The Book of Love is both a book only Kelly Link could have written and a book only Kelly Link could have written. What I mean by that is that the book has Link’s DNA all over it, all the elements and feel of a Kelly Link story, from statues coming to life and walking off their plinths to ancient temples rising alongside a sleepy seaside town to beautifully stunning transformations and transmutations. There are cats of course. And songs. This is also a book I’d say only Link (or someone else with her reputation and sales) could have written (or at least published), as most authors would probably have a received a pretty full log of “editorial notes”:

Does it need to be 600+ pages? Do we need chapter 11? Or 17? Or 18? What about this section here—we never see this person again; do we want to devote a whole POV chapter to them? This part here is lovely and lyrical, but I’m not sure it moves the plot along. Can we make Susanne more likable? Or Laura? Or Mo? I’m not clear how your magic is working; do you have any bullet point slides we could include explaining the rules? I’m not sure Book of Love is “genre” enough. Maybe Book of Dragons? Book of Shadows? The Book of Dragon Shadows? And does it need to be 600+ pages?

The answer to that last question by the way is no. And yes. But more on that later.

The book opens with a teenager, Susannah, still mourning the presumed death of her sister Laura, who disappeared a year ago with two other teens, Daniel and Mo. After a masterful evocation of grief, we shift to a classroom where the three dead teens have been “re-formed” by their high school music teacher Mr. Anabin after they slipped out of a purgatory-like forest, along with an enigmatic stranger who has no memory of who they are/were (they take the name “Bowie” thanks to a poster on the wall). Turns out Anabin is actually an ancient being who can work powerful magic, and not only has he recreated their bodies, has also magically altered memories so everyone now believes the three were off on a semester abroad in Ireland. Anabin and his somewhat scarier companion Bogomil have plans (albeit not necessarily the same ones) for the three resurrected teens that involve learning magic, a quest for a lost talisman, a cruel and uber-powerful goddess and her magical servant, an ancient desire for revenge, and guardianship of the doorway into death, though little of this is revealed early on. Oh, and there’s also the mysterious phrase/prophecy/threat: “Two return, two remain” to worry about.

All of this (and more) is conveyed via a series of third-person limited chapters presented as almost mini-novels: “The Book of Laura”, “The Book of Susannah”, etc. The novel contains over a dozen of these, the bulk focusing on the four teens, but Link also dips into the stories of the other main characters, as well as some of the townsfolk of Lovesend, Massachusetts, broadening our perspective on the whole story.

Based on the synopsis, the narrative path seems pretty clear: a typical magic doodad quest and the usual dead-people-solve-their-own-murder plot. But again, this is a Kelly Link book, so nobody should be expecting either “typical” or “usual.” In fact, while the talisman plays in integral role, Link seems relatively uninterested in either the quest for it or in any attempt to solve the teen’s mysterious death. Which means her characters are equally mostly uninterested in those things, though they make some desultory stabs at them. Mostly they focus on what teens focus on: sex, sibling rivalries, boyfriends and girlfriends, sex, parents, music, what their future holds, fear of embarrassment, and sex. Link has always been a master of economic characterization, working as she has exclusively in the short story form, but here she takes full advantage of all this narrative space, crafting a rich suite of characters who come fully, vividly alive and who always feel entirely real. Link doesn’t pull the usual authorial trick of sanding off the edges to make characters more palatable. Susannah for instance is prickly and rash while Laura can be insufferable in her certainty and their relationship is combustible and entirely plausible in how it shifts between toxicity and tenderness.

Theirs is only one of the love stories here. The on-again, off-again relationship between Susannah and Daniel is another. Meanwhile, Laura, in the beginning stages of coming out, has a crush on a classmate, and Daniel’s love for his siblings shines throughout. Mo has his love for music, a relationship he begins during this time, and most poignantly and tragically, the love he carries for his grandmother, the hugely successful romance novel writer Maryanne Gorch (penname Caitlyn Hightower) who passed away in the year he was himself dead. Maryanne raised Mo after his mother died young, and his grief at her death and the hold her absence leaves in his life is heartbreakingly portrayed. As is his sense of loneliness and isolation, a young, gay black man in a mostly white straight town.

