I love odd stories, but some of these were just too out there for me to understand what was happening, and that frustrated me. No doubt Kelly Link has a vivid imagination and unique sensibility, but I didn't love these as much as I'd hoped.

I love Kelly Link in every story she's written, but this...this is simply brilliant. Some of my favorite stories:THE SUMMER PEOPLEThe best thing about this story is the mysticism that surrounds the so-called summer people in comparison with the personage we actually "see" appearing in the story (think Facebook profiles, the ones with constant updates from people you don't actually know at all in real life). It draws parallels and points you right in the eye like a toothpick all the pretense peop...

I'm guessing Kelly Link and Karen Russell were separated at birth. Not only are they both Floridians, they're both wildly imaginative short story writers with a bent toward magical realism. (Ms. Russell whimsically leaning toward anthropomorphized fruit bats, silkworms and barnyard animals, Ms. Link opting for superheroes, squirrels, snakes, and semi-lifelike dolls). They both force you to look at relationships and the world around us in a cockeyed, off-kilter, and wholly original manner.Get in

***** The Summer PeopleThis story could function as a wonderful introduction to Link's writing. It features many of the elements and themes that pop up again and again in her stories, and is executed wonderfully. Here, we have the elements of classic fairytales ("Be bold, be bold. But not too bold – lest that your heart's blood should run cold.") which emerge in a lovely, but seemingly prosaic modern setting. We have the interactions of teenage girls, a legacy passed down through generations. We...

You know that moment in every action film - the one where the hero has to dive into cold water to deactivate the reactor or turn a lever that is only accessible underwater? They stand on the edge of a dark, unfamiliar pool and calmly fill their lungs with with air before diving head first. The audience instinctively holds its breath as well, some joking to see if the amount of time that passes on screen is even possible and others for the thrill of watching their heroes come so close to an aqua-...

OH MY GOD I JUST STARTED THIS OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD^^that was from the first time I read this beauty, back in 2015. Fast-forward to now: a few weeks ago it struck me, apropos nothing, that it had been a devastatingly long time since I'd read any Kelly Link. Even more devastatingly, she hasn't published any new books in the last five years!! But all her strange glorious beauty is still here, waiting to once again be plucked from my shelf and devoured, so here we are. Something that struck...

I woke up, the sun streaming in through the window, and rubbed my eyes. Then I realized it wasn’t the sun, but a fiery angel floating outside. You know, the fiery angels that we all know about. From the next universe over. They’re so common that I don’t need to provide context or even necessarily mention them again. My head hurt. I picked up a dog-eared copy of Get in Trouble by Kelly Link. I opened it to continue reading but then Rachel came in, half-naked, complaining about her boyfriend. She

(quietly standing in corner) (whispers) Okay, I do not get this book at all. In fact, after getting two thirds of the way through, I am abandoning it and walking away with my hands held high in surrender. I found most of the stories to be too convoluted and almost smugly vague in their lack of details. I definitely love short stories but these were trying to read and not worth the effort with their verb tense switching and inconsistencies in narrative distance. I totally get that there is some r...

3.5 Such an imagination, and many surprises await the reader. Stories that seem to be going one way and then veer into the unexpected. Never quite sure where I was, what type of world, what type of situation but it didn't matter, just went along for the ride. The only story I did not crew for was Demon Lover and the first one, The Summer People was my favorite. Loved the specialness, the magical feeling of wonder this one gave me. So different, so special.ARC from NetGalley.

I got a free copy of this book from Netgalley. I was happy to have an opportunity to read it. Link is clearly a well liked author for many people and she writes outside of any genre or style that I usually read. Her stories take place in worlds that are surreal, but her writing is understated and presents these worlds in a matter of fact dead pan manner -- so, for example, superheroes, ghosts, robot boyfriends are just part of the everyday fabric of somewhat creepy but ordinary people's lives. I...

I read half of the first story and then there was, like, a mysterious magic house up the hill, and stuff? Rather than kill myself, I bailed.

If Kelly Link's short stories in Get in Trouble share a common thread, it is that they are all opaque and difficult to wrap one's head around. Link's limited exposition works both for and against her, and some stories work best once their puzzle has been resolved. Most of these stories are set in worlds built entirely anew by Link and show an immense amount of world-building for a relatively small page-payout. One of the most compelling and frustrating parts of this collection is that many of th...

Though Kelly Link seems to have garnered a veritable cult following, I have somehow remained ignorant of her charms. (This was not a deliberate snub, I assure you.) All that's behind me now. I have downed her rather murky, yet sweet Kool-Aid, and like a lemming, will blindly follow her off any cliff of her choosing.Her latest book will hit the shelves in February 2015. It is a collection of nine wondrously dark fairy tales about teenage girls, shadow people, imaginary boyfriends, reality TV show...

*Tentatively looks around* Is it just me? Reading through the glowing reviews of this book of short stories leaves me baffled. I have never been a short story aficionado, but I always try to broaden my horizon when it comes to book genres. Unfortunately this really really didn't work for me. I think that this book is more of a case of “it's not you, it's me” . I found a lot of the stories/dialogue really weird and random, and for short stories that doesn't really help. It took me so long to u...

I get the inevitable comparisons to Karen Russell. I get it. The difference there is, Russell's stories are the day-to-day that shimmer with a nimbus of magic, while Link's worlds are magical, and profoundly steeped with the ordinary.This short story collection is a froth of bubbles, each one an universe of possibility, and in its pages, we pass through these walls into a world of magical ordinariness. "The Summer People" eases us into this strange new world; out in the summer cottage with a sic...

Get in Trouble was a recent finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Kelly Link's short stories have been compared to the works of Angela Carter, Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson. Those sounded like pretty decent credentials to me so I sought out a copy and gleefully buried my nose in its wonderfully odd pages.What I enjoyed most about this collection was its unpredictability. Just when you're sure you know where Link is going with a story, she takes you down a road you never even knew existed. These...

It's always a treat to read fantastical short stories like this. The stories here are intriguing, painful, magical, and tricky.

I was so ready to love this; it sounded right up my alley AND Neil Gaiman provided a blurb? What could possibly go wrong? And I absolutely adored the first story; I liked the matter-of-factness of the unreal and I liked the ambiguously cruel ending. But after that it went downhill for me; while there were some stories that I really enjoyed quite a few did nothing for me but leave me with a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Which is an absolute shame because the ideas behind the stories are mostly

This is one of the few times I gave 5 stars to a short story collection. There's always this one or those two stories spoiling the perfect score. Not here!It's weird how many versions of weird there are: Borges-weird, Calvino-weird, Poe-weird, Vandermeer-weird, Millhauser-weird, Lucia Berlin-weird, The story of my teeth-weird, etc. etc.Strange stories that allow us to dive into depths of imagination without the worry of having lost our minds. How fun is that in our awfully sane society (on the o...

Kelly Link joins Ted Chiang and Gene Wolfe in my personal pantheon of spec-fic authors who break my brain and capture my heart with elusive, masterful, mind-bendy short fiction.It wasn't love at first sight. I read her masterpiece, Magic for Beginners, at the wrong time, when circumstances in my personal life had me craving clarity and comfort from my reading. Kelly Link offers neither of these. Her stories disoriented me, left me hanging, gave me an anxious, something-is-off feeling. Like a mo...