Book Review: Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

If you spend any time at all over in the literary corners of Twitter, you will see a lot of discourse. This review is going to touch on the topics of two major conversations that occurred this year:

1. Redemption Narratives
2. Is it OK to DNF a book, and when should you make that call?

The Enduring Popularity of the Redemption Narrative

If you’re not a romance reader, you may have missed the discourse around the Romance Writers of America choosing to award a book that featured a “hero” who had participated in a massacre against Indigenous people. In response to criticism, RWA claimed that a “redemption” narrative was a key part of the inspirational sub-genre of romantic fiction.

Now there’s a lot I could say about that, but I don’t want to get too far off track. Suffice it to say that a lot of people do love a redemption arc, even outside of religious-themed romances. It can be satisfying to watch someone who has lost their way and done bad things find their way back to a healthier place, usually through the power of love. Not always romantic love, per se. Many a hardass has been redeemed by having to care for a child or pet, for example, or by finding acceptance in a found family.

So that leads to the question: who is worthy of redemption? Certain spiritual traditions will tell you that no one is beyond redemption. But even if you believe that, it doesn’t mean you’re comfortable with stories that try to redeem Nazis or serial killers or pedophiles. We all have our individual lines that we draw.

At its heart, Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune is a redemption story. And while I can’t say that the main character Wallace was unworthy of redemption, I started the book in serious doubts as to whether I wanted to spend hundreds of pages watching him earn that redemption.

To DNF or Keep Reading?

More recently, there was a big debate in the literary world over whether it’s ok to DNF (Did Not Finish) a book. On one side, a writer who said if a book doesn’t delight you within the first 20 pages, throw it at the wall. On the other side, a writer who said that DNFing a book was incredibly disrespectful and you should dutifully slog through every book you start no matter how much you hate it, on the off chance that it ends up getting better or you learn something from it.

As you might guess from the tone of the above paragraph, I fall pretty firmly into Team DNF. I do think that 20 pages might be a little extreme, but I will put down a book if it’s not working for me. There are a lot of reasons why I’ll DNF, including writing quality, boredom, or disturbing themes.

And so, when I was two chapters into Under the Whispering Door and I had learned that the main character was not only a financially successful white man, but an absolutely terrible and even cruel boss, I had to ask myself… do I want to continue this book? Clearly Klune was setting Wallace up for a Scrooge-style redemption arc, but… did I care?

What Happened When I Kept Reading

Because Klune’s previous novel (The House in the Cerulean Sea) also had a bit of a rough start for me, I decided to stick with Whispering Door. After all, I saw potential in the secondary character of Mei the Reaper, and Hugo, the psychopomp she was taking Wallace to see, did his soul-ferrying out of a tea shop. There was room for me to be charmed.

And ultimately, I was charmed. In fact, I read the last few chapters before work this morning and my sinuses are still messed up from how hard I cried. So points to Klune for ultimately making me care, even if most of my tears were for the secondary characters (one of them is a dog, and dogs have always made me cry, but doubly so since losing my dog this summer).

Whispering Door is a book about people, living and dead, who are having trouble moving on. There’s a lot of sadness in it, but also a lot of kindness. I think we could all use more kindness right now, which is one reason why I wanted to keep reading.

And Yet…

While I enjoyed reading Under the Whispering Door and I cried like a baby at the ending, I’m not sure I ever really bought Wallace’s transformation. The Wallace of Chapter 1 felt like a completely different person than the Wallace of the Epilogue. He changed throughout the story, but how, and why?

Chapter 1 Wallace felt like a caricature of a bad boss. He didn’t feel like a real person. As we get glimpses of his past and his personality throughout the book, I honestly didn’t see how or why Child and Young Adult Wallace grew into Chapter 1 Wallace. I didn’t feel like there was anything that really explained his single-minded focus on career success. Even his own partners at his law firm thought he was an asshole. But obviously he wasn’t always an asshole, because they all agreed to start their own firm together straight out of school. So what happened to sour those relationships?

After the first few chapters, Wallace becomes a likeable character. I believed in this Wallace. He felt like a real person, who had some flaws, but ultimately had the possibility of being a decent guy. I didn’t see anything in Ghost Wallace’s personality that I could completely tie back to the living person I saw in the first chapter.

This ties back into some of my hesitation with The House in the Cerulean Sea. There were characters in that book which also felt like caricatures, like they were painted in broad strokes. Over all, though, Cerulean Sea had a more whimsical tone, and it fit. There’s some whimsy in Whispering Door as well, but I don’t feel like the balance of whimsy to serious feelings worked as well.

Ultimately, it wasn’t that I felt like Wallace needed to work harder for his redemption. It was more that I didn’t buy his past self as a real character. If the first chapters had done more to establish him as someone with some redeeming qualities, if I could sense that there was a heart of gold under that asshole exterior, maybe that he was a victim of the pressure to succeed at the law firm rather than the source of said pressure, I would have believed his transformation into a kind, vulnerable human being.

In Conclusion

Under the Whispering Door is proof that a book doesn’t have to be perfect to be a good read and inspire emotions. I suspect a lot of people will really enjoy this book, and focus more on the message of helping people move on and less on the fact that obnoxious wealthy white boss men don’t necessarily deserve our sympathy.

Content notes: In addition to general themes of death and loss, Under the Whispering Door specifically touches on suicide, death of a child/parental grief, and pet death. Read with care if you are sensitive to these topics.

FTC Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you use one of my bookshop.org links to make a purchase, I will receive a commission. That said, at the time of writing this post, Under the Whispering Door is sold out at bookshop.org, so I highly recommend checking your local independent bookstore or library for a copy.