In fact, the characterization is so immersive, their real-world problems so compelling for all their “mundanity” (no life is mundane is part of the book’s point I’d say), and the writing so often so damn good (the chapter depicting Maryanne’s death is the best thing I’ve read in months, worthy of its own prize as a separate short story), that to be honest, I found myself wondering multiple times, including upon finishing the novel, what this book would have been like had it been stripped of all its magic. Part of me says it would obviously be a loss, as some of the magical scenes are transfixingly beautiful. But another part of me thinks I’ve seen many of those scenes before, whether in Link’s own stories or elsewhere (one element reminded me quite a bit of Buffy). And it would also solve perhaps the only issue in the novel, its pace.

It’s not so much that the book is too long, though it did bog down for me for a patch in the middle where I was both surprised and dismayed by where I stood in the book (right around the halfway point). It’s more that the explanations of all the magical back story often rob the story of its narrative tension/energy. They also often feel clumsily inserted, and the way in which the required information is doled out feels more for the writer’s purpose than the characters’. In what may have been a bit of lampshading, several characters toward the end complain to other characters that “if you had just told me all this . . . “ At which points I could only nod my head in firm agreement. Finally, since I appear to be in the “carping” paragraph of this review, I’ll just add that for the most part, the supernatural characters are far less vivid and interesting than the real ones (if you can call resurrected dead “real”), and the big magical stakes at the end overwhelmed a bit what should have been a deeply, profoundly affecting event.

Even as I write this, I’m not sure which way I lean. I do know I would absolutely have happily read this book with all the magic left on the curb, and that Link turning in a first novel with no magic would be the most magically Kelly Link thing to do. But then, I also (mostly) quite happily read this book with all the magic in it and was sorry to close the last page (OK, click it). So there you go.

But if I’m betwixt and between on magic/no magic, I’m rock solid on the other aspects. The deft characterization and immersive rich characters. The honed, original, and at times breathtaking sentences. The digressive, allusive, and meta nature of the story – all stylistic choices I gravitate toward – with the metafictional aspects coming via Maryanne Gorch’s writing and also in the way that magic here often mirrors what writing does: changes how people think, resurrects the dead (although imperfectly), creates new life, new stories. And finally, appropriately for the title, I love all the different forms of love here, and how some are happy and some contentious and some tragic, and all are moving. And that in itself is its own type of magic. Highly recommended.

Kelly Link has given us a book, a very big book which is so worth the time and energy. It is enchanting and full of magic. Three teenagers have to figure out the reason for their death.

I would recommend this to readers who are 1) fans of Kelly Link 2) fantasy/magic/task storylines 3) have a great reading stamina.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House and author for letting us read this magical title.

This book was not for me. It was way too long and there were too many characters and yet I couldnt find any to get invested in or really connect with. Beautiful prose but as far as plot it felt bloated.

Kelly Link is my soul author. I’ve read her books since I was kid. Nothing ever pierced my heart and warped my brain in the best way than her short stories. She introduced me to Angela Carter, for which I will always be grateful. She is one of the best writers ever.

I was so excited to find that she was releasing her first novel and had to read it. This behemoth of a book was so beautiful and dark and gross. I loved it so much. This book explores every type of love imaginable, between friends, siblings, lovers, parents, deities, nature and more. I will be thinking about this bizarre book for a very long time.

The premise of this book is exciting, but the length of it and the storytelling isn't the right fit for me right now. I hope to return to it soon! If you're looking for something magical/wacky/unique, it might be very worth picking up!

I did not realize this was ~600 pages when I requested it. It definitely felt like 600 pages despite how much I adored getting to know these characters. So much internal reflection was beautiful, but I found myself lost in the larger plot thinking I'd missed something major. This does, however, make me so incredibly excited to read Link's short stories.

