Title: Under the Whispering Door

Author: TJ Klune

Publisher: Tor Books 2021

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 390

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf; Unread Shelf RC - Special Occasion

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.

Another delightful hug of a book from Klune. I was in tears throughout the entire last chapter; happy tears. Klune has this magical way of writing stories and characters that you want to see them have their happily ever after. You want everyone in the books to overcome their obstacles and be happy. You think that you might just be able to do that same for your own life after reading this. Every once in while, I really need a book like this (especially after the last disappointing read). While his previous adult book was about home and family, this one is more about philosophy of life. There is a lot of discussion about how to live your life, your regrets, your dreams. We get some pretty profound conversations between the characters discussing many of these aspects. We get to see a character make a radical change in philosophy. It’s beautiful. The side characters are amazing (seriously wanted to know even more about Mei!) and we get a few twists that I did not see coming. I wanted to savor this book, but ended up speeding through it just loving every page.

Next up on the TBR pile: