Under the Whispering Door - BookWyrm

Paperback, 400 pages

Published Aug. 30, 2022 by Tor Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-21739-4

(1 review)

Welcome to Charon's Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead. But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.

8 editions

Flauschbuch reviewed Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

Not my cup of tea

3 stars

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 …

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.