I decided to read the book of love as I enjoy the preview, and have liked previous works by Kelly Link. The description was intriguing, and I like the authors who blurbed. However, this one was not it for me.

The book of love is a slow narrative, told through multiple characters, and I mean multiple. There are over 30 different perspectives. The prose is beautiful and the world building is magnificent. Unfortunately, I found the book to be overly long and a little boring. I struggled to become invested in the characters.

This book is not bad, I just don't think I am the target audience for this.

A well crafted tome which did not fail to deliver on suspense, mystery and indeed intrigue. only negative for me was the sheer number of characters which quite naturally had to be explored in detail. Having said that there were some real gems and personalities presented in the finest detail .We meet three friends Susannah, Daniel and Mo who suddenly find themselves in a school almost a year after disappearing from their home town. They are dead but have been given the unique opportunity to return to life, in exchange for taking part in a series of magical tasks. So the adventure begins as the trio meet the towns people and explore dreams, relationships, and painful heartbreak all assisted by the existential presence of the supernatural.
Link knows how to describe and bring to life a town of young people as they navigate their lives. Throughly recommend.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in advance.

3.5 stars
The Book of Love is such a unique read with captivating world-building and characters you quickly grow to love despite their flaws and decisions.

When I first started this book I wasn't sure how I felt about it, mostly I wondered whether I was just not understanding completely what was happening but I still found myself unable to put it down. I needed to know more and I needed to know what happened with these characters. While it started off a bit slow for me, I soon found myself so immersed and captivated by the world that Kelly Link created. When I wasn't reading it I was thinking about it.

I like that we got multiple POVs in this book as it really helped me get to know these characters and their personalities. They each had their own flaws, thought processes, charms and quirks that just added to the enjoyment of the story. There were plenty of times this book tugged at my heartstrings and I honestly felt so bad for these characters and the situation most of them found themselves in.

Kelly Link's writing is so descriptive and at times intense that I found myself easily hooked on this story despite my rocky start with it. It concluded nicely and it answered any questions I found myself asking throughout. It also mentioned one of my favourite bands so that made me enjoy it more. I recommend sticking with this one if you give it a try! 

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book seemed so interesting but I couldn't get into it. I forced myself to read atleast 100 pages, I didn't open it for 3 days and now I've decided to DNF it because I don't want to pick it up again. I just wasn't thinking about it, I wasn't missing it.

3 days and I’m only at 20%
I’ve had to give up for the sake of my sanity, reading is my escape from reality and this just wasn’t taking me anywhere I wanted to go.
Overly descriptive, which is a shame as the descriptions were gorgeous, they just obfuscated what was already slow motion plot development.
Too many characters, too much extraneous detail and not for me. However if you enjoy slow moving, beautifully rendered and bafflingly complicated then this is the book for you!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers, you guys did a great job as I was looking forward to reading this.

I just don´t know what to say, I like it but at the same I didn´t. I think it´s a very weird book.
The story was ok, maybe the issue was in the prose.
Anyways, you should try this out.

I really enjoyed how the supernatural felt natural? in this, loved the beautiful prose and well fleshed out cast

Kelly Link’s short stories are superb. At 640 pages, The Book of Love is NOT a short story. I was drawn in by the fantasy and fairy tale vibes, the relationships between Susannah, Laura, Daniel and Mo, and the mystery of what would happen to the three who had returned (from the dead?). Unfortunately, the story was unfolding too slowly for me and I DNF’d this one at 45%.

Clocking in at an impressive 640 pages, The Book of Love marks the debut novel from Kelly Link. The narrative unfolds in the quiet town of Lovesend, New England, where four teenagers find themselves entangled in a metaphysical drama. Three of them experience mysterious deaths, followed by enigmatic resurrections, accompanied by a peculiar being unknown to them in their previous lives. Compelled to re-enter a world magically convinced they were merely studying abroad in Ireland, the quartet faces an unsettling ultimatum. Out of the four newly resurrected souls, only two will be granted the continuation of their existence, while the other two are destined to confront the haunting unknown.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

To be honest, I found this a little tricky to stick with. I'm not great with many shifting POVs, which we have here. It meant that at times I really felt I had lost the thread of it. On top of that, it was easily 200 pages longer than it needed to be. I get that the author was really trying to give context to these chararcters but entire chapters felt unnecessary to me. Some people seem to have loved it - might be a case of right book, wrong person.

