Hello friends! Welcome to our discussion of Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. This discussion is part of our 2022 Book Exchange. This is one of Michaela's favorite books so she has chosen this book as her Book Exchange choice and has given it to Jacilyn to read.
Trigger Warning!!! This book contains situations and subjects related to: death, grief, loss, suicide, murder, and spooky/creepy elements.
Spoiler Warning!!! This post is full of spoilers for Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune.
Discussion:
Michaela: Hello friends and welcome to our first ever Book Exchange discussion. This time I picked out a book for Jacilyn to read that is a personal favorite of mine. We will be discussing Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. This book hit me right in the feelings, in full force. I love this book. This book is about grief and loss, how friends and found family can change you, and how you can change yourself. The characters in this book process grief and loss very similarly to how I do and I cannot tell you how amazing this book is to me. Which all of that is why I chose this book for Jacilyn to read.
Jacilyn: This book destroyed me in the best way. I finished it last night, and spent the last hour and a half of the book crying. The House in the Cerulean Sea was a beautiful, emotional book, but it is much lighter than UtWD is. That’s not a bad thing by any means! It just meant that while HitCS is like a hug from a friend you haven’t seen in awhile, UtWD was like a hug from a loved one when you feel like you’re falling apart.
Michaela: I fully agree. In my original notes about this book when I read it in February says “it’s like a warm hug you didn’t know you needed”. And it truly does feel that way, even after reading it a second time. I think the magical essence and found family themes from House in the Cerulean Sea carries over this book even though it’s in a different world. Though there was a reference to a picture of a “strange house on a hill in a cerulean sea” which gave me so much joy.
What’s different about this book for me is that our main character is extremely unlikeable at the beginning and continues that way for a hefty chunk of the book in the beginning. Wallace, in life, was a horrible person and we watched him journey through that realization. I can’t really think of any other book where I have disliked this main character so much right off the bat. But thus is the magic of TJ Klune’s writing because I could not help but still care for Wallace and care about what happened to him.
Jacilyn: I was kind of astounded at the beginning. Like, I knew he wasn’t a great man when he was alive before I read the book, but the extent of it still surprised me. The scene where he’s firing the woman at the firm was ROUGHHHHHHH. Because of how awful he was in the beginning, I actually thought that he started changing rather quickly once he arrived at Charon’s Crossing. He was a jerk at first, sure, but it was understandable considering the shock he was going through. Not justified, but it made sense.
It became pretty clear why Wallace was the way he was as we learned more about his past, though. The poor guy definitely didn’t grow up in a family like Hugo’s, so he wasn’t exactly set up to be an emotionally intelligent man. Learning about his relationship with Naomi and the way their relationship began and eventually eroded…. It kind of broke my heart. I mean, most of this book broke my heart, to be honest. In the best of ways, though. There were so many depictions of people who have had trauma in their lives, and the different ways it can affect you. Cameron, Nancy, Hugo, Wallace, Mei, Alan….. All of them. And I think part of what I really like about this book is that, really, that’s the experience for most people. Most people experience trauma in their life, of some kind, and I think we often forget that.
Michaela: I also felt that Wallace’s redemption arc of becoming a better person was a little fast but at the same time he could only remain a jerk for so long before it would become too much for me as a reader. I think, also, that the shock of death would probably jar him forward a little bit harder so it doesn’t feel completely unrealistic. Also could be a magical effect caused by Hugo and just the whole *waves hands* afterlife stuff.
I really love the representation of a few different types of traumas. Obviously we can’t explore every kind of trauma out there but the ones we see in this book felt very real. Cameron’s story in particular just hits me right in the heart, and when he goes through the door and starts talking to his partner….I’m teary eyed just thinking about that moment. It’s so beautiful. I also appreciate the short but significant glimpse into Cameron’s life after losing his partner. We see his experience with depression and we know that he completed suicide. Then even after death we see how Cameron still experiences these things and his fears about passing further on. I just really love this writing and representation of depression. The same with Hugo and his representation of a different kind of depression and anxiety. We even get a tiny look into Naomi’s experiences with anxiety. I think the writing does a good job at normalizing these things that so many of us go through daily.
I think that by reading this book, I feel like I’m reading something written by someone who actually understands. And if any of you guys don’t know, TJ Klune experienced something in his personal life that you can tell really influenced this book. In the acknowledgments he mentions how important this book was just for himself to write, and I love that he did that for himself and that he chose to share it with the world.
This book has so many things that I love mixed together. Found family, Christmas memories, a bouncy dog, tea (I fucking love tea), the afterlife, and even some spooky elements. The characters in this book are just *chef’s kiss* for me; Nelson, Apollo, and Mei are definitely my favorites. Nelson’s love for Hugo and how he wants to be there for him even in death, my whole heart loves that man. Apollo, I’m sobbing, the best therapy dog even if he doesn’t always do it correctly. And Mei, she is so funny and caring. Most of the times I laughed because of this book were because of those three characters. While this book is about grief we still get quite a bit of humorous moments.
