Get in Trouble: Stories

I have been a Kelly Link fan since the first short story I read. I have been eagerly awaiting a new collection of her works since her last published was far too long ago. Get in Trouble did not disappoint. Every story packs a punch; every store has complicated characters who seem ever-so-realistic;

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every story has a rich world behind it. I had already read both Origin Story and Secret Identity in other formats, but I read both again and enjoyed them just as much. Origin Story's end makes me ache with empathy, and Secret Identity reminds me far too much of the precocious teen I was. Two Houses dazzled me with it's space travel; The New Boyfriend had me wincing in preemptive sympathy and utterly surprised me with genuine fear; The Summer People delighted me with it's longing; Light was possibly the most fun and fascinating; and The Lesson made me cry (especially since I work with newborns). There isn't a bad story in the lot, and I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

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I originally received 'Get in Trouble Stories', by Kelly Link, as an advance reader's copy, and was eager to read it. Because of school and work demands however, I've had to hold off several months for the opportunity to do so, and I'm sorry it's taken so long. Kelly Link's highly readable short

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stories remind me of those written by Karen Russell. I had read Russell's 'St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves', and enjoyed the book for it's originality. I feel the same way about Link's collection. These wonderful short stories, 9 in all, cover a wide range of subject matter from the real life of superheroes, to a girl's infatuation with a realistic, life-size doll. From experiencing life in ancient Egypt, were it to take place in the modern day, to the pressures experienced by a gay couple preparing for the premature birth of a baby they hope to be adopting, and all the difficulties associated with that. There were also stories that I found too difficult to describe, that cover multiple genres such as horror, fantasy, serial killers and love. At no time did Link feel a need to follow the constructs of any one genre and provide stories that were stable and predictable. What I really enjoyed about these stories, was that I never knew what to expect, and what the outcome would be. It was so refreshing to have a book in my hands that provided me with really well written stories that had no walls and created their own worlds in ways most writers never think of. If you're looking for some original, entertaining material, you should pick up 'Get in Trouble Stories' by Kelly Link, and see what true, unpredictable reading can be like.

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A short-story collection by an author who has garnered an impressive following of devoted admirers, including Neil Gaiman and Alice Sebold. I can't quite see the attraction. These stories are avante-guarde, generally tinged with sci-fi or fantasy elements, with muddled plots and unclear endings. I

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don't have a problem with writing that demands extra attention and focus, but there has to be a worthy payoff for the effort. I don't see the payoff here, and it was a relief to finish the book. Kelly Link does show talent; some of the writing and characters intrigued me. But her talent here is expressed in a manner unappealing to me.

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“Close encounters of the absurd kind.”

A young girl, in rural North Carolina becomes a caretaker of a mysterious cottage, inhabited by spectral residents. An aging film star, made famous, in a series of vampire films, visits the set of a ghost-hunting reality show. A fifteen year old, travels to

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NYC, to meet a much older man, she met online, staying at a fancy hotel, that is hosting both a dentist and superhero convention.
The rest of these wonderful stories are filled with astronauts, demon lovers, surrogate mothers, iguanas and life-size boyfriend dolls. Most of the stories may be fanciful, but Link, breaths warmth and life into this oddball array of characters. Her writing is smart, insightful and darkly humorous.
This is my first Link collection and she has quickly become a favorite. I am looking forward to reading all of her earlier work.

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***** The Summer People
This 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

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– 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 have things so beautiful and mysterious that they hurt the heart - with a dark undercurrent of dread and disgust. And of course, questionable motivations and an ending that while ambiguous, feels altogether 'right.'
Since, for me, this wasn't an introduction to her work, it was a reminder of all the reasons I admire her so much.

**** I Can See Right Through You
While reading this story, an image came into my mind: that of holding a carefully carved but strangely shaped object in my hands. Blindfolded, the reader gently explores the odd and spiky contours of this object, carefully hefting its weight, unsure of its exact measurements...
Link's stories are like that precisely crafted but unidentified object.
Here, she spins us a tale of the fraught relationship between two celebrities. I'm usually not one for feeling too much sympathy for the tribulations of the rich and famous, but this piece worked very well. (And, the grand finale at the haunted (?) nudist resort was the perfect mix of weird and hilarious).

***** Secret Identity
A fifteen-year-old girl from a small town shows up at a New York City hotel to meet someone she's only chatted with online. Amidst a flurry of superheroes and dentists (the hotel is hosting two conventions), a strangely touching story emerges, with a lot to say about what 'identity' actually might be.
Although none of the details here directly apply to me or my past (no, no one has ever assumed I was a superhero's sidekick) this story perfectly captured the essence of what it was to be fifteen.

**** Valley of the Girls
Previously read (in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of The Year Volume 6 – Jonathan Strahan, ed.)
This story grew on me. The first time through, I found myself not liking it as much as most of Link’s work, and I kind of slid over some essential details. Then, I got to the end… and went back to the beginning, and started right over to get all those details in. It’s an exploration of the consequences of celebrity, the meaning of identity… and it’s also just plain creepy. Excellent.

*** Origin Story
This one seems to take place in the same 'world' as 'Secret Identity': a scenario where superheroes and mutants are a common and accepted part of society. At first, this conversation seems to be one between two normal (if a bit messed-up) teenagers, but gradually more is revealed: both supernatural and mundane. I didn't feel that this one was as strong as others in this collection.

**** The New Boyfriend
Previously read (in Monstrous Affections)
On the face of it, this story is a bit teenage-y – but Link’s trademark weirdness suffuses it. Here we have a group of four high school friends. Ainslie’s a bit more indulged by her mother than the rest of them, and has been given not just one but all THREE models of the hottest new ‘toy’ – realistic robot ‘boyfriends.’ The models are Vampire, Werewolf, and the latest, hard-to-get version, Ghost. Ainslie’s best friend, Immy, is consumed with jealousy – she desperately wants a fake boyfriend of her own. Things get even more complicated when it seems that the ‘ghost’ boyfriend may be genuinely haunted.

**** Two Houses
Previously read (in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 7 – Jonathan Strahan, ed.)
A small group of astronauts, far out in lonely space, tell each other ghost stories and succeed in freaking each other out. I actually really liked the main ‘secondary’ story in the piece (creepy art installation!), but I didn’t think that the parallel that was set up worked as well as it should have.

*** Light
This one felt very, very familiar - I think I may have previously read it online (it was first published in 2007.) It takes place in a future Florida where things have gone 'weird': pocket universes are everywhere, alien oddities bleed into our world, and children with double shadows can 'develop' twins. In this world, a hard-drinking but oddly responsible woman works managing a warehouse full of sleeping bodies. In her off hours she has to deal with her difficult gay twin, and picks up men at the local bars. I loved the setting, but in this one, the ending felt too random and inconclusive for me.

Many, many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this excellent collection of Link's work. As always, my opinions are solely my own.

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I met Kelly Link once and found her to be a wonderful and engaging person. You would never know what thoughts must go around in her head. This is a delightful collection of quirky short stories that defy description. Is it fantasy, magical realism, sci fi, romance -- I just don't know since it dips

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into them all and transcends them all while remaining completely relatable. If you are looking for something fun and really, really different from the mainstream, this is for you.

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Another brilliant book of short stories by Kelly Link. Where her earliest short stories had a sense of the archetypal about them -- they frequently felt more like half-remembered fairy tales than anything else -- her most recent stories have a specificity of setting and character that I find much

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easier to connect with. She can make the strange mundane, as she does with a pair of stories that take place in a world where superheroes are a daily concern. More rewarding for me are those stories where she makes the mundane uncanny: my two favorite stories in the book ("I Can See Right Through You" and "The Lesson") do that splendidly. Link twists stories in ways that you don't expect, and she is able to provoke more anxiety with a mere suggestion than other authors can by simply stating things plainly, and I genuinely appreciate that. The only thing I regret about finishing the book is that it may be a while before I get to read more of her stories.

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Kelly Link's collection was good, but as is often the case with short story collections, it was a little uneven. That said, I figured I'd get my ratings together by averaging out the ratings on all the stories.

