This was really wonderful.- I just love Klune's writing. While the beginning started a little slow, I was fully engrossed with the story throughout. This is just such a unique read!

***Special thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

If I had to relate this story to anything, imagine if Marley had not visited Scrooge before his death. This story centers around Wallace, a man that never realized the error of his ways. After his death, Wallace was shown how his life could have been.

Once again TJ Klune provides a compelling and oftentimes humourous story that grasped my attention throughout, he has quickly become one of the authors I will read without looking at the book itself.

This was a stunning book! Absolutely adored the characters and the storyline so much<3
Will definitely recommend to others!

Under the Whispering Door is a love letter to those that we have lost. Categorized as speculative fiction, TJ Klune wrote a character-driven story about what happens to us after we die. Turns out, it involves making friends in a tea shop. The novel is centered around Wallace, an uptight lawyer who finds himself dead after suffering from a heart attack. But wait, Wallace has so many meetings to manage, so many forms to sign…he can’t die yet. With no choice in the matter, Wallace learns to accept his fate while meeting a few new friends along the way.

Despite how little the story progresses, I found Under the Whispering Door to be an engaging read that asks readers to think about life, death, and the unknown. I wasn’t the biggest fan of how easily the ending wrapped up, but I really enjoyed the thought-provoking, yet wholesome story. TJ Klune is a prolific writer and I can’t wait for what he writes next!

Content warnings: death, grief, suicide, child death, death of a parent, animal death

TJ Klune strikes gold again! This book is such a unique take on death and what happens after while staying humorous. Serious topics sometimes need humor to help people get through them and this book walks that line beautifully.

I didn't connect with this one as much as T J Klune's debut, but it has the same type of lovely, gentle characters who you can't help but root for. I really admire Klune's creativity in the magical realism space, and I can't wait to see what comes next.

T.J. Klune did it again! While the plot of this book was different from The House In the Cerulean Sea, the beauty of the writing and the expert development of the characters stayed wonderfully consistent. I think The House In the Cerulean Sea is still be my favorite book for the year, but this one is definitely going to make my top ten (if not top five.)

Wallace Price has done very little with his life. He has no friends, no children, and an ex-wife who can’t stand him. None of which bothers him until he’s already dead. (Not a spoiler… we learn all of this in the first few pages, and his death is required for all of the events in this book to actually occur.) From his sparsely-attended funeral, he is escorted to a ferryman, a living person who can actually see Wallace and whose job it is to help him accept his death and move on to whatever comes next. But Wallace does not want to prepare for whatever comes next because he has discovered that he is only really beginning to live.

Even though the main character is already dead, I thought it was clever how the book unpacked the idea of what you would do and how you would live if you knew that the end was only a few days away. Wallace was a character who put work above all else and didn’t discover what else might be important in life until it was already too late for him. I thought the idea of developing a character’s morality and humanity only after his death was interesting, and I also enjoyed the slow burn of the developing love story.

All in all, I highly recommend this book, and I can’t wait to read even more from this spectacular author.

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.

Loved this story about children, an older and gentleman and the fantasy’s they live through. I’d had heard a lot about this book. To me it was a little hard to get into but otherwise enjoyed it.

Content warnings: Death; grief in a lot of detail; mentions of suicide; discussion of terminal illness, including of children; death of a child.

If I could choose one word to describe this book, it would be ‘warm’. It’s one of those things where it sounds so cheesy to say, but it just feels so warm and sweet and full of acceptance, like a big hug. It’s not that it doesn’t tackle difficult subjects, because obviously, given the content, it does, but while it could have been a big ball of preachiness, it sidesteps that so neatly and just leaves you feeling really hopeful and comforted. I cried, yes, but from such complicated emotions!

I was a huge fan of TJ Klune’s previous book, The House in the Cerulean Sea, and while the two books aren’t linked, they share a certain spirit of friendship (and romance) showing a character how to break out of the isolated rut they’ve gotten trapped into. But while Linus, the previous protagonist, was a lonely sweetheart, Wallace, our main character this time round is – to put it bluntly – a total arsehole. It’s an absolute wonder how someone so completely unlikeable to begin with can develop so brilliantly across the course of a book – the character work here is top notch. In fact, it’s not just Wallace who shines, but every single character in the tea shop is someone who’ll stick with me for a long time. The emotions and personalities are depicted so well that I couldn’t help but feel connected to everyone. Hugo is such a sweetheart, and I loved Mei, who combines confidence and insecurity so well.

Honestly, it’s a little bit tricky to describe a book like this, because reading it is such an experience. I can tell you that there’s some hilariously funny bits, and some terribly sad bits, and some hilariously-funny-and-terribly-sad bits, and some bits that just feel so raw and real and bittersweet… but I’m not sure that it’s enough, because part of falling in love with this book is letting the characters sweep you away. I will say that it’s fairly intense on the death and grief theme, so if you find that a difficult subject, it might not be one for you; I thought it was all dealt with really sensitively (and secularly!), but just be careful of your own limits. There is a content warning saying this upfront in the book, which I massively appreciate seeing.

