When I first read The House in the Cerulean Sea, I was immersed in Linus’s life as a case worker for magical youth. Though he leads a dull life, any reader could tell that he cared about the children in the orphanages and made sure they were properly taken care of. His gray, gloomy world reminded me a lot of the same gloominess in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Now with this story, I was submissive to the text for two reasons: Linus and Arthur’s development, and the need for change in the oppressive world of magical beings vs. non-magical beings.
Throughout the duration of Linus’s stay at the island as well as his interactions with Arthur, Zoe, and the children, I was paying attention to Linus’s growth as a character. I assumed that this was the type of story that guaranteed a happy ending, so I kept thinking, Please, please let Linus undergo a major development and be happy! Now, I didn’t know much about the author before reading this, much less the fact that he is a queer author when I read this quote from page 21 (ebook): “‘No lucky lady friend?’ She sucked on her pipe and blew the thick smoke out her nose. ‘Oh. Forgive me. It must have slipped my mind. Not one for the ladies, are you?’ It hadn’t slipped her mind. ‘No, Mrs. Klapper.’” Being gay myself, I wasn’t sure if Linus was actually gay or if this was some “ha ha gay joke!” sprinkled in there for laughs and then never touched upon again. That alone made my walls go up a bit, as I’m used to seeing people of the LGBTQ community being used as the butt of most jokes. I was happy to see that this was not the case! As I read further into Linus’s backstory, I found that he was canonically gay, and this was used in the right ways throughout the rest of the book.
Diving into Linus and Arthur’s relationship, I paid attention to their little interactions: funny banter, Linus being a mess around Arthur (relatable), and everything else up until the end. I remember becoming frustrated every time they skirted around their feelings, like reading very slow-burn fiction. The way that Linus wrote his third case report on Arthur was one of the tipping points to his character development, as on page 236 he writes, “I find it fascinating, the bond he’s created with the children. They care for him greatly, and I believe they see him as a father figure.” And even when it is revealed that Arthur is a phoenix, it frightens Linus, but only for a little bit because he cares about this man. These two gravitate towards each other, even if one doesn’t know it. This book hits the reader’s emotions the right way with the cute kids, found family, testing morals, and of course the quote that stuck with Linus until he got his happy ending: “Don’t you wish you were here?”
As for dealing with this story’s society, there is no discretion. With the oppression and negative stigma around magical beings, as well as posters with the slogan “See something, say something!” plastered everywhere, readers can already tell that this is a form of systemic racism. People are scared of what they don’t understand, which leads to assumptions of magical beings being inherently evil, even the children. Part of submitting to the text is knowing that it wants us to be sympathetic towards the children and their situation, which is quite easy to do. The scrutiny and discrimination that the children face makes our protector instincts kick into high gear. For example, Linus breaking down the door of the backroom in the record store because he feared Lucy was in danger (ebook, pg. 230), or Arthur almost unleashing his power in the ice cream parlor because Norman refused to serve them (ebook, pg. 237).
Another part of submitting to this story is the reader rejecting this system of oppression towards magical beings. In James Seitz’s “A Rhetoric of Reading”, he writes, “The ‘implied author’ an author who possesses a system of values indicated by the text, addresses the ‘implied reader’, a reader whom the text needs to hold….those same values and thereby ‘see eye to eye’ with the implied author.” (Seitz, 142). T.J. Klune’s values shown in his story are that people shouldn’t be treated horribly or be segregated because of their birthright or parentage, as well as learning to break away from those bigoted beliefs and unlearn what you have been taught to think. These are values that a reader already holds, because it’s an environment that they can connect to. Personally, I think this book is a great and easy way to teach others about how systemic racism affects marginalized groups, and how to be more open-minded towards people who look or act differently from others.
All You Read is Love 
One aspect I wanted to mention involving becoming submissive to the text was the narrative audience. According to Peter J. Rabinowitz in “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences,” there are four basic audiences at play in any given narrative: the actual audience, the authorial audience, the narrative audience, and the ideal narrative audience. The narrative audience, which the reader becomes by pretending to be who the narrator is addressing, is asked to believe things that contradict our fundamental beliefs or experiences. In a fantasy novel such as this one, we have to enter their world and believe that magical beings exist, and they’re just as human as the rest of humanity. So when I wonder who Linus is addressing, I’d consider this mystery narratee to likely be a fellow human, and perhaps a fellow case worker. Throughout the book, Linus grapples with how the rules he’s been living by are challenged by these wonderful children. As he relays his experiences to the narratee he becomes more confident that he’s been a cog in a broken system and works to convince us of the children’s humanity as well. The reason I assume that the narratee is a fellow human rather than a magical being is due to Linus’s astonishment at the children’s abilities and the fact that the novel essentially is about proving that these presumed monsters are in fact people like everyone else. If Linus was addressing a magical being, we would already understand that magical beings are just people too. The reason I believe the narratee could be a fellow social worker is the way Linus relays information. He uses reports and compares what he is witnessing to the DICOMY RULES AND REGULATIONS, as if we are acquainted with the text.
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I think the part that sealed the deal for me, as a submissive reader, was when Linus wrote the third case report (pg 235). This is when we really see how Linus has changed as a character into someone who has given up the rigid lifestyle of following rules and feels more compassionate to us as readers. “I find it fascinating, the bond he’s created with the children. They care for him greatly, and I believe they see him as a father figure,” (236). It was quite interesting to see Linus develop from a ‘by the book case worker,’ to a loving and seemingly father figure to the magical children he was meant to be investigating on his case.
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