The Book of Love is not a romantasy. It’s much more than that. It’s about all types of love.

There is plenty about romance in it – yes – but if you are expecting beautiful people to be running around saving the world, having steamy love triangles and hot sex… then The Book of Love isn’t that book.

The Book of Love is set in present-day America. People look like regular people. There is sex – but impromptu trysts in a coffee shop toilet (awkwardly discovered by the coffee shop owner) is what you should expect.

Why am I saying that? I’m simply laying out expectations. I’ve read a few puzzled reviews – mostly because endorsements from Holly Black and Cassandra Clare are leading readers to believe this is another Cruel Prince or Mortal Instruments, when it really isn’t. All these books feature love and romance. All feature teenagers. And yet, tonally they are very different stories.

Btw – this isn’t a slight on either of those authors who are both excellent, simply a clarification of expectations.

So… if it is NOT like those romantasy novels, what is it like?

Well… it’s sort of like American Gods with a dash of Little Women, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, and Stranger Things (except with a 2020’s vibe rather than 1980’s.) It’s urban and magical and beautiful. Could I also say it reminds me in ways of Buffy? Yeah – I’d add that to the mix too.

I put a booker prize winner in the comparison mix because this book deserves that sort of comparison. The prose is magnificent. The characters are real. Very real. I feel like I know them, like I could have a conversation with them and guess what they’d say back.

It’s the book of the decade to be honest. Like in fifty years’ time when people want to understand what the 2020’s were like, they will read this. While some books try to hide their setting, The Book of Love revels in it. Almost any hot topic that you see discussed on twitter or on the news, you will see here, through the lens of teenage America.

So – what is the book about?

First the premise.

Three teenagers die. Four are brought back to life. Not all of them can remain.

Who has brought them back to life and why?

This mystery is the key to the book – and is it captivating as the clues unfold and the story opens up.

I will go no further. This is a story that gets better and better with every chapter. It twists and turns. Always real and always beautiful. To give anything else away will only spoiler it for you.

Kelly Link is an accomplished writer. She’s won many awards for her short stories, but this is her first foray into novels. And what a novel it is. I do believe it will win awards next year such is the scope of the story and the storytelling itself.

Finally this is a book to savour and lose yourself in.

I mean that. It was a true adventure. Goodbye Laura, Mo, Susannah and Daniel. I will miss you.

I really wanted to like this book as I have enjoyed Kelly Links books in the past. Unfortunately, I didn't find it interesting or engaging enough. I did finish the book but although parts of it were enjoyable on the whole it dragged and was hard work. Maybe just not for me

Please see the link to the LoveReading website for the full review. I have chosen The Book of Love as both a LoveReading Star Book and a Liz Pick of the Month on our site.

a copy of this book was provided to me by netgalley for review.

i try not to make it a habit to DNF books i get an advanced copy of, but in this case i had to make an exception.

in 'the book of love' three teenagers suddenly find themselves, back from the dead, in their music teacher's classroom. their music teacher turns out to be more than just a teacher, and sends them on their way back to their normal lives with a series of magical tasks to try and figure out what happened to them. at least that's what the synopsis wanted me to believe. instead i got a WAY too long character study of a novel in which ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens.

when i first read the summary for this book it immediately made me think about 'a starless sea', and in the beginning it has similar whimsical vibes and i really thought it was setting up to be a magical, fast-paced mystery novel. it starts off strong enough, and we get dropped pretty much into the middle of the action, but 400 pages later neither the book or i are any closer to figuring out literally anything else and i gave up.

believe it or not, i also wrote down a positive thing! both the characters and the descriptions of their daily lives feel very real (probably because 95% of the book is just a character study detailing every single little detail of the character's lives).

i would recommend this for people who loved 'a starless sea' but thought: 'i wish it was slower, and also more confusing'. don't know if those people exist, but this is the book for you!

there's also a lot of humour in the book, but it's never really funny?

<spoiler>drew the line at the implied (or i hope it stays implied!) beastiality</spoiler>

anyway, that's like 500 hours of my life i'm never getting back. DNF'd at 74%

A unique premise and a beautifully written fantasy novel with strands of the supernatural that will appeal to young adult readers.