I am not an epic super long sci-fi saga type of girl but I do love Kelly link and so couldn’t wait to read her book The Book Of Love. With what I kept thinking of as a stuttering start we learned that Susan‘s sister is missing and because of this she is finding it hard to conduct life normally, as is her mom Ruth. It seems Laura went missing the year before with her fellow Band-Maid Danny and her sisters friend and classmate Mohammed. When we finally get to meet the dead trio it seems someone is tagging along on their ghostly adventure but he has been dead so long he cannot remember his name nor how he became that way so they call him Bowie because it’s the music teacher mr. Anabin, who gave him the name choices. If you’re asking yourself what does the music teacher have to do with it well he is a God of sorts and he is also the one who I think brought the kids back but in doing so we also get to meet a shape shifting demon named Bogomil Who wants the kids back in his layer and is confused as to how they got out in the first place. The kids however are confused as to what happened to them. Eventually the Music teacher and the shape shefter come to an agreement of sorts that if the kids can pass three test they can stay in the world of the living in this includes Mr. anonymous “Bowie“ Who learned his name Ann some other interesting skills he has along with the other kids. Bowie was my favorite character and although this is a really good book it was so so long I usually read more than one book or at least part of a book in a day and throughout the day I may read five different books but the book of love had me so captured I found it hard to put down the reason I am only giving it three stars is because it was way too long too many people had too many bios, I mean there were a lot of characters but I cannot hate this book I found it hard to give a rating and change my mind on it more than once it is better than just okay but less than super great it is entertaining especially Bowie whose real name is Thomas Moe‘s grandmother who I love but I could go on and on there’s so much I loved about the spot but a lot I didn’t it is worth reading especially if you log Kelly link in her short story collections if you love magical realism Syfy with an over explained plot and I mean that in a good way then you love the book of love. I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

DNF at 10%. This book is delightfully weird and so beautifully written and also not for me right now. I set it down and wasn’t ever drawn to pick it back up. Thank you to the publisher for the free book.

Absolutely remarkable! This story has everything that a modern myth should be! The magic of this book to make a reader feel is FANTASTIC!

So, I liked this book but the pacing was pretty slow. I feel like this book could have been shorter without losing much. I still ended up giving it 4 stars so don't think that the book isn't good - it just could have been a bit tighter. The first half I REALLY wanted to get to know what was going on and the really short chapters all from different points of view were hard in the beginning. The second half of the book picked up and that's why I gave it four stars. I read the ebook of this and I would like to check out the audio. I think this book could be good on audio and I will probably buy it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book for review.

High school students Laura, Daniel, and Mo have died. They don’t remember how and they certainly don’t know what they are now doing standing in their music teacher Mr. Anabin’s classroom, with a fourth young man they don’t recognize, who doesn’t even seem to know who he is. Upon detecting their presence, Anabin verifies that they have each indeed perished and have spent a year trapped in the realm of Bogomil from which people typically don’t return. Bogomil himself appears and the pair agree to let the quartet return to their normal lives as if nothing had ever happened, under the condition that while there they must complete a series of tasks, including discovering what caused their deaths, and at the end of the assignment, only two of the four will be allowed to remain alive.

Laura finds herself back at home with her single mother and sister Susannah, with whom she shares a sort of love/hate relationship. Daniel returns to his large family just across the street from Laura, and his on-again/off-again relationship with Susannah. Mo finds himself back at the home of his grandmother, a successful romance novelist who basically raised him, only to discover that while the trio were missing she had passed away, leaving him in the care of her long-time assistant. Everyone believes that the group had simply been studying abroad for the past year and each finds that they have memories of doing so despite it not being true, and so they attempt to assimilate back into their previous existences while trying to solve the mystery of their demise and learning to use the magic that allowed them to return.

As you would expect from the title this book really is about love in all its many forms, and the ways it shapes and guides us through our lives. Family, friends, and lovers all come into play, as does learning to love and accept oneself, and Link’s often gorgeous prose brings the many intertwined relationships to life. She has a talent for developing people that feel real, imbuing even minor characters with enough personality to make it hurt a little when they suffer. There are moments that feel slightly hokey every now and then, but they are easy enough to look past.

Link mostly handles the plot of her sprawling, supernatural, small-town saga well, making it easy enough to keep track of everyone and everything, though some events can occasionally feel repetitive. Rather than use chapter numbers the breaks are delineated with headings reading “The Book of Daniel”, “The Book of Laura”, and so forth, highlighting some of the religious subtext scattered throughout. Despite the fantastical events that surround the story, a lot of the little moments the characters experience feel eminently relatable, and there are several moments that pack an emotional punch, though none of them are allowed to really live long enough to settle in. I really enjoyed The Book of Love and would happily spend time with these characters again, but I was left with the weird feeling that I should have felt something more than I did.