The Summer People - was creepy and a great setting with developed characters. I'd give it

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4 stars
I can see right through you - so much of this reminded me Joe Hill's "Horns" and I wasn't a fan of that book. 3 stars
Secret Identity - I'm not sure what to think of this. Quirky, but didn't quite hit the mark for me. It was pretty much a first person narrative of a meet-up between an underage girl and a guy she met in an online fantasy game. And there's superheroes and dentists in it. 3 1/2 stars
The Lesson - a couple have a surrogate carrying their baby. They go a friend's wedding and stuff happens, but nothing's very clear. I didn't think the characters were as well-developed as The Summer People 3 1/2 stars
Valley of the Girls - the hieroglyphic text or I guess what was meant to be that, just threw me off. It was a little hard to follow the story with a lot of characters and doubles of them too 3 stars
Origin Story - again, superheroes, but again, I didn't think the characters were developed enough. 3 stars
The New Boyfriend - weird, dark, creative. Great story with some great twists. 4 stars
Two Houses - again, great twists, a great story within a story...this was probably the best of the lot 4 1/2 stars
Light - it teetered back and forth between strong and not so strong. In the end, the ending almost made it four stars, but not quite ..3 1/2 stars

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I received this book as part of the LT early reviewer program. I have read Kelly Link in th past but had forgotten how incredibly wacky her stories can be. In almost every case in this book, it took me several pages to even begin to put together what was going on. Often the back story comes to

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light just as things are wrapping up and on more than one occasion I felt like there was no conclusion at all. Not that this is entirely bad. I enjoy it when a writer leaves much of the thinking up to the reader and I feel like no two sittings with this book would be the same. A good one for fantasy lovers who like to ponder the meaning of the story just a bit.

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Wry, dark, playful and enchanting, each story in this remarkable collection is like a window into a skewed parallel universe. Kelly Link's worlds contrast the mundane and the extraordinary - one tale features a hotel overrun by two concurrent conventions, one for superheroes and one for dentists.

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But amidst all the vampires, astronauts, robot boyfriends, and "twins" that grow from a child's second shadow, real people strive to understand their own relationships and connect with one another. Link is particularly good at writing teenage girls, but all of her characters exist in three dimensions. I devoured this collection in a single gulp but the evocative themes and imagery will stick with me for a long time to come.

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Kelly Link's books are always enjoyable, and she's the master of her particular genre. Some of the stories in this collection have a truer aim than others, which felt a little more like work; the recurrent themes made some of the stories seem like they'd be much better in different books, or just

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in magazines or journals, than side-by-side, where they end up being too many helpings of jellybeans. Of course, I get picky. The first story was the best, and set a high bar.

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As always, Kelly Link's short stories are satisfying. You have to be prepared for almost anything to happen, but isn't that true of all fiction, whether realistic or not?

It is difficult for me to describe this particular collection of short stories. Phrases which come to mind are stylistically inventive, charming, magical, inconsistent,disparate. Some of the stories were absolutely wonderful, "Summer People" definitely my favorite. Some seemed to ramble on too long

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and I lost interest. The most striking traits were the creativity in terms of style and the moments in which the magical charm was immeasurable. The most common theme amongst the stories were coming of age conundrums faced by most, if not all, adolescents, such as the tensions of breaking away from family and lifelong expectations to become an individual. This collection is worth the read, yet be prepared for something of a roller coaster ride.

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Kelly Link has written a wonderful collection of short stories that transcend traditional genres. The writing is experimental and yet accessible. Some of the characters are bizarre, yet still relate-able (not a real word, but now that I've spoken it into existence it will hopefully show up in the

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dictionary soon).

What Link excels at is creating characters that are interesting and complex, and she conveys this in short a short period of time. While some of the situations are ridiculous (mail order boyfriends who are lifelike robots that teenage girls collect like Barbie dolls.), Link makes them believable and this is the hallmark of good writing. She takes you to places that you didn't know existed and when you leave them you feel as if you've actually been there.

There are elements of these stories that are reminiscent of Kafka, but Link clearly has a voice of her own, and that makes me reluctant to compare her writing to other authors. If you like unusual and innovative writing this book is for you.

Note: I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest reivew.

