In a smalltown high school, three teenagers have suddenly returned a year after their deaths. They’re given a series of magical tasks to complete in order to stay with their families and friends. Through a web of danger, they try to solve the mystery of their deaths.

Link tells this story from various perspectives in language that feels like a stream-of-consciousness prose-poem. The story meanders and pulls in supernatural and magical elements. It’s beautiful, but the plot gets buried within the language and details. As you know from all other reviews, this book is LONG. Though the premise is compelling and the language is pretty, this book is a commitment. This is a book I would do best to read in small doses over a long span of time. Because of this, I have not finished the book, but I hope to come back to it in the future in small increments.

I think that long-time fans of Kelly Link will enjoy this book, and readers who love detail, characterization, and atmosphere more than plot. Huge thanks to NetGalley and Random House for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for a review.

This was my first Kelly Link book. The description was so fun and at times I felt that excitement to keep reading, but overall this one felt like a slog for me. I think it would be fun for certain readers but it wasn't a hit for me. The combo of realism and supernatural felt like too big of a leap for me to get over.

The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love—from friendship to romance to abiding family ties—with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot.
Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are.
With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they’ve been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers.
But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura’s sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Look, friends, this felt so comfortable, okay? This felt like--of course, of course this is what reading a Kelly Link novel feels like, haven't I been doing this for years? I haven't? It's her first go at it? Really? Oh. So is it a novella, then, or a near-novella, sort of a stepping stone to dabble her toes into the land of novel? Nnnnnope it is an entire bugcrusher, it has the room to have secondary characters and subplots and texture to the setting.

So. Three young people disappear for a year from a small coastal Massachusetts town. This is not a thriller, it is a fantasy novel, so it's not a great surprise that when the early reveal is that they've been dead all that year, they're back, more or less intact, confused, interacting with magics they don't entirely understand. Their high school music teacher seems to be at the center of it, but the more they learn, the less his centrality seems sure.

Of the three of them--Daniel, Laura, and Mo--two have lives that can fold them back into the magical explanation given by their music teacher for their absence. But Laura's sister Susannah is not so easily swayed. Though she can't quite place what's wrong with the spell that's cast on her, she knows something is--and she keeps circling around those memories and those feelings, trying to figure out what isn't adding up. As Daniel, Laura, and Mo--and the other supernatural beings in their orbit--hurry to settle their relationships with life, death, this world, the next, and magic itself, before a disastrous figure brings catastrophe to all they love, Susannah keeps finding pieces of the answer to what really happened a year ago. And it's her relationship with them, and their relationships with each other, that prove crucial in that answer.

We get time with each of the major characters, and many of the minor ones too. When one twist arose I knew immediately who it applied to and gasped "OH YOU HAD BETTER NOT," not because it was predictable but because there was a tidal inevitability. But each crash of the tide in this book revealed something else fascinating on the shore, a new piece of glass or gnarled wood washed up its characters' emotional lives, and the final resolution was one I could accept as satisfying even with some heartbreak along the way. As who would not expect heartbreak in a book of this title, this woven with life and death--and families? The main characters of The Book of Love are mainly achingly young, but Link doesn't make the mistake of imagining young people to exist in some kind of youthful isolation. Each one is a grandchild, a child, a sibling, a friend, an employee, all things that turn out to matter crucially to their lives. It's not The Book of [Romantic] Love, it's just The Book of Love, wholeheartedly. Or as whole as hearts can remain in the land of the living, where there is suffering and loss. But it's a much better book for all of these things being part of it, for taking the time and the space to allow these things to be part of it. I really loved this. I'm glad to have made a start on the years of reading Kelly Link novels.

The blurb for this book was fascinating. The execution of it was a bit like walking through molasses. Perhaps it was the writing style. Or the tense. It was just not for me.

I loved the writing, but man I couldn't get myself to push through the plot of the book. Would recommend it, but definitely to a specific reader.

I had to force myself to finish this book - all 640 pages. The writing was beautiful, but there was absolutely no story until the last 1/3 of the book. I almost bailed on this book several times, but I kept thinking that it must be building towards something. Right??

I think that this might have worked as a short story or novella.

2.5 stars. I really wanted to like this book more, especially since I think all the cool kids are going to love it. Honestly, though, I was pretty bored throughout and it is really, really long. The plot: three kids return to their hometown lives after being dead for a year. They don’t know what happened to them, and the people around them are magicked into believing they have just been at school in Ireland. There are two strange magical men who do seem to know what is going one but they keep asking for impossible tasks. This is a weird novel, but I can deal with weird and confusing if the payoff comes quickly enough (think Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which I loved). This novel is 640 pages and I felt like I slogged through the majority of them. Some of the characters were compelling, some were insufferable and some just not very cogent. I do look forward to seeing how this book is reviewed by critics and other readers once it is widely released because I do think that some people will really embrace it. I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

Usually this "type" of story is flimsy, clunky-plot heavy, and pulpy. But in Link's deft hands this type of supernatural tale is a great character study with weird world-building to boot. Several times I laughed out loud and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole reading experience, despite it being a book so much about death! Leigh Bardugo called it an eldrich Our Town and I think that is a lovely and apt descriptor.

3.5 * The writing in this book was magical. I love Kelly Link's writing because its speculative and magical while still being based in the real world. The plot of this book was nice I was was kept interested throughout. I do feel like some details were superfluous and with this being an almost 700 page novel some details could have been cut out. Overall I enjoyed my time and this was a story that allows the reader to truly escape.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an early copy of this novel. This is published February 13th!

