House in the Cerulean Sea, The

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He can't let his heart be broken by the various banshees, dryads, fairies, werewolves and other magical children he meets during his inspections, many of whom have gone from foster home to foster home and suffered untold years of abuse just for being who they are. The House In The Cerulean Sea is not a novel I would normally read as I often struggle with books in the fantasy genre. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. When I read the blurb about how this is about a home for children with special powers, I rolled my eyes. So from that I assumed that this book was supposed to be somewhat farcical, which I was not expecting in an adult fantasy book, but I went with it.

It had strong messages and themes at its heart, and yes, sometimes these messages were hammered home a bit, and perhaps could have been conveyed a bit more subtly, but that didn't stop the themes from resonating.Despite considering himself a mere cog in a much bigger wheel, his rule-following and to the point reports have caught their eye.

Management hires him for a top secret mission: they want him to investigate Marysas Island Orphanage where six extremely dangerous kids reside: a gnome, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, a sprite and an baby Lucy Morningstar! So this prince arrives, gets entangled in a mess like situation which makes him feel like he's been made fun of, or not taken seriously at all, or just that he's been taken as someone easy to be with. It is probably meant for adults, but it's a great read for those as young as middle grade (I would let my 5th grader read it if her reading level was advanced enough). So, of course Linus' heart grows three sizes, and he has to learn to stop being such a rule-follower and start actually standing up for a principle. While no part of this book "wowed" me, I just constant had a smile on my face while reading and was engrossed in finding out what would happen here with the plot - even though it's extremely obvious from the beginning.J. Klune fans and those new to his writing, The House in the Cerulean Sea is a heart-warming, wholesome, diverse, ridiculous, and completely lovable fantasy story.

He never lets himself get attached to the children—until he’s sent to Marsyas Island Orphanage, run by a Mr. TJ KLUNE is a Lambda Literary Award-winning author (Into This River I Drown) and an ex-claims examiner for an insurance company. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. And if that’s starting to sound like a very familiar real-world story, just with Black or Native American people turned into magical/monstrous beings, well, yeah. The message is essentially "This place isn't so bad, they just needed to find someone in the system who cared about them.However, when Linus finds himself on the Island of Marsyas, tasked with inspecting the orphanage there run by Arthur Parnassus, an orphanage like no other, he is completely unprepared for what awaits him! Linus' internal voice is mostly observational, spending most of it's time observing his own feelings at that, and not particularly introspective or analytical. He has to keep his head down, do his job, and trust that Extremely Upper Management knows what they are doing. Caseworker Linus Baker of the Department in Charge of Magical Youths (DICOMY) has the distinct appearance of someone with a stick up his ass. And then us readers find it and it makes every struggle you’re going through just that much more manageable.