Books like The House in the Cerulean Sea
What should you read after TJ Klune’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- TJ Klune
- 2020
- 398 pages
- Cosy fantasy
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after The House in the Cerulean Sea
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchEleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Gail Honeyman
A woman with a routine and no one in it, drawn out by ordinary kindness. The same faith that being paid attention to can rearrange a life.
- A bureaucrat who changes his mind
- Warmth with almost no peril
- A genuinely dark backstory
Great matchThe Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern
For the enchantment rather than the hug: a world so beautifully furnished that plot becomes optional. Klune readers who came for the atmosphere land here happily.
- Whimsy that never turns cruel
- An island away from everything
- Emotionally cooler than Klune
Best for the softening curmudgeonA Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman
A rigid, rule-following man softened by people who refuse to leave him alone. It is the Linus arc almost exactly, minus the magic, plus a Saab.
- A bureaucrat who changes his mind
- Warmth with almost no peril
- A found family of odd children
- A suicide attempt recurs early on
Great matchThe Secret Life of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd
A child taken in by a household of women who make room for her without being asked. Same conviction that family is a decision.
- A found family of odd children
- An island away from everything
- Prejudice handled with kindness
- Racial violence of the 1960s South
Best for the quiet magicThe Snow Child
Eowyn Ivey
A childless couple in Alaska build a girl out of snow and a girl appears. Magic treated as something to be gentle with, exactly as Klune treats it.
- An island away from everything
- Whimsy that never turns cruel
- Warmth with almost no peril
- Melancholy runs all through it
Best for the comfortThe Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer
An island, a group of oddballs who have made each other into a family, and a visitor who does not want to leave. The structural twin of Klune's book.
- An island away from everything
- A found family of odd children
- A gentle middle-aged romance
- Wartime grief underneath
Great matchThe Giver of Stars
Jojo Moyes
Women who build a life around a shared job and defend each other from a town that disapproves. Warm, sturdy and satisfying.
- Prejudice handled with kindness
- A found family of odd children
- Contains real violence
Worth a look — with a warningBeartown
Fredrik Backman
Same author as Ove and the same enormous heart, but pointed at a town that fails a child rather than one that saves him. Superb; not remotely cosy.
- A bureaucrat who changes his mind
- Prejudice handled with kindness
- Depicts a sexual assault
Worth a look — with a warningThe Starless Sea
Erin Morgenstern
A book about loving books, wandering an underground library. All atmosphere, and it will either enchant you or lose you by page eighty.
- Whimsy that never turns cruel
- An island away from everything
- Barely has a plot
Great matchThe Little Paris Bookshop
Nina George
A man who prescribes novels to strangers and cannot treat his own grief, pushed out of his routine by a journey. Sweet, slow, restorative.
- A gentle middle-aged romance
- Warmth with almost no peril
- A bureaucrat who changes his mind
- Sentimental in places
Worth a look — with a warningThe Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
Andrew Sean Greer
A woman wakes in three versions of her own life across three eras, each with different room for who she loves. Melancholy where Klune is sunny.
- A gentle middle-aged romance
- Prejudice handled with kindness
- Grief and AIDS-era loss
Great matchThe Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Gabrielle Zevin
A prickly bookseller, a child left in his shop, and a life reassembled around her. If you read Cerulean Sea in two days, you will read this in one.
- A bureaucrat who changes his mind
- A book you can hand to anyone
- A found family of odd children
- A late loss hits hard
Worth a look — with a warningThe 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Stuart Turton
An ingenious puzzle in a grand house, recommended here for invention rather than warmth. Nothing about it is comforting.
- An island away from everything
- Whimsy that never turns cruel
- Cold and intricate
What should you read after The House in the Cerulean Sea?
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman — a woman with a routine and no one in it, drawn out by ordinary kindness. The same faith that being paid attention to can rearrange a life.
If what stayed with you was whimsy that never turns cruel, read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern instead: for the enchantment rather than the hug: a world so beautifully furnished that plot becomes optional. Klune readers who came for the atmosphere land here happily. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman is the other strong option — a rigid, rule-following man softened by people who refuse to leave him alone. It is the Linus arc almost exactly, minus the magic, plus a Saab.
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