Kelly Link: "The Book of Love" (ARC Review)

Title: The Book of Love [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Kelly Link [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Afterlife, Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024
Age: 16+ (the protagonists are 18 and 17, and on the whole it's more of a NA book than a YA one...The dealbreaker here are the pretty graphic sex scenes, definitely more appropriate for an older audience, but I'm hesitant to call this an "adult" book because of the characters' age)
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Imaginative, inclusive, delightfully quirky. Populated by flawed, yet endearing characters who feel very real. Written in an apparently effortless, yet magical (and sometimes funny) prose.
Cons: Long (though never boring) - if you prefer your books to be on the shorter side. Contains brief but frequent bouts of (graphic) sex - if you'd rather read clean books.
WARNING! Some horror/gore. Death of a parent. Grief. Racism. Sexual content.
Will appeal to: Those who like a dark yet magical, cheeky yet tender small-town fantasy with coming-of-age themes.

Blurb: Laura, Daniel and Mo disappeared without trace a year ago. They have long been presumed dead. Which they were. But now they are not. And it is up to the resurrected teenagers to discover what happened to them. Revived by Mr Anabin - the man they knew as their high school music teacher - they are offered a chance to return to the mortal realm. But first they must solve the mystery of their death and learn to use the magic they now possess. And only two of them may stay. What they do not realise is their return has upset a delicate balance that has held - just - for centuries. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Head of Zeus for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

I CONTAIN MULTITUDES

Every book whose synopsis promises dead/undead protagonists is guaranteed to have my attention - though I don't necessarily read all of them. But The Book of Love turned out to be much more than the story of three deceased teens who come back to life. For one, it encompasses a number of genres - building on its afterlife premise, it soon turns into a mystery, a supernatural fantasy with a magical-realism feel, and a strong coming-of-age narrative, while even incorporating a tongue-in-cheek, yet fond homage to romance novels. It's both dreamy and brutal, tender and acerbic, with messy characters you can't help but love and who feel like flesh and blood even when they're...something else. It's a love letter to music and writing. It touches upon/explores all kinds to familial bonds/relationships, even the strained ones (divorced/absent parents, sibling rivalries, your friends' friends whom you don't necessarily like). It's got queer and POC rep done right (also, "trans women are women" 👍), and it addresses racism in different forms (I particularly appreciated the discourse about publishing as a Black author in the typically white romance panorama. The book is set in 2014, but I'm afraid part of that still stands). At the end of the day, if this novel does incorporate a few familiar tropes (some of them slightly Buffy-adjacent), it spins them into an imaginative story that's much bigger than the sum of its parts. [...]

CHORUS LINE

Speaking of parts - The Book of Love is a true mosaic work of character voices, where all the components come together beautifully. We have four main points of view: gay Black teen Mo, an orphan who's come back from the dead only to deal with the loss of his grandmother and caretaker; protective older brother Daniel, living in a multi-ethnic family with four younger Black siblings; ambitious musician Laura, whose father left the family a while ago; and Laura's languid younger sister Susannah, lacking a purpose in life and more often than not at odds with her sibling. But there are tons of other perspectives in this book, some of them lasting for just a single chapter, which may alienate some readers. Personally, I found it a rewarding choice, especially given the book's page count (one might argue that TBOL wouldn't be so lengthy without all the added POVs, but even if the majority of them didn't actually forward the plot, the story would be much poorer for that).

IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT

I wish I could tell you so many more things about this book, but the spoiler risk is just around the corner. I will note that, contrary to most supernatural stories - especially the ones where the protagonists end up having to save the world, as it is the case here - The Book of Love has a strong magical-realism flavour, due to the interference of certain characters who, let's say, alter the town's perception of the events. This enhances the magical and surreal aspects of the story, yet it anchors them in reality somehow, which is definitely not the norm with supernatural narratives. Link reins in her monster book by way of compassion and humour, and frankly, the only thing I disliked is her penchant for punctuating her story with brief, but pretty straightforward (crude, even) sex scenes (I mean, I'm on board with characters having sex if needs be, and I found it realistic that 17/18-year-olds would be horny, but I don't need detailed descriptions of...things). In the end though, I was so enamored with the plot, the characters and the atmosphere that I couldn't bring myself to detract half a star because of that. I'm so glad I found this whimsical, enchanting book that surpassed my afterlife-stories-fan expectations, I plan on buying a copy for my shelves (and for reread), and I hope you won't get intimidated by its page count and give it a chance.

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