I did not finish this book. It was not what I thought it was and it turned out not to be my kind of read. I DNF

Kelly Link, how do I love thee writing, let me count the ways! I had a bit of trouble keeping track of all the characters at the beginning, but once I got them all sorted, the book sang. What an amazing opportunity to spend so much time in a Kelly Link novel. I've already recommended it to my students, colleagues, and friends. I look forward to using THE BOOK OF LOVE as an example in one of my upcoming novel writing classes.

Reading Kelly Link’s debut novel The Book of Love, I spent a long time feeling confused about the title. What does this story have to do with love? A year after they vanished from their Massachusetts shore town, presumed dead, three teenagers reappear in their high school music teacher’s classroom. The teacher, Mr. Anabin, tells them that, for the past year, they inhabited the realm of the mysterious Bogomil, between life and death. To fully return to life, they and another person who escaped with them must enter some kind of magical competition. Two out of the four will go back down into Bogomil’s realm no matter what happens. Thus Laura, Daniel, Mo, and Bowie embark on a haphazard campaign to find out what happened to them and to fulfill the magical tasks they’ve been set so they can stay resurrected. Though the teenagers are initially pawns in the game that Anabin and Bogomil are playing between themselves, their magical mistress Malo Mogge, and her other servants, some of them develop the capacity—magic—to become real players.

As you would expect from Kelly Link, the characters are vivid—perhaps too vivid, given how much of the book I spent being frustrated by many of their decisions and relationships: familial, romantic and sexual entanglements constitute a good portion of both the plot and characters’ motivations. The protagonists are all horny teenagers, which Link doesn’t shy away from, and the immortals don’t have it any better. Daniel, kindhearted and musically talented but pathologically ambitionless, could be the poster child for “why white men are failing”: he loves his family but decides to make no effort to avoid dying again. Laura and her sister Susannah’s relationship seems both toxic and extremely tight; my sympathies primarily lie with Susannah, who spends a good chunk of the book being magicked by other people. For her part, Laura shows a ruthless and clever side that quickly takes her on a path towards greater mastery, but her actions straddle the line between understandable and sadistic. Some of the teens are more sympathetic, although they still make realistically aggravating choices at times. Mo, one of the few Black people in Lovesend and a gay orphan on top of it, fiercely misses his grandmother, a romance novelist who passed away while Mo himself was dead. Bowie, a former servant of Malo Mogge, just wants to live again, but realizes even that simple desire is complicated; Bowie isn’t afraid to hurt people for it.

Link’s short stories have wowed genre and non-genre readers alike for nearly two decades, straddling the gap with her trademark wit, arch tone, and just enough worldbuilding to satisfy SFF fans while not bogging down in explanations; her denouements in particular are routinely so sharp characters don’t even realize they’ve been cut by them. Given Link’s demonstrated mastery of the short form, it was something of a surprise to realize that The Book of Love takes an immersive, even maximalist, approach to its setting and characters, as the preceding paragraphs indicate: there’s a lot of detail about Lovesend, about the ancient history of the magical figures, about the teenager protagonists, about their friends and bosses and crushes and who’s going to what college and town history and the local bar and restaurant scene.

The magical competition instigated by Anabin appears to drive the action initially. The faded, malevolent goddess Malo Mogge’s arrival, as she plots against the teenagers and her servants and searches for her lost precious object—sometimes it’s a cup, sometimes it’s a ring—eventually takes over more and more of the action, plunging Lovesend into a wild series of magical events. Malo Mogge and her obsession with the cup/ring, combined with certain elements of her and her servants’ backstories, seemed to me at times like an echo of something out of Welsh mythology. But wherever these elements came from, Link puts her own spin on them.