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I was excited to receive Kelly Link's latest book as a review copy from LibraryThing, and I was not disappointed. Get in Trouble seems to be a meditation on identity and obligation through the eyes of a myriad of characters in situations so simultaneously strange and mundane it can be challenging

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to get your footing before moving on to the next story. From superheroes to haunted astronauts to shadow twins to teenage customers of doppelgängers for hire, her characters are human to a fault, and they inhabit worlds that are filled with perfect, fantastical details in which they lead lives that are filled with similar complications and obligations to the ones we enjoy. If this all sounds complicated and brainy, just know that it is so much fun to read a story by Kelly Link. It makes your eyes sparkle with the light of a thousand teasing grandfathers with magical secrets. It’s special.

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As always, Kelly Link delivers. This collection of nine short stories is whimsical, creepy, and thought-provoking. These also seem longer and more complex than her earlier stories; perhaps she's moving toward a novel? I particularly enjoyed the worldbuilding hints in "The Summer People" and the

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complexities of adolescent friendship in "The New Boyfriend." Definitely a keeper.

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Link has many strengths as a writer. She has a vivid imagination, a knack for being able to pull apart cliches to make them into something fresh, and an incredible gift for digging out the pains her characters try to hide away. Her prose is crisp and poignant, and she flawlessly weaves together the

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fantastic with the mundane in ways that will leave you aching for a more magical world while also realizing that even magic will disappoint you.

If Link's writing contains any flaws, it lies with her endings. They often feel tacked on and/or too abrupt and/or inappropriately optimistic. Most of the endings simply can't carry the weight of her story. I found myself disappointed more often than not with the endings, which is not something a reader should walk away feeling. Of course, some of this dissatisfaction stems from my personal distaste for happy(ish) and "lesson-taught" type endings. Yet, I don't think much objectivity is required to say that her endings--thematically--often don't fit the rest of the story.

I Can See Right Through You is, by far, my favorite story in this collection. It may be a masterpiece of modern short fiction. If you only want or can only read one story from this collection, read I Can See Right Through You.

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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

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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 Publisher..

ARC from NetGalley.

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Got this book thru the Early Reviewer program at LT. It is Link's latest collection of stories. I first read her in Magic for Beginners. Her stories are not quite fantasy, not quite scifi. I've heard the term magical realism bandied about and the "kids" call it slipstream.

Overall, the 9 stories in

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the book are quite satisfying. A couple were misses for me, but on the whole and excellent read. From an ageless vampire who is an aging movie star, to a society where rich girls spend their parents money building their funeral pyramids, to a great ghost story on a space ship out in the vast interstellar skyways, there's a great mix of stories. One takes us to a hotel where a conference for superheroes clashes with one for dentists.

Definitely worth your time.

A couple quotes...

"What you deserve and what you can stand aren't necessarily the same thing"

"Now fill up the lobby with dentists and superheroes. Men and women, oral surgeons, eith dimensional entities, muntants, and freaks who want to save your teeth, save the world and maybe end up with a TV show too."

8/10

S: 2/23/15 F: 3/13/15 (19 Days)

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The stories of Kelly Link have been on my to-be-read radar for ages, that first collection sadly sitting on the shelf, waiting for years. Somehow I've been comparing the writing of other authors (ie: Karen Russell, Sharma Shields) to Link without having read a word of Link's (which I really

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shouldn't be doing.. comparing without reading!) I'm very happy to know that Kelly Link's writing is exactly as I thought it was! Quirky, fun, magical, weird, spooky, haunting, glittery. All of the stories here are captivating with fascinating concepts, featuring fun ideas like antagonistic unicorns, pyramids built for rich teenagers, comics featuring writers like Thomas Mann, conventions with actual superheroes, pocket universes with invasive species (mermaids), animatronic robot boyfriends, decaying Land of Oz amusement parks, ghost stories in outer space, weddings in which those in attendance wear horrible wedding dresses and walk around an island. Reoccurring themes feature superheroes, vampires, ghosts and technology, usually a combination of those, but used in the best way possible. One story was a little confusing (Valley of the Girls) maybe because it was the shortest in the book and could have used a little more depth. The average length of each story here is around 30-40 pages. There aren't any clunkers here but sometimes the endings of a couple stories are a little vague and unsatisfying. Some weirdness could use a little more explaining. But I'm very pleased that a writer that has been on the shelf for far too long is exactly as awesome as I thought. I'm not much of a short story reader, but this collection is certainly a favorite. I'm looking forward to the other collections!