Anyone who tells you this book needed to be tighter and better paced is completely right, it did, and I really wish that Kelly Link's first novel-length outing had been more rigorously edited. I'm still giving it a solid four stars because it has so many story elements I enjoyed on a personal taste level, and because objectively, her prose is just that good. Sometimes you just need to read writing like this to remind yourself that it's possible for really good writing to exist, and I have no regrets.

I didn't really enjoy this one. I think it was more a problem of me not enjoying the whimsicality of the prose and the sheer length of the narrative. I didn't really connect to any of the characters and I found it hard to keep everything straight and to really get sucked into the story. And, by the time I did get sucked into the story, it was a bit too late for me (personally) to really enjoy the story. I definitely see why people will enjoy this read, and my issues are less of problems in the story construction and more of a personal preference on prose style and clarity. I can imagine, though, that with such a cool cover this will still do pretty well in sales and circulation.

Unfortunately, I DNF'd this one around 28%. It is 100% a 'me' problem, and not a problem with the gorgeous prose/whimsical writing style of Link. The best way I can explain my disconnect is that I almost felt 'too unintelligent' for this one. I would put on the audio while driving or doing my laundry and would get lost or struggle to stay connected with the plot or characters. The humor and magic are so nuanced I felt like I was always a step behind or 'not getting' the joke. I have no doubt, readers of literary fiction and fantasy, will enjoy this tour de force of a novel.

I have two main thoughts on this book that sort of are in conflict. First, the book is just a bit too long imo. Second, it's just an incredible, brilliant piece of fantasy.

I was really flummoxed by how long the book was bc for whatever reason this seemed insurmountable at times. But there was no way I could have stopped reading. This author speaks on magic in so many different forms and, for obvious and yet still surprising reasons, love being one of the greatest forms of them all.

This book begins with Susannah, one of my favorite characters, grieving the loss of her little sister, Laura. She also grieves for the simultaneous loss of her friend Mo and ex-boyfriend Daniel. When a year passes and all three miraculously return to life, they find out about some pretty incredible changes and begin a sort of test to try and stay alive.

This story is full. It is told from all character's perspectives throughout and really left me feeling like I have gone through this whole thing with them. Not just main characters, but the community itself. The author doesn't just paint a picture but truly fleshed out these individuals. And, yet I feel like they are all endlessly bound together. I really enjoyed this!

Out February 13, 2024!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

I have a few points because my brain is still processing and probably will be for some time…

•Dig deep into the GR reviews, there are so many thoughtful ones that made me pause and reflect on the mystery and magic I just read.

•Yes, this is a long book… I started reading it on my kindle and got to about 15%. I had a good grasps on characters and what was happening so switched to audio which worked really well for me. Upon finishing I thought… I would have loved to read this physically. Not on a screen. The audio was really well done but I think I may have missed some pieces. Also the length and pace really have to the story… when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about it. I may have not had that connection if it was a shorter page count.

•This book gave me comp vibes of The Night Circus meets Stranger Things. I’m not sure if I’m even right about that but that’s how I felt.

This was my first dabble with Kelly Link’s work and I’m looking forward to checking out her short story collections so many rave about. This book is not going to be for everyone and I hope it finds it niche audience. I have high hopes on attaining a copy to revisit because my mind can’t stop thinking about these characters and magic system I just spent time with.

Thank you Penguin Random House Publishing Group & PRH Audio 📖
Releases 2/13

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I don't think I've ever read a book that felt both so magical and so true.


(Thanks to the author and publisher for the ARC I received through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

This was quite the interesting book and I was curious what a full novel by Kelly Link would be like so I am glad I requested it but I struggled through a lot of this. It felt way too long and while the premise was very unique I couldn’t connect to the characters until way towards the end of the book. I am not about reading about angsty teenagers and I love a good teen drama mixed with supernatural elements but this needed to be a lot shorter and tighter for me. I did still think some of the more action packed moments were good and I appreciate it was something new just not my cup of tea really. Would still add it to our library as I think some people will love this.

This is a weird little story. I found it mostly interesting and well done, but it's waaaay too long for what the plot/events end up being. I did like the small-scale feel of the story even where the supernatural/deities are involved. 3.5/5

It took me a while to get a handle on what was going on in the story, but that’s part of the magic with The Book of Love. It’s unsettling and takes us to places that stretch the imagination. I have seen some compare this book with American Gods, The Night Circus, or Addie LaRue, and there are some parallels, but this story kept me at a distance, emotionally, rather than making me feel for the characters too much, as some of those other books did. This book is lengthy, and while it’s full of beautiful prose and there’s cleverness in its moments of humor, I wonder if it would have benefited from some trimming. The comps I mentioned above that I read from others are pretty accurate, and I definitely got some China Mieville vibes, as well. I have a feeling this might be one of those “love it or hate it” books. I’m glad I had the opportunity to read it. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC!

4/5 ⭐️
If you took the whimsical weirdness of Holly Black’s Book of Night and mixed it with how Olivie Blake’s books are more character focused, you’ll have a start to understanding this book. Even then, I don’t know if I can describe this book. I’m very grateful to another reviewer who wrote to expect this to be a slow, more so character focused story. It allowed me to mentally prepare for what I was walking into.
The premise of this story is super interesting, but then the book is mostly just following this set of strange and flawed characters as they deal with coming back to life and all the strange happenings that follow them. I really enjoyed these characters and their relationships and faults. Though it was an odd book. I kind of don’t know what I just read, but I enjoyed it. And it was very lovely. I found myself highlighting many lines on my kindle as I read.
So yeah, I would definitely recommend this book, but I would tell readers that it’s a little slow, its character focused more so than plot, and is like Alice in Wonderland level of strange.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing an advance reader copy of this book for my honest review.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I loved this book it was my first Kelly Link book and I will be reading more from her.