also more general problems regarding the Department, given that not a single magical creature had any part in writing the guidelines that run that entire organization.
- Enfante Terrible: Subverted with Lucy (see above); although he likes to talk a big game, the actual danger is to him from other people believing he is this, which is why Arthur is so hair-trigger about Linus using words like "Antichrist".
- Eternal Sexual Freedom: It's implied to be set 20 Minutes into the Past with no mention of Cellphones or internet but there's a mention of a gay church wedding that would be hard to get today.
- Exact Words: When Linus's awful direct supervisor demands to know what exactly he likes about her management style, he realizes he can't pull off another lie and manages to spit out "authoritative". This is not a compliment, but he knows she'll take it as one.
- Family of Choice: Arthur, Zoe, and the children are already one before the novel begins. Linus joins it over the course of the novel.
- Fantastic Racism: There's a lot of prejudice against magical people, particularly inside the DICOMY (and its sister organization for adults). The inhabitants of Marsyas Village hate the orphanage, treating anyone associated with it terribly and even sending threats via raft.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: When trying to think of the worst thing he could possibly say to Linus, all Chauncey can come up with is threatening to not do his laundry anymore. He immediately apologizes.
- Goo-Goo-Godlike: A regular issue for magical children, particularly the ones under Arthur's care. Phee, for instance, is so strong she turned several people into trees by mistake.
- Happily Adopted: In the end, all children get officially adopted by Linus and Arthur.
- Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: The story uses this as its central focus; the prejudice that magical beings face is fairly unsubtly paralleled to real-world prejudice, with a great deal of discussion of how how some people hate and fear those who are different.
- Humble Goal: Chauncey, the many-limbed jellyfishlike child sent to the orphanage for inspiring fear and horror in all who beheld him, wishes for nothing else than to be... a bellhop.Linus: He is a curious little boy who has a dream. And my god, how simple it is. How breathtakingly lovely. He wants to be a bellhop. He wants to work at a hotel and greet people and carry their luggage.
- Interspecies Romance: Linus and Arthus. Linus is a normal human, while Arthur is a phoenix. Mayor Helen and Zoe make another couple, with Helen being a human and Zoe being an Island Sprite.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Linus really does love Calliope, although he pretends otherwise to keep it from going to her head.
- Large Ham: Lucy, when proclaiming himself to be the doom of mankind, leading his siblings on an imagined jungle adventure, singing along to records, or doing pretty much anything at all.
- Last of His Kind: Arthur is the last phoenix known to mankind. He says he never met his mother and father, or even any other being of his species.
- Manipulative Bastard: Charles Werner, both in the present to Linus and in the past to Arthur when they were in a relationship. The more he says and does, the more obvious it becomes that he deliberately set up Linus by withholding information, in the hopes that the shock would get him to write a bad report. When that doesn't work, and his further prodding also fails, he outs Arthur as a phoenix and tells Linus to go look at the cellar Arthur was once imprisoned in, clearly hoping the scorch marks will frighten Linus or make him think Arthur is a bad person.
- Nature vs. Nurture: A central conflict of the story: the DICOMY works with the belief that the children simply are what they are, but as Linus learns, especially in regards to what he sees Lucy being capable of, choosing to be a nice boy instead of the antichrist, it's much more about how they're treated.
- The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Subverted by the Extremely Upper Management. They certainly look like it, with their room being a dark chamber where they stand above their guest, and the information they give Linus is often vague or incomplete, sometimes willfully. That said, they're far from omniscient and are as prejudiced and misinformed about the magical creatures as anyone else under them.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: While not directly labeled as such, one of the children involuntarily shapeshifts into a Pomeranian when stressed, and can pass on that ability through a bite.
- Pet the Dog: Linus giving Theodore a button is one from the children's perspective. They initially see him as a villain, since he has the power to take away their home.
- The Phoenix: Arthur Parnassus turns out to be one, likely the only one. While it's not explicitly stated if phoenix in this world reproduce like other creatures, or if they do the reborn-from-the-ashes-of-their-previous-life thing, the phoenix in question muses that they are almost certainly the last of their kind, and that they never met their mother or father, indicating an expectation that there would have been others.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Helen, mayor of Marsyas, is a kind and practical woman who, when given the chance, sticks up for the children and forces the townsfolk to behave. She also admits that she should never have let things get as bad as they did, and is committed to fixing them in the future.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the end, Linus has finally seen DICOMY for what it really is, snaps, and gives Extremely Upper Management one of these before quitting and returning to the island.
- Rousseau Was Right: The book's philosophy, especially as it pertains to Lucy. Linus passionately argues that all children can be good if they're treated as though they have the potential to be, and that all DICOMY's repression stems from fear. This even applies to Extremely Upper Management, who approve Linus's recommendation stay open after being convinced by his arguments.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: All the children were aware that Arthur was a magical creature, though they might not be aware he is a phoenix. Lucy, in particular, since he has brief glimpses of the future, is aware of more details about it than the others.
- Shipper on Deck: Zoe and the children for Arthur and Linus.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Linus to Extremely Upper Management, and especially Werner, in the climax.
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job: DICOMY is not a pleasant place to work. It has a demerits system where employees are dinged for having photos on their desks and getting lunch stains on their clothes, the supervisors are authoritarian bureaucrats, everyone is in fear of Extremely Upper Management, and the layers of bureaucracy in the actual job is noted to crush the hope in new employees. Even the weak attempts at raising morale only serve to be more depressing (such as the mandatory celebrations held by Extremely Upper Management that require employees to eat the lumpy potatoes and dry ham they serve).
- Torches and Pitchforks: A mob of angry Marsyas villagers forms after Lucy knocks the bigoted Martin unconscious. They're pretty incompetent, and clearly don't have a plan for what they'd do if they actually got to the island, but Linus and Arthur still take the threat very seriously.
- Unperson: The children on the island and Arthur are considered a secret by the DICOMY and references to them are hidden and omitted everywhere, with the people at the village being paid to pretend they don't know the orphanage even exists. The files about the children are kept in the highest level of confidentiality there is and Arthur's is even more confidential.
- Wizarding School: The government runs several schools for magical children but given the setting, they're probably more for keeping them out of the way rather than teaching magic.