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I must start by saying that I have never had the pleasure of reading any of Kelly Link's previous work. It was fun to discover this author and the interesting stories that she was able to create. The first story had me captivated and ready for more. As the book progressed, I found that some of the

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whimsical of these plots were very hard to swallow. However, overall I thought the stories were unique and not one left me without wanting.

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I like my short stories weird. But these stories by Kelly Link pushed the weird envelope for me. They’re not necessarily bad stories, but I felt like I wasn’t getting some of them. Are the stories the problem, or am I? I don’t know. I do know I don’t want to be the sort of reader who

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dismisses difficult writing as bad, but neither do I want to be the sort of reader who assumes that difficult writing is deep or profound.

I did genuinely enjoy “The Summer People,” which tells of a girl in Appalachia who has inherited the task of taking care of some otherworldly visitors. It's satisfyingly creepy, and there’s plenty of ambiguity, but it’s the kind of ambiguity that leaves me happily imagining what might be happening, not scratching my head at what I missed.

Another pleasantly creepy story was “Two Houses,” although the creepiness is really in the story within a story. In this story, a group of space travelers are alone in space when their companion ship disappears.

“Two Boyfriends” delves into the dynamics of friendships—I can’t say the insights are incredibly deep, but I appreciated how Link gets at teenage desire.

Two of the stories—“Secret Identity” and “Origin Story”—are set in a world where superheroes are real. The first story, in which a girl is alone at a hotel during a superhero and a dentist’s convention, is better than the second. Stuff happens in that first story. If anything, it’s maybe a little too packed with incident, but I mostly liked it. The second is a mostly pointless conversation.

More pointless are the stories “The Lesson” and “Light.” The felt like a little like a random collection of images with a not very exciting story stringing them together. “Light” is busy with stuff, even more randomly arranged, with even less story. “I Can See Right Through You” also features what looks like a random arrangement of incidents. The references to the demon lover and the ouija board opened up some interesting possibilities, but the actual story was dull.

And then there’s “Valley of the Girls.” My experience with this story makes me wonder if there’s more to the other stories that I just didn’t get. When I got to the end and realized what had happened to the main character, I went back and read the whole thing again and was impressed at how Link shared everything readers needed to know from the beginning without explicitly giving away what was happening.

Would the other, more opaque stories benefit from a second reading? Maybe. But most of them weren’t compelling enough as I was reading them for me to want to try again. As short stories go, they’re on the long side, often 40 pages or more. A lot of the time, I could work out the basic plot. I just couldn’t figure out what a lot of the extraneous details had to do with anything. They felt both simplified and overly complex all at once.

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There is no one in the SF/fantasy field who can create characters with more emotional complexity than Kelly Link, and there is no one who writes literary fiction with more creativity than Kelly Link. The only fair complaint about her writing is that there isn't enough of it, especially since she's

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exclusively known for her short stories. With Get in Trouble she seems to have reached a stage in her career when the reader can feel her pushing at the edges of that form, starting to grow plots and situations that need to expand into something that can stand alone between covers. This is nothing but good, since it means both that she's produced some of the richest work of her life and that she may finally be ready to take a chance on a full-length novel. Regardless, I can't wait to see what she does next.

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I’d been wanting to read Kelly Link for a long time because of all the good things I had heard about her. The collection of stories in Get in Trouble confirms her reputation as one of the best short-story writers working today.

Link’s work defies easy pigeonholing. It straddles genres and time

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periods. What it does is create an immediate sense of place and of mood. Always slightly surreal and with a sense of foreboding. You quickly identify with her characters, even if you are never sure if you can trust them. She draws you in and pulls you along with beautiful prose and twists that you can’t quite see coming, even if you know something is coming.

Link’s characters remain grounded and real, no matter how bizarre the situation they find themselves in. You can find something of yourself in her characters, which at times is truly frightening. Her settings are fully realized no matter how far from our reality they stray.

The nine stories in Get in Trouble criss-cross the world in setting, and even venture into outer space. Each of them feels real. These are stories to be experienced as much as read. Kelly Link deserves all her accolades. If you haven’t read her before, you are in for a treat. This is a great collection of short stories. Highly recommended.

I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book.

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