Somewhere Beyond the Sea

TJ Klune
Completed 1/2/2025 Reviewed 1/3/2025
5 Stars

My goodness!  I am so loving Klune’s work.  Everything I read by him just seems amazing.  My hopes for this sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea were not so high.  But as I read, I gently returned to the island where Arthur and Linus raise the magical children in a healthy environment, as opposed to the dastardly wishes and actions of the government.  It is a worthy sequel to its predecessor. I loved this book.  

The book opens with a jump back to when Arthur first returned to the island orphanage where he was abused as a magical child by a horrific headmaster, meets Zoe the island sprite, and begins rebuilding the house as a safe place for magical children.  Then it jumps to the present, where Arthur and Linus are raising the children we met in the first book.  All seems well, until Arthur is summoned to appear at a hearing about the welfare of the children.  He is informed there will be an on-site investigation.  The investigator is not like Linus.  Instead she seems determined to take the children away.  Arthur and his family do everything they can to throw a wrench into her investigation, but she is ruthless.  And it is not enough, leaving Arthur and Linus as well as Zoe and her girlfriend Helen to try to find a way to turn the tide of the government’s abusive practices on magicals.

It's hard to review a book when enamored with everything about it.  I loved the main characters, of course.  But even the baddies from the government agency are multidimensional, showing cracks in their cool, evil exteriors that make you, and them, see their humanity.  And the messages the book conveys are so good, too.  Like the quandry of what to do when confronted with hate.  Lucy, the seven-year-old Antichrist, most specifically has to deal with his desire to just send the bad people straight to Hell versus everything that Linus, Arthur, and the other children have taught him.  Another is the embracing of problematic words.  A new child, David, is a yeti and wants to be known as a monster even though that word is discouraged by the family because it is used as an offensive slur.  It’s similar to the embracing of the word queer in the LGBTQ+ community, taking the power away from it and making it something beautiful.  

I think this book is a little more philosophical than the first, with more discussions between Arthur and Linus with the children.  But it’s hard to notice when the discussions are so playful and healthy.  However, like the multidimensionality of the bad people, Arthur and Linus are not just angelic goodies.  They, especially Arthur, must keep their cool despite the inner desire to lash out.  Arthur must deal with his magical side, as a phoenix, which threatens to give the government the excuse it needs to remove the children from Arthur and Linus.  

I just can’t say enough wonderful things about this book.  I loved the writing, the dialogue, the action, the development of the children, and so many other things.  Klune’s books are simply cozy reads despite the conflicts that move the plot forward.  One of my goals this year is to read some of his earlier catalogue, which has recently been republished.  I realize earlier works may not be up to par with his newer works, but I’m willing to take that chance.  I give this book five out of five stars.