The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune
Chock full of metaphors, with a delightful mix of characters and exquisite writing, The House explores life's inequities in a fun, colorful way.
This is a gay friendly book, in every new and ancient definition of the word.
And a cat.
Linus Baker is a working drone who does what he is told and follows the rules. He leads a lonely life, but he tells himself he is happy. He grows sunflowers -- the only spot of color in his drab life -- and loves listening to early rock 'n' roll on his Victrola. He's a caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, and we first meet him while he is on an assignment checking out one of the orphanages under the department's control.
He is thorough. He tells himself he cares, and he kinda does. He is methodical. But he is disinterested in what happens after he files his reports -- it's not in his job description. Linus is a good person. But he dares not go outside his comfort zone. It's against the rules.
That is, until the day Linus is called before Extremely Upper Management and given a unique, classified assignment -- to check out a secret orphange on a distant island and see if the children there are perhaps too magical and too dangerous. Oh yeah, and check out the Master of the House, one Arthur Parnassus, to ensure he is following the rules.
The metaphors continue as Linus leaves his dreary life in the city on a rainy day -- he again forgets his umbrella -- to take a long train ride to the island on the edge of the ocean. The rain lets up. The clouds disappear. The sun breaks out. The grey sky brightens into a cheery cerulean. He can smell the salt in the air and hear the waves in the ocean. "Then lights began to shine at his feet. ... They were soft and yellow, like a brick road."
There he meets the children. There's Talia, a girl gnome who loves tending her garden and threatening to bury Linus. Phee is a forest sprite with a special relationship to trees and flowers. Theodore is a wyvern, and Sol is a shapeshifter with anxiety problems.
Chauncey is -- well, no one is quite sure what Chauncey is. He's an airy creature, with his eyes on stalks, kinda like Oblina from Real Monsters, but less dense. He hides under beds because he's been told that's what monsters are supposed to do. But he cannot bring himself to scare anyone. His dream is to become a bellhop.
Then there is Lucy, short for Lucifer, a six-year-old boy who is literally the son of the devil. Lucy is proud of his heritage, but suffers from nightmares. Lucy is an intriguing, if over-the-top character, treated with wisdom and humor and compassion.
"Regardless of his parentage, he is a child," Arthur, the house manager, tells Linus. "And I refuse to believe that a person's path is set in stone. A person is more than where they come from. ... Behind the eyes and the demon in his soul, he is charming and witty and terribly smart."
In addition to Mr. Parnassus, a magical, mystical guy himself, adults include Zoe Chapelwhite, an island sprite who watches her island and sometimes the children. And there's Merle, the grumpy ferryman who delivers people to and from the island.
Lucy is wonderfully compelling. As the son of the devil, he is always threatening death and destruction, and predicting he will wind up as everyone's overlord. But he is six years old, and pictured as a tousle-haired, rambunctious orphan who craves attention.
The key to the tale is that as Linus begins to observe the children and Mr. Parnassus, he takes notes and writes reports back home in his usual style. But he soon gets sucked into their lives and individual needs, and must keep telling himself to remain objective. He also becomes enamored with Mr. Parnassus, but can neither explain nor understand the attraction.
His struggles of understanding are the heart of the story. And the metaphors become clear as we move along and open our hearts and minds to all of the story's characters.
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