So, I won’t say too much more, because I truly think this is a book you want to let flow over you. But if you enjoyed The House in the Cerulean Sea, this is another simply gorgeous read from TJ Klune, and if you like your fantasy warm and character-focused, with a heaping dose of heart, this is a must read. Five out of five cats!

This book was AMAZING!!! I didn't think TJ Klune could ever top The House in the Cerulean Sea but he did it. The characters are so well written you feel like you actually know them. Even the secondary characters are fleshed out enough that you almost forget they aren't one of the main characters. His descriptions of people, places, events, everything, is incredible. This book drives home that no one should be given up on and everyone deserves a second chance. One of my favorite books of 2021!

Under The Whispering Door by @tjklune
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

•Thank you to @netgalley and @torbooks for providing a digital copy of Under The Whispering Door in exchange of a honest review.

Officially my favorite book of 2021 so far! I adore every single pages of it. It made me sob, laugh and everything in between. The Tea Shop/ House reminds me of the Weasley's family home "The Burrow" from Harry Potter in the best possible way. It feels like home, not only the house, but the people in it. I love that book with all my heart, I know I will end up re-reading it multiple times. 🤍

I did a read/listen with this wonderful story and have been thinking about it since I finished. I know my review will not do this book justice. First I want to say that as a Christian I was a bit worried about this depiction of life after death, but it was not the case. This was a beautiful story that had me near tears several times. Wallace Price is not a very nice man. He has dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of forty, and he is not willing to accept that his life is over. His funeral is a sad affair with only four colleagues, an ex-wife and a strange woman in attendance. It turns out that this woman is a reaper, Mei, and is there to take him to a waystation between Life and Death, a quaint tea-shop run by the Ferryman Hugo. He also meets Hugo’s dead grandfather and Hugo’s dog. That is all I am going to say about the plot of this story, as you must experience it for yourself.

As the blurb says, Wallace wants to live a life that he never had, but only has a week to do it. With only a few souls around he learns what he has missed, what real emotion feels like and what his life could have been. The secondary characters are amazing, they answer Wallace's questions when they can, but it is his journey and they do not interfere. I am glad I was on this journey. T.J. Klune had me near tears at some points and laughing at others. We see how people can be so different from one another, yet still learn from them and know that they will influence out lives. This is a book I recommend to anyone and everyone. It is a beautiful, heartfelt story that will leave you thinking about life.

Under The Whispering Door is another absolute masterpiece from TJ Klune. I loved this book so much. I knew it was supposed to be different from The House in the Cerulean Sea so I was afraid I wasn't going to like this one as much. I shouldn't have been surprised on how much I ended up liking it. It was beautifully written and the characters were so amazing. This book warmed my heart. There were serious parts to the book that makes you think about life and death, there were beautiful parts where the characters are connecting and there were hilarious parts that made me laugh out loud so hard. This book truly was everything that I could want in a story. I loved everything about it. I can't recommend this book, or this author enough.

I loved the authors previous books but this one missed the mark for me. I felt the messages in this book were a bit forced and didn’t flow quite so well. There was also an interesting extremely sad part of a mother losing a child that was hard to read. I didn’t love it but I still look forward to future books from him.

I will not be reading a book by a person who has no understanding of the horrors of what happened to the Indigenous children. I'm sure it is a very charming book but the author needs to get educated

There is not enough time and space for all the amazing things to be said about this book. This is a beautiful masterpiece and TJ Klune delivers perfectly once again! Right off the bat the vibes are absolutely The Christmas Carol but written with more passion and thought. The characters are beautifully developed throughout the book that makes you connect so easily with them all. Klune takes such a sensitive subject and brings it so much life that makes you think what more there is in the afterlife.

What to say about this book?!? The emotions that it brought forth was cathartic. Found family and the bestest boi ghost dog, I happy cried my way through this book in a single setting.

It was wholesome, devastating, and so real that Klune has officially been put on my auto-buy list.

I recommend this book to anyone who needs to face something that has happened to them.

yep, pleased to confirm that tj klune did it AGAIN.

i think it is impossible at this point not to enjoy one of his books, which is absolutely testament to the way he writes characters and relationships, given the different themes of this to his other popular novel, 'the house in the cerulean sea'. i think this one took me a little longer to get into, but once i was invested i devoured it within the day. wallace, the main character of this novel, goes on a journey to discover what 'being alive' really means - in the weeks after his death!

i thought this was a really beautiful exploration of death and grief, and what it really means to LIVE. especially with the world as it is, and has been for the past 18 months, i found this a very cathartic read that encouraged me to think differently about my life and the people in it, and how i want to be looked back on when i'm gone. wallace went on a similar journey here, and i became invested in his story and especially his relationships with hugo, mei and nelson (and apollo!! good boy!!!)

i really cannot recommend tj klune's books enough to anyone who is looking for a heartwarming, sensitive, inclusive read - though definitely bring some tissues for this one.

This one was a little more serious than House in the Cerulean Sea, but nonetheless just as enjoyable. I can't wait for more of Klune's cozy gay reads.

There isn't wasn't words for how beautiful this book it. I loved TJ Klune last book, it warmed my heart in a way a book hasn't in a lot time.

This one was just the same. If you want a book which warms your heart and then haunts you in a good way for weeks