The House in the Cerulean Sea

I decided to join my library's book club this year, and this was our first read of the year.

It was an alright read - I loved a lot of the characters, especially Arthur. I thought the perspective of this story was pretty interesting as well. The themes and setting of this book are ones that will be familiar to a lot of YA readers - you have a group of misfits in a magical school setting, and this theme of finding yourself and standing up for your beliefs in a vaguely dystopian setting. All that seems kind of familiar. However, what was unique was seeing that from the perspective of Linus, a middle-aged man, rather than from a precocious teen. That changes how we experience the story in a big way, I think.

One thing that I wish the story did better was to give us a more well-rounded world - the world beyond Marsyas felt very underdeveloped and vaguely sketched out. I think it would have made the story stronger to have a greater sense of just how different the world is from our own.