Somewhere Beyond the Sea

aesmael reviewed Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

No rating

Content warning Talking about disliking the ending

Finding myself angrier about Somewhere Beyond the Sea than I expected. For a book that is dedicated to trans people and features technically-not-Rowling as its villain, it features a single non-binary character in a brief, barely speaking role. No major characters are trans, and this isn't because because the series is devoted to using magical beings as a stand-in oppressed class—one of the children specifically calls out that because he is Black, there are aspects of his oppression that his adoptive white (magical) father is not equipped to understand as intimately.

And "Rowder" for example is also specifically mentioned as having forwarded homophobic and transphobic legislation before she got put in charge of oppressing magical persons. So people experiencing these marginalisations are present in the story world, the author just doesn't feature them in a story that he dedicates to them and bases off them. Nearest comes is "Rowder"'s minion Harriet (haha) having some physical features that I thought might have made her trans coded, just as one of the romantic leads in the first & second books had some features that at first I thought might have signified him as a trans man. But apparently not.

I think maybe what I am maddest about is how easy things were for them in the end. In the real world we don't get to turn things around by going out and about in the community for a year. We don't have a monarch who can simply banish our oppressors from our sanctuary. We can't provoke "Rowder" into behaving abusively and expressing bigotry in front of a crowd of journalists and have her shuffled out of public life and relevance shortly thereafter.

Or maybe it's the idea that she actually suffered at the hands of the people she oppresses, in the past? That's one of the classic problems of using supernatural beings to represent marginalised categories of people--we can't really zap people with lightning or turn them into trees or whatever other terrible thing is taken as justification for oppression. In the real world, marginalised people are just people.

I think I would have preferred if this story stuck to the realm of the supernatural, and didn't try to make a direct statement about events in the real world. Wouldn't have felt like such glaring omissions then. Wouldn't have felt like a slap in the face to be reminded of the easy endings we don't get.

Perhaps this is a matter of clashing preferences. I think I prefer stories where either marginalisation is not depicted as e.g. queer romance is taken as a matter of course in the first book. Or if it is depicted it be treated in a more serious manner as in e.g. the systemic bureaucratic grind magical beings are made to endure earlier in the story.

But no matter the reason, this book aggravates me. Which is a shame as there is otherwise a lot to delight in with The House on the Cerulean Sea and Somewhere Beyond the Sea.

Lazy_Cat reviewed Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

Encompassing

4 stars

In this sequel, we switch our point of view character to Arthur Parnassus, learning more about him even as we see the advancement of the plot and world setting.

This book feels like it's trying to tackle and cover a LOT of ground--more than the first book, which already had a fair amount going on. It has its sweet moments, but it also has more that are grounded in reality than I'd say the first book. I find it a worthy successor--I quite enjoyed it.

In this sequel, we switch our point of view character to Arthur Parnassus, learning more about him even as we see the advancement of the plot and world setting.

This book feels like it's trying to tackle and cover a LOT of ground--more than the first book, which already had a fair amount going on. It has its sweet moments, but it also has more that are grounded in reality than I'd say the first book. I find it a worthy successor--I quite enjoyed it.

Sam reviewed Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

A worthy successor, but it has its problems

3 stars

While I really enjoyed this book and it still had a lot of what made "The House in the Cerulean Sea" so enjoyable, I didn't find the ending particularly compelling. While the the trans allegory is great, I found the contradiction between the earlier chapters where they're having to convince Lucy that taking the easy way out isn't helpful and will be a hollow victory (he wants to use his power to remove free will and force everyone to accept them), and the end where a queen unilaterally uses force to impose her will on the town, which amounts to the same thing, felt a bit jarring. Surely the point of the early chapters was that the correct way is solidarity and community organizing, not force, but then they end up doing the exact thing the non-magical peoples fear? Unclear exactly what was being said here. That said, I suppose …

While I really enjoyed this book and it still had a lot of what made "The House in the Cerulean Sea" so enjoyable, I didn't find the ending particularly compelling. While the the trans allegory is great, I found the contradiction between the earlier chapters where they're having to convince Lucy that taking the easy way out isn't helpful and will be a hollow victory (he wants to use his power to remove free will and force everyone to accept them), and the end where a queen unilaterally uses force to impose her will on the town, which amounts to the same thing, felt a bit jarring. Surely the point of the early chapters was that the correct way is solidarity and community organizing, not force, but then they end up doing the exact thing the non-magical peoples fear? Unclear exactly what was being said here. That said, I suppose there's nothing wrong with a feel good narrative where you can just punch all the bigots in the face too, it just felt out of place with the rest of the book.