Link is a master of prose, with her trademark well-chosen descriptions and deft way of making even minor characters sympathetic (unfortunate, as many of them suffer unjust fates at the hands of Malo Mogge), so rolling around in all this detail has its pleasures. But by the middle of the book I was very much hoping for the plot to kick in and spare me yet more descriptions of pizza. As much as I enjoyed spending time in Lovesend, as one enjoys sojourning in a beach town, ultimately the book is too long.

As is to be expected in both a Kelly Link story and in magic, there are costs and consequences to everything, and all the characters must eventually decide who or what they are willing to sacrifice to get what they want for themselves and for the people they love. By the end, I still wasn’t sure about the title, but I think I understand what Link is getting at: “Love is as strong as death” is written on Mo’s grandmother’s tombstone. It’s a simple, hard lesson that the book’s characters eventually learn for themselves.

I haven't read Kelly Link before but have heard good things about her short stories. Some other reviews say that this is not the place to start with her, so maybe I should try a shorter piece by her.

I think I'm just not the right demographic for this book. Teenage me would have eaten it up. Four teenagers return to their high school in the night after apparently having been dead for about a year. There are supernatural doings, magical beings, and teen drama. Unfortunately, it felt like the teen drama took precedence over everything else. Also, the book did the thing of having someone ask some really good questions only to be ignored and get no response, much less an answer. This sort of thing annoys me in a book. With the book being over 600 pages long, I didn't have it in me to keep going.

I've read thousand page books that flew by in the blink of an eye, but this one, clocking in at over 600 pages, seemed interminable. Seriously, it's very disheartening when the right side of your Kindle tells you you're at the 73% mark, but the left side says you still have 4 hrs, 9 mins. left in the book.

I was initially very invested in this Neil Gaiman-ish fantasy about teenagers, magic, and young lust. BUT, though I was never once tempted to quit, it just became too much. I honestly got tired of reading about these people. By the halfway point, all I wanted was for the book to end. Link is an author I've enjoyed in the past, and I knew I would always wonder about this book if I didn't read it, but all the same, I can't recommend it.

Much like with other Kelly Link works I have read in the past, I feel like the writing is there, but I always feel as though there is a lack of substance or themes behind them - and with an almost 700 pages book, I really felt as though the overall goal for the novel was lacking. I found the writing in the book to move with the flow of the story; it felt as though I was reading a fairy tale which went well with the vibes of the book and its ending. I found some of the characters to be charming and I genuinely cared about what would happen to them (or what did happen to them) but it took more than 50% of the book for me to do so. The first half of this book was a slog to get through and I think it really contributed to a reading slump. I didn't find there to be much going on within the plot, and given the synopsis, I was shocked that I didn't care as much as I feel I should have. I think if the plot in this was more engaging or tighter, it would have been a more enjoyable book.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I could not finish this book. I read over 150 pages and could not follow some of the characters, main characters yes, ancillary characters no.

When I heard that speculative-short-story-GOAT Kelly Link had written a doorstopper of a debut novel, I was ALL IN. This won’t be for everyone, but this was extremely my thing.

What a beautiful story to get lost in. Life, death, music, love, sacrifice, friendship, siblinghood, grief; this one has it all. Also plenty of the uncanny. Also a villain who is the moon, but also death, kind of? I mean, what’s not to love. And yes, it’s about four teenagers, but they are so vivid and real, don’t let that deter you, even if you usually have trouble relating to teenage characters.

Some will say this was too long, but the length didn’t bother me at all. I loved all the time we spent getting to really know these characters and see each of their individual lives. As Alix Harrow said: “Is it ‘slow’? Sure. Yeah. So is spring. So is a sunset. So is sex, if you're doing it right, and death, if you're lucky. Some things are meant to be savored.” I couldn’t agree more.

So, I have "paused" this book at over 50% in because I don't dislike it but also it feels like nothing has happened? The writing is great, I was instantly hooked, and the premise was so exciting. But I'm over 300 pages in and I feel like NOTHING has happened since the first 50 pages. And I just don't have it in me right now? I bought this book, and want to finish it. But also reading this book has put me into a slump and I am frustrated by it. Do something with your incredible premise! I want to know what happens! But I can't read 600+ pages about teenagers who are just way cooler than I was as a teen doing average teenager things! Really hoping that I can get back to this in a few weeks and rate it higher.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!