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!

While the premise for this book sounds very interesting it veers off course pretty quickly. It is waaay toooooo long. If I was told I’d had to figure out how to do some magic to keep from going to hell I’d get on it!!! DNF after about 30%

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Book of Love by Kelly Link is a slower paced contemporary fantasy told in multiple POVs. Laura, Daniel, and Mo are dead until they aren’t. Brought back to their hometown, they need to remember how they ended up dead and communicate with the beings that brought them back to life as well as deal with the people they left behind.

Susannah and Daniel’s messy relationship was probably one of my favorite dynamics in the book. I love a romance where two people want to choose each other but aren’t quite sure how to make it work. Susannah was also probably my second favorite POV for her snark and how view of how Daniel, Laura, and Mo are acting.

Mo was my favorite POV. It’s very easy to get absorbed by his voice and his story, from how referential he can be, to how connected he was to his grandmother, to his complicated feelings towards everyone else, he’s a delight to see on the page.

The Book of Love is Kelly Link’s debut and it’s really a web of different characters and their relationships with each other slowly making themselves more apparent to the obvious. Kelly Link knows how to keep things close to the chest and when to reveal other things as well as how to make characters feel real and human and alive.

I would recommend this to readers looking for slower paced contemporary fantasies, fans of Kelly Link’s short stories, and readers of fantasy who like multi-POV stories.

This has all the things that I love about Kelly Link. It’s smart, funny, messy, a little gross, a little scary, but I think in this case, she gave me a little bit too much too love.

I thought this was a really well rounded novel. The overall aspect of magical realism/fantasy was what I assumed would hold my attention throughout but it was that AND the in depth look into each of the characters. I found myself at the end of a chapter thinking I’d take a break and just couldn’t. I wanted to see what would happen next. The fantasy alone was an interesting premise but truly the characters lives though family, friendship, grief and love were so beautiful to the book.

I wound up loving this book and this world but I will say that it took me a little bit into it to find the rhythm and really fall into the story. Once I did, I couldn’t stop reading and was overwhelmed by the writing and the characters.

I was granted an advance copy by Netgalley & the publisher and I was so excited to read and review this one.

I loved the premise of this book. It sounded interesting and I was excited to get started. It was definitely not what I expected. For me, the best way to describe this book is as the love child of Plain Bad Heroines by Emily Danforth and American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I’m not sure everyone else (or anyone else) would agree, but it definitely gave me vibes of both books at different times and sometimes simultaneously.

When I started, it took me awhile to get used to Link’s stream of consciousness-esque writing and the fever dream of the goings on. At times, it veers towards magical realism instead of fantasy, which isn’t usually my jam, but the writing was so beautiful and clever that I just fell in love with it. Once the writing hooked me, I started to enjoy annotating the book with my thoughts about the unraveling mysteries and my hopes for the characters’ journeys. I fell in love with a few of the characters, and some I hated, but they were all fleshed out and well written.

The book alternates between points of view of the main characters, as well as occasional chapters from minor characters’ points of view, which usually brings new perspective to something someone else has already told us. No narrator is wholly reliable, and the constantly shifting perspectives added to the fever dream quality of the narrative, but also constantly helped the story evolve. Another thing I loved about the characters, especially Mo, is the snark that some of them had. There were so many times I chuckled out loud, or texted my best friend some of the dialogue so they could laugh with me. It brought some joy to a rather bleak at times story.

My one critique of this book is that after a drawn out first half of the book, the end seemed to come very rapidly and perhaps not as satisfying as the rest of the book. Some people might not enjoy the pacing of the first half, but personally I loved ambling around in this world and with the characters so that I could get to know them well and sink in to the writing. I just wish the rest of the book would have been able to maintain that kind of pace, while also providing a satisfying ending. Regardless, this was one journey I am so glad I took, especially because it made me broaden some of my reading horizons. I’m excited to look into Link’s short story collections as well because her writing is just so scrumptious.

Kelly Link brings the same spookiness that pervades her shorts stories to this novel. Recommended for anyone who like Kelly Link and weird horror fiction.

This book was a struggle for me to get into. I found the narrative to be too mismatched for my personal tastes but I can see myself recommending it to readers who like fantasy/magical realism with a focus on family and found family.

