Under the Whispering Door

I loved House on the Cerulean Sea, but this one was just okay. Nothing bad about it per se, but it just wasn't as captivating for me as the other.

This is the first book I read for the book club my friends and I have now. We're following the illumicrate calendar. Reading the description, I expected this to be a fun romp but it's really more of a slow romance. Unfortunately, I found almost all characters annoying. Mei (the reaper) verges on manic pixie dream girl and Nelson comes off as pretty mean. Even though Wallace is very unsympathetic I couldn't help but feel exasperated on his behalf as Mei and Nelson weren't very helpful or were even having him on, given that finding out you're dead is a difficult situation to be in. They grow more sympathetic over time, though. After the initial excitement the book is rather slow moving and I lost interest. Not sure I would have finished it if it wasn't a book club book. The pace picks up again in the second half and it gets very moving towards the end. I liked that many characters were queer and that that was treated as something normal and accepted.

Still unsure how I feel about the version of afterlife depicted in this book.

This book loses a star because the protagonist is such a jerk to begin with that the obligatory transformation doesn't feel plausible.

That said, it's another extremely heartwarming tale with a bit of deus ex machina to wrap things up with a nice tidy bow.

I read about a quarter of the book. The main character is a horrid creep - and I don't care if he changes. Buh-bye!