Under the Whispering Door

Tell me a story... about life after death

 Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune

Expected publication date: September 21, 2021

Date read: September 13, 2021

Wallace Price is a high-powered attorney who doesn’t have time for friends, family, or really anything but work. After a Reaper comes to collect him at his funeral, he expects that he might really be dead. But instead of bringing him to some afterlife, the Reaper brings him to an out-of-the-way tea shop, run by a man named Hugo. In addition to owning a tea shop, Hugo is also a ferryman, guiding souls to the afterlife. But Wallace isn’t quite ready to give up the life he barely lived, and, with Hugo’s help, he begins to learn about all the thing he missed out on in life, like family, friendship, and even love. 

I recently finished - and adored - The House in the Cerulean Sea by this same author, and I was curious to see how this book would stand up. Well, if you liked Cerulean Sea, this book does not disappoint. They have a different feel to them - Under the Whispering Door is darker, as any book with death as its main subject matter pretty much has to be. It’s still definitely by the same author, though. Even serious topics are handled in an almost whimsical way. And the love story is just as adorable. 

I thought that the characters in this book were wonderful. Hugo is a very complicated character and must have been difficult to write - he has to be charming and sweet and grounded while also being surrounded by death and duty. He is one of the most interesting characters I’ve read in a long time. Wallace, I feel, might have been an even more difficult character to put down on the page, but for different reasons: his character started out as a total jerk. After the first chapter I wondered how we were ever going to end up rooting for this guy. But I shouldn’t have worried. The other characters were also wonderful in their own ways; I especially loved Mei, the Reaper, who might have been my favorite of the bunch. 

This book also has its really dark and serious moments. There are some truly scary and/or loathsome characters. There is frank discussion of death - natural, murder, and suicide. There is a character who deals with panic attacks. And there is the underlying question behind the whole thing - what is waiting on the other side. 

Even after reading Cerulean Sea and being familiar with Klune’s style, I was not expecting this book. He found a way to make the afterlife both serious and funny, never stepping too far in either direction. And I worried that a love story between a living man and a ghost would get cringy, but I was pleasantly surprised by the direction it took. 

This book is not for everyone - you need to be comfortable with a fair amount of magical realism in your stories. But I think it was a beautiful way of looking at death and regret and it made me laugh and cry just pages apart. One of my favorite books of the year. 

Rating: 5/5 stars

Trigger warning: death, sexual harassment (and joking about it)