Somewhere Beyond the Sea

416 pages

Langue : English

Publié 2024 par Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.

ISBN :: 978-1-250-88120-5

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life, built on the ashes of a bad one. He’s the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six magical and so-called dangerous children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. And he is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth; Zoe Chapelwhite, the island’s sprite; and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make …

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life, built on the ashes of a bad one. He’s the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six magical and so-called dangerous children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. And he is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth; Zoe Chapelwhite, the island’s sprite; and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

2 éditions

Catship a publié une critique de Somewhere Beyond the Sea par T. J. Klune

This book, oof!

Aucune note

Soo. It is much more stressful to read than The House in the Cerulean Sea. But I like it.

It's about how to engage with people who want the worst for you and the ones you love. And I like that the answer found here is not a brilliant strategy for winning, but just.... stopping to make yourself small.

There's so much stressful stuff. It's all about state violence on abstract and personal levels. We get to see Arthur super super triggered and it's so bad, like, it's written very well imo, but I still wished I hadn't read it.

And then there's a ton of nice stuff, and cheesy stuff, and it is a very fluffy story all in all. Just. With a lot of ouch.

I thought I spotted a few nods to Harry Potter in the beginning, and the Acknowledgements make me think …

Soo. It is much more stressful to read than The House in the Cerulean Sea. But I like it.

It's about how to engage with people who want the worst for you and the ones you love. And I like that the answer found here is not a brilliant strategy for winning, but just.... stopping to make yourself small.

There's so much stressful stuff. It's all about state violence on abstract and personal levels. We get to see Arthur super super triggered and it's so bad, like, it's written very well imo, but I still wished I hadn't read it.

And then there's a ton of nice stuff, and cheesy stuff, and it is a very fluffy story all in all. Just. With a lot of ouch.

I thought I spotted a few nods to Harry Potter in the beginning, and the Acknowledgements make me think I got that right. I snorted out loud when I got to that part. The Anti-JK-Rowling! I feel like granting that title to TJ Klune. Why not. Someone has to take that position.

Sam a publié une critique de Somewhere Beyond the Sea par T. J. Klune

A worthy successor, but it has its problems

3 étoiles

While I really enjoyed this book and it still had a lot of what made "The House in the Cerulean Sea" so enjoyable, I didn't find the ending particularly compelling. While the the trans allegory is great, I found the contradiction between the earlier chapters where they're having to convince Lucy that taking the easy way out isn't helpful and will be a hollow victory (he wants to use his power to remove free will and force everyone to accept them), and the end where a queen unilaterally uses force to impose her will on the town, which amounts to the same thing, felt a bit jarring. Surely the point of the early chapters was that the correct way is solidarity and community organizing, not force, but then they end up doing the exact thing the non-magical peoples fear? Unclear exactly what was being said here. That said, I suppose …

While I really enjoyed this book and it still had a lot of what made "The House in the Cerulean Sea" so enjoyable, I didn't find the ending particularly compelling. While the the trans allegory is great, I found the contradiction between the earlier chapters where they're having to convince Lucy that taking the easy way out isn't helpful and will be a hollow victory (he wants to use his power to remove free will and force everyone to accept them), and the end where a queen unilaterally uses force to impose her will on the town, which amounts to the same thing, felt a bit jarring. Surely the point of the early chapters was that the correct way is solidarity and community organizing, not force, but then they end up doing the exact thing the non-magical peoples fear? Unclear exactly what was being said here. That said, I suppose there's nothing wrong with a feel good narrative where you can just punch all the bigots in the face too, it just felt out of place with the rest of the book.