I was excited to read this one! The blurb was super intriguing. It was listed as anticipated sci-fi release as well as the first full length novel from a popular short story author. I'm not well versed in this genre but all these factors made me ready to dive in! I was not disappointed. It's definitely a slow burn, plot wise, and had me scratching my head a lot, but in the best way. Things don't piece together until the end which I enjoy! It's no fun having it all figured out in the beginning, just enjoy the ride.

I think Kelly did an amazing job writing interesting characters that also made sense as teenagers. Sibling rivalry, young and confusing love, the road to discovering who you are, etc were all touched on in a great way while mixing in the weird and extraordinary. I really enjoyed this!

Thanks Netgalley/Random House for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

The long awaited Book of Love is the debut novel by author Kelly Link, best known for her fantastical short stories. Much like her other works. The Book of Love falls into the category of magical realism or slipstream, where the characters move through time and space but the settings are familiar and known. In the story: 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.

I found the premise intriguing and wanted to be drawn in, which the first few chapters do. However, as chapter after chapter wore on, and I was introduced to character after character, I began to feel less drawn in and less intrigued. There is A LOT to wade through and much of it feels unnecessary to the story. The chapters are short and detailed, with just enough to draw you in but then ends on a cliffhanger before moving you to the POV of yet another character....and there are many characters and points of view. After a while the book felt like a tedious slog, a bit like being edged, despite the beautiful, poetic, and vividly descriptive prose. As one who reads book straight through, I had a very difficult time doing so with this book. I put it down and picked it up again more that I like. I did enjoy the ending but feel that we could have arrived at the same place with 100 fewer pages.

If you like magical realism and have time and patience, then this book might be for you. What I would really like is to see this book as a movie. On screen, the story would be visually stunning and the telling of it, over a multi-part series would do this book justice. (I say this as one who is oftern skeptical of books being turned into movies)

3.75 ☆

30, 50, even 100 pages in, i couldn't make sense of why this book had a low(ish, 3.50+ isn't bad at all!) average rating, because it seemed great to me. however, by the time i finished it, i got it. i still liked it quite a lot, and i am sure i will think about it for a long time, ruminating over every little detail and wondering if i understood everything correctly. but i can't blame the people who didn't love it.

for one, it's so damn long. there's only so much you can drag a story onward without it really going anywhere before it becomes unbearably repetitive. maybe it wasn't exactly unbearable, but there were a few—okay, plenty—of times towards the end where i just kept going because i couldn't wait to be done with it, because for so long the story stalled that i just needed it to end. i was lucky that i liked the beginning so much that i was invested enough to want to see it through, was curious about where the characters were going to end up, but i can imagine how tiresome it must have been for people who didn't feel the same way.

secondly, while i wasn't completely disappointed by it, i didn't find the ending to be satisfactory, either. not to sound like a broken record, but after 640 pages, instead of using at least 200 of them up to run in circles, i think we could've come up with something better than what actually happened, i don't know. maybe i'm just bitter because i didn't like the fate of some of the characters. or maybe i'm not, i'm being very objective in saying that the plot sort of... lost the plot, pun intended.

but it wasn't all terrible, quite the opposite. i really liked the writing, especially the parts that reminded me of a stream of consciousness, jumping from one thought to the next and feeling like you were right inside the characters' brain. i loved some of the characters, alas not all of them, and i loved exploring the relationships that bound them to one another.

i reserve the right to change my mind over the course of the next week as i spend my days obsessively trying to understand whether i really really liked this book as a whole or if i just liked some parts of it so much that i feel like i have to be kind to its entirety. i don't know and i think this review shows, lol

thank you to PRH International for the book!

Link's imaginative abilities and playfulness make for successful short stories, but this novel fails to satisfy. It is very meandering and far too long, often over-complicated. The dialogue felt performative and stilted and the character voices weren't distinct. Again, this works well in a short story: very polished and deliberate speech patterns that might feel like a fairytale, but it didn't work well in a novel where I needed to believe in the teenagers at the heart of the story. (And I'm all for precocious teens, don't get me wrong.) I'd looked forward to this book but found it hard to get through because the plot didn't advance quickly and because the author seemed to get in the way of her writing somehow. It was so set on being unorthodox and whimsical that it couldn't find the beating heart of the story.

I ended up a bit disappointed by this one. Going in, the premise really grabbed me. It sounded both mysterious and magical to me. In the end, I think the book was trying too hard to do too many things. Some of the story fell flat and didn’t have a satisfying wrap up. The characters needed some work too. That being said, I would definitely pick up other work from this author because with ideas like this she can only get better