Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune | Spoiler-Free Review

"The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share tea, you become family." 

     Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune is a magical realism story that answers that age-old question we have all asked at one point or another: What happens after we die? 

    Wallace Price was a no-nonsense lawyer, who worked hard and then worked harder. That is, until he died, of course. After being interrupted at his own funeral by a Reaper named Meiying, he's transported to Charon's Crossing Tea Shop, where the ferryman Hugo is waiting to help him cross over the doorway to whatever is next. Only, Wallace doesn't exactly want to go. Instead, he spends the weeks after his death haunting the tea shop, along with a mischievous old man and a dog. As the days stretch and Wallace discovers new things about himself and the people around him, he begins to realize he has more keeping him in the world of the living than he originally thought.

    So, let's talk about this book. First, I want to go over the trigger warnings. Obviously this book talks a lot about death and grief, so major trigger warnings for mentions of death, suicide, death of a child, and murder. There is also an on-page panic attack (though it is not happening to the narrator so there aren't any intense thoughts or feelings being described) so be aware of that going in as well. 

    I'm no stranger to grief. It's an old friend, at this point. Well, more like a disgruntled roommate who lurks in the corner of my bedroom eating cup noodle and weeping at Sarah Mclachlen commercials. The point is, we know each other very well. So when I say that this book felt like my grief was happy and laughing, I want you to know how big of a deal that is. It felt like TJ Klune reached through the pages of this book and gave my grief a big, old hug. Which I am assuming is what he set out trying to accomplish, so gold star for him, truly.

    I thought Under the Whispering Door tackled its topics wonderfully, and tactfully. The anxiety representation, while not a huge part of the story, was handled beautifully. I know that not everyone's anxiety is the same, and some people might not see it as an accurate representation to their own anxiety, but it was pretty spot on for me and mine. I like that the dog (his name is Apollo, which is perfect in so many ways) is mentioned to be a service dog, and he does a damn good job of it. And the story talks about death so realistically: everything that lives, also dies. It's inevitable, and there is nothing bad or scary or wrong about it. It's just the way things are. It's what you do with the time you're given that makes living important.

"Death has a beauty to it. We don’t see it because we don’t want to. And that makes sense. Why would we want to focus on something that takes us away from everything we know? How do we even begin to understand that there’s more than what we see?"

    The characters, especially, really made this book for me. First, we have Wallace, who is such a loveable grump. Many times throughout the novel I had to stop to laugh, because so many of Wallace's thoughts and words are exactly how I think and talk. I would like to think that I'm not as much of an asshole as Wallace is, but I can definitely see some similarities between us. Hugo is soft and warm and caring, and so obsessed and protective over tea that you might as well think of him as Uncle Iroh from Avatar: the Last Airbender, if Uncle Iroh was a 30-year-old Black man who drove a mint green Vespa, that is. Mei is feisty and short-tempered, and will absolutely fight you just to fight you, and will most likely do so while holding a set of butcher knives. And then there are Nelson and Apollo, the two other ghosts in the tea shop, who are both a little crazy and live (ha) to make people laugh.

    I really don't have any faults with this book. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn close. I would say if you're grieving someone, this book might help you process that grief. Of course, there will always be exceptions to the rule, so just mind the trigger warnings and trust what your heart is telling you; if its saying this would be too much, listen, and maybe you can come back to it another time.

    But for me, this was exactly what I needed. I gave this book a CAWPILE score of 9.00, which comes out to a whopping five out of five stars. And I'm sure you'll be seeing Under the Whispering Door on my favorites list in the months to come.