Ponder: Somewhere Beyond the Sea

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune ©2024 is a sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea which I read and thoroughly enjoyed, awarding it five stars in my December 2021 post. I am disappointed to report that the sequel, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, fell far short of my expectations and I am rating it only two stars.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is the charming, creative tale of an orphanage for  magical children who are housed on an island segregated from the main population of the village. The children are feared to be dangerous monsters, because they are not yet mature enough to be able to control their special powers. The children are Chauncey, a green amorphous blob with eyes on stalks on top of his head; Phee, a sprite/fairy; Talia, a gnome;  Lucy, a charming, intelligent six-year-old whose nickname is short for Lucifer;  Sal, a teenage shapeshifter;  and Theodore, a wyvern.  A fan artist created these renderings of the six orphans. Surprisingly, they match incredibly with the images I pictured in my mind while reading the book.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a continuation of the story where a seventh child, a young yeti name David is added to the mix. The orphanage is audited to "assure the safety" of the children but the motives are not at all altruistic. Although TJ Klune does a good job of reprising facts from the first book so that even a reader who has not read The House in the Cerulean Sea can still follow, I would advise against reading the sequel. No more imagination is added. Additional magic was fun, amusing and brought a smile to my face. I can see its potential to be made into a movie with opportunities for extensive computer graphics; but the description in the text were vivid enough I can see and enjoy the scenes in my mind. And this second book was very preachy... and philosophical... and long. I just wanted to be finished. This book's rating on Amazon was 4.5 out of 5 which surprised me. I did strongly agree with the two and three star review comments and cited one of them below as expressing my sentiments very well.

If you are curious about the transgender comments remark of J.K. Rowling this Glamour magazine article might help. (Yes, weird I know coming from Glamour magazine.) Ok, this is a much longer review than I intended for a book I did not like. It did get me thinking but then it repeatedly pounded those thoughts into my brain ad nauseam.

★★☆☆☆ Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it