Some books work, some books don’t, and unfortunately this book falls into the latter category. It is without a doubt that Kelly Link can write good prose and I dare say that he story may be a good one, but you know when you get that feeling that this is not for you? Well, I got that feeling! Sorry! I hope that this book finds its readership.

This book had such an interesting premise and I was really looking forward to reading it.  But it did not live up to my expectations at all.  The opening was incredibly dull and it seemed to be written in a monotone.  Rather than capturing me from the start, it bored me rigid.  There were so many chapters that were just completely unnecessary, filled with random meanderings of thought where nothing happened to progress the story in the slightest. It was such a struggle to keep reading it.  Every time I put it down, I could not find the interest to pick it up again.  And I tried!  Oh, believe me, I tried so hard to carry on with it! I tried skim-reading it to see if I could get to a more interesting part but there didn't seem to be one. I made it up to 17% and the plot hadn't even got past the first 24 hours of story-time. I gave up. I just could not bear to waste any more of my life on something so completely undeserving.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an advance copy to review.

Intricate and mad, this fantasy coming of age novel isn’t like anything else.

Laura had grand plans, but then she died. Her sister Susannah really missed her, but when Laura, along with Daniel and Mo, returns from the dead, Susannah thinks they were all just at a musical school in Ireland, except she sort of also remembers they were missing and no one knew where they were. It’s all very confusing. There’s a lot of mysterious characters converging on Lovesend, there’s magic in the air and Laura, Daniel and Mo are determined not to be dead again.

This is a very difficult book to describe because it’s pretty bonkers. It’s a blend of outrageous fantasy and the incredibly mundane such as sibling rivalry - and it works. The huge strength of this book is the characters. They’re complex and compelling and relatable. And even in the midst of some pretty life or back to death stuff they never lose that awkwardness that is teenage.

This book reminded me of the Absolute Book and American Gods but it’s better. The other two meandered and I was no closer to understanding at the end than the beginning whereas this story is tight. It’s utter madness but it knows where it’s going and takes you along to a definitive conclusion and I love Link for that.

This is a hugely ambitious novel and it has a marvellous brain behind it. The only thing I will say is that it’s not for the casual reader, this story requires a huge investment both in time and story on the reader’s part, it’s very long and quite intricate. I really enjoyed it but I did struggle with the length.

For fantasy and those that love in unusual books I would highly recommend.

This book was really a pleasant surprise! I really liked the complexity of the story, the interwoven points of view, the moral greyness of all characters, and the depiction of mundane things - such as snowball fights, coffees, or s*x – amid the weirdness of it all. It was a bit on the long side (on my Kindle it clocked at a bit more than 12 hours reading, for 640 pages back to back) and, truth be told, I am not 100% sure that I understood the whole plot and its resolution, but I truly enjoyed the experience. I am really grateful to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the Review Copy of this book, and can’t wait for 8 February to be here so that I can start gifting this book around.

This ode to love starts with teenagers Laura, Daniel and Mo, who were dead. They aren’t anymore, though, because their odd music teacher has brought them back, given them magic for good measure, and is proposing a series of challenges at the end of which, hopefully, they will be able to reclaim their life. As they carry out the challenges and try to keep Susannah, Laura’s sister, in the dark, more supernatural beings appear in Lovesend, and a battle between death and love begun centuries ago sweeps the village.

The story is beautifully written, with lyric and evocative language. I really really liked how magic, love, and music are interconnected and depicted throughout the book. Truth be told, it started slow and I had a hard time getting through the first third of the book, but I am really happy I stuck with it and embraced the confusion, because I really just flew through the rest of it!

I would recommend this to anyone who likes young adult stories with a healthy dose of magic, a small sprinkling of horror, beautiful description and love as a fil rouge connecting everything and everyone. I would especially recommend this book to those readers who don’t mind if they don’t understand everything that is happening in the book and are just happy to be along for the ride. It is worth it.

I wasn't sure how the story would unfold from the blurb. It took me a few chapters to start to understand what was happening. There were some elements that were very interesting and I enjoyed the character descriptions. However, as others have written, it was quite slow and I was silently urging the book to pick up a little pace. An interesting story, definitely in the fantasy genre. Probably would be enjoyed by the young adult readers who love Holly Black and Cassandra Clare.