The Book of Love

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Link, Kelly	4-week checkout	On Hold Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fantasy / Link, Kelly	4-week checkout	Due 02-04-2025
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Link, Kelly	4-week checkout	Due 01-20-2025
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Link, Kelly	4-week checkout	Due 01-30-2025
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Link, Kelly	4-week checkout	Due 02-10-2025

"Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves confused and disembodied, blinking under the fluorescent lights of their high school music room. They are greeted by the man they know as their music teacher, who restores the ghostly teens to their corporeal forms with a flick of his fingers and explains: nearly a year ago they went missing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, and have long been presumed dead. Which they are. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the teenagers agree to the terms of a deal that their teacher proposes. Laura, Daniel, and Mo-and a mysterious fourth soul who crossed back over with them-will compete to remain in the mortal realm. They will be given a series of magical tasks; in the meantime, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they have been. In the end, there will be winners and losers: Two will remain. Two will return. But their resurrection has attracted the notice of several supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with love, loss, and heartbreak in the lives they left behind, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing Lovesend in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert the looming disaster"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Good but could have been better submitted by robynegg on July 1, 2024, 7:52am This book, like all Kelly Link books, is amazing. It's vast and dreamlike and creepy and beautiful at all the same time. However, I can't stop thinking about how much better it could have been with a better editor. It needs to be about 15% shorter and 20% less fantasy. Link's work, imo, functions best at the border between literature and genre writing, with one foot uneasily in each spot. But this book felt in places way too fully like a full on fantasy novel.

Starts strong, weakens as it goes submitted by aahughes on December 19, 2024, 10:58am I enjoyed the first 200 or so pages of the book, which had shades of “The Master and Margarita.” But as the novel went on and everything that happened began to be explained, the story lost its mystery and its appeal waned. I felt that the author had more love for their main characters than I did. I would have been quite happy to see several of them killed off, but instead side characters were sacrificed for the sake of wrapping up the plot far too neatly.