Reviewed by Phoebe Bush
No matter what, there’s always comfort to be found in a cup of tea.
Content Warnings: Grief, depression/anxiety, animal death, death of parent/child, suicide/murder, depression, heart attack, funeral depiction, self-harm.
Are you looking for a cozy but emotional read to curl up with, this autumn? If so, this book exploring life after life and whatever comes next in a magical café may just be for you!
To begin with, you shall not like Wallace Price. In fact, you may just despise him, this office boss who does not care for his workers and ruins the lives of those around him. That is, until he finds himself watching his own funeral. So, you see, he might just grow on you before the end.
But don’t worry, there are so other characters to love, including my favourite bandana boy: Hugo, who manages Charon’s Crossing – a café that works like a limbo point for the recently deceased. As ever, T J Klune manages a cozy feeling, in simple but effective and believable world-building, built purely on the emotions behind the story. Whether it be an orphanage of magical beings on an island, a house of robots, or a tea shop for ghosts, the earnest and kindly nature of the writing style makes the world easy to believe in and also to merely enjoy.
This goes for the pacing, too, which chugs along steadily and does not force the reader into consuming the book at breakneck speed.
In short, this book is a warm cup of tea, to be savoured.
However, I must let all readers know that this book also deals with a lot of big emotions, around grief and loss. That was why, of all T J Klune books, I put this one off until last. That being said, it handles all topics in a considerate, sensitive way, even if some parts come with a real emotional punch. So, yes, the book did leave me feeling really weepy, but it also left me feeling healed, in some odd way, too. So have a box of tissues handy if you want to read it!
The plot was an interesting one, a character-driven story charting Wallace and his growth at Charon’s Crossing, with the help of the other characters. It has an almost Hallmark Christmas movie story arc to it, one that perhaps did not deliver as much in the second half. This may be because it makes promises in the first half that are not followed through, culminating in an ending that has plenty of unanswered questions and is perhaps too neat for the subject matter, too.
That being said, if you have ever been touched by grief, then I would give this book a read – as it feels like a big, warm, much needed hug after a good, long cry.