Jacilyn: If you guys haven’t yet read this blog post by Klune, you should consider it. Especially if you’re a fan of this book. Having the background knowledge of what Klune went through with his own Sunshine Man made this book hit even harder. At first, I thought perhaps Klune was basing Wallace’s character on himself, based on the self-hatred he experienced after losing his partner. But in continuing the book, the parallels between his story and Cameron’s were the most obvious. The way Klune expresses emotions in his writing is probably the best I’ve ever read. He just has a knack for describing what it’s like to go through heavy emotions, in all of their complicated glory, and if you’ve experienced the same - you’ll know. You’ll recognize it. And it feels incredibly cathartic and validating and heartbreaking and uplifting all at once.
My favorite part of this entire book was when Nelson and Wallace teamed up against Desdemona to stand up for Mei and get her to leave. I haven’t laughed out loud at a book like that in awhile. “Stupid autocorrect. I meant liver.” had me actually cackling. I love the relationship that Wallace built with everyone at Charon’s Crossing. As usual, Klune knows how to create characters that make you want to be friends with them, too. It was hard to say goodbye to Nelson and Apollo, but I know they’ll keep each other company wherever they end up after they go through the door.
The Manager was an interesting character for me. At first I thought I hated him, but at the end it becomes clear that he’s kind of under the management of others higher than even himself - whoever he was talking to at the door. I don’t know if he was speaking to the same whisperers that Nelson and Wallace and the other dead hear, or if it was someone entirely different. I think that, like many beings who are seemingly all powerful, he is bored and detached from humanity. Hugo and the others knew that, and were able to use that as a bargaining chip. But let me tell you, I was NOT expecting Wallace to be resurrected. I really thought he was ready to go, that he was going to pass on and meet Sunshine Man and Hugo’s parents and grandma and watch over Hugo and Mei from wherever he ended up. When he got to stay, when Hugo got to finally touch him…. My gods, so many tears.
Michaela: I also thought that Klune was writing himself into Wallace at first, and maybe aspects of it were but it was clearly Cameron. The imagery of Cameron as a Husk really felt like Klune’s personalization of depression. Husk Cameron only ever wanted to get help and to touch Wallace, someone he recognized as knowing depression and pushing people away. They were connected in a way that they weren’t with Hugo. And even the creepiness of Husk Cameron catching a flake of Wallace’s spirit on his tongue felt like it was showing that Cameron needed a taste of humanity back. The whole concept of a Husk is beautifully eerie. Also, we see Nancy, who I interpreted as an alive version of a Husk. She lost her very young daughter to an illness. Nancy is lost and empty and searching for help she doesn’t know how to find, just like Cameron. Wallace helping Nancy was an amazing scene to read.
Wallace and Nelson are a dynamic comedic duo, and then throw Mei into the mix and I’m over here dying of laughter. I just could not get enough of the mix of sadness, hope, and comedy that this book has in it. This mix is exactly what I look for in books about the afterlife. Also, honorable mention to this book being about the afterlife but also not being about religion. I am not a religious person and find religious solutions to death and the afterlife to never feel comforting for me.
I was really curious how you were going to feel about the Manager. I still don’t know how even I feel about the Manager. He is essentially a little god, he calls himself one of the oldest beings in existence and a guardian of the doors. I desperately need to know more about the magic of this afterlife. He is such a strange character. He reminds me of Lucy from House in the Cerulean Sea, in the way that he is a small child full of knowledge that you wouldn’t think he should have to have the responsibility of knowing. But unlike Lucy, I find the Manager to be really creepy and narcissistic. At the same time he does have some of his own brand of character development at the end. Along with the Manager and the Husks, the magic of the door has that same eerie yet beautiful feel to them and I just eat that shit up.
Nelson and Apollo going through the door at the end BROKE ME! When I tell you I fucking sobbed at this book, it is an understatement. After that moment I literally had to set the book down because my eyes could no longer see from the ocean of tears filling them. Nelson’s last words are:
“Oh, I never…I never thought…All this light. All these colors. I think…yes. Yes, I hear you I see you, oh my god, I see you. Hugo! Hugo it’s real. All of it is real. It’s life. It’s life. I’m home.”
I cannot handle this part. Just typing out the quote, I’m crying. And Apollo “barks happily”. I have thought about this moment of this book so many times since reading it. Something about this moment is exactly what I need to hear. I have lost family members in my life and pets. I didn’t know when I read it in February that this year is exactly when I needed this book and I’m so grateful I have it in my heart now. This year, just in the last few months, I have lost two family dogs and a horse that my family has had since before I was born (she was 28 years old) and this book was in my thoughts through each one of those losses. I will be revisiting this book every time I need comfort with grief and loss. It is exactly what I need, it is the tightest hug.
Jacilyn: It’s an incredible book. Thank you for choosing this one for me. I had been putting off reading any of Klune’s other works, because I was worried that they wouldn’t hold up to HitCS. I was wrong to have been worried about that, and reading this book was what I needed to spur me to read his others. I have my own experiences with death, like most of us have, and honestly beginning to think of those deaths with this book on my mind is overwhelming. I began that last night, after I finished reading, and it just felt too vast to think about. It made me think a lot about what I think might happen to us after we die. I still don’t know. Most of me feels as if we just cease to be. And I think there’s a beauty in that. But part of me kind of wishes that there might be more. Not heaven - I’m not religious, I don’t believe in any god or religious afterlife. That’s not something that appeals to me. But I do understand why it appeals to others. In any case, this book is a great pick for anyone who has lived through loss and grief.
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