Para's Proper Reviews: The Book of Love by Kelly Link

The book of love is long and boring, goes the song. Well, I hoped when I picked it up, at a little over 600 pages, it certainly is long, but boring…let’s hope not. I had high expectations. Weird magic literary shit is exactly up my alley. In the end, I have mixed feelings. I definitely liked the weird unexplainable magic shit, but it was stuffed between so, so much of the most incredibly tedious teenage relationship drama.

In the little Massachusetts town called Lovesend (should that be love-send or love’s-end?), three teens who disappeared nearly a year ago (plus one extra) suddenly come back from the dead. They are met by their high school music teacher and a wolf-man who explain their new undead situation, conjure an excuse for their absence for townsfolks to believe, and set them tasks. Like doing magic. How? Fuck you, go figure it out, that’s how.

There are immediately questions and I love a book with some good questions. Who are Bogomil and Anabin? How did the teens die? Why are they back? What must they do? What’s up with the magic? Those sort of mysteries are like catnip to me. The weirder, the more unexplained, and the more slowly revealed the magic, the better. At the beginning, and during the last quarter of the story, I couldn’t put down the book. I had to know.

The middle ~350 pages…not so much. The good stuff was hidden among far too much bickering and who-fucked-whom for my taste. Which is fine if you’re the sort of person who finds teenage drama interesting, but I’m really, really not. I wasn’t into it and couldn’t relate even when I was a teenager myself. I don’t care how many times Laura’s sister Susannah hooked up with Daniel. I don’t care who they screwed in between and whose dick did what. It was constant, it was incredibly banal, and it started before the characters were in any way established i.e. before I had any reason to care about them. I was so frustrated. I couldn’t even skip because sometimes, there would be some interesting magical oddity, or an appearance of a character I liked, so I had to grit my teeth and push on.

Not that I ever got to care about most of the characters. Susannah, Laura, and Mo might suck and make bad choices in realistic, mundane ways. Daniel might be so boring that even other characters remark on it. But the fact that all of it was intentional doesn’t make up for the unpleasantness of the reading experience. Daniel’s mischievous, chaotic little siblings were an absolute delight, but as mentioned above, Daniel himself is a yawnfest. The only interesting main character, Bowie (also unpleasant, but at least with interesting issues), was constantly sidelined and far less present than I would have hoped for. Even at the end, his subplot just…fizzled out.

Which was sadly true for a lot of what I liked. Even the ending, the most compelling bit by far, wasn’t without flaws. An interesting subplot is introduced, only for it to be resolved immediately, in one or two pages per character. It was over before I could finish thinking “Ooh, now we’re getting somewh…nevermind.” Why couldn’t we have that in the middle, instead of all the stuff I’ve forgotten immediately?

Anyway. It was definitely more book than me this time, but I’d still recommend it with caution.

Enjoyment: 3/5
Execution: 3.5/5

Recommended to: those who like weird unexplained magic AND awful teenagers being awful (also, I couldn’t find a way to squeeze it into the review, but Mo is gay, Laura is a lesbian, and there is a bisexual side character who’s as much of a disaster as anyone)
Not recommended to: anyone with similar low tolerance for asshole teenagers and their relationship drama

Bingo squares: Dreams, Bards, Multi-POV (HM), Set in a Small Town (HM), Book Club or Readalong Book (active, I'm pretty sure, so get your HM while you can!)

More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.