Love Is Hell
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Love Is Hell (Infernais #2)

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67  ·  rating details  ·  2,153 ratings  ·  244 reviews

Sure, love is hell. But it, s totally worth it.

In these supernatural stories by five of today's hottest writers--Melissa Marr ("Wicked Lovely"), Scott Westerfeld ("Specials"), Justine Larbalestier ("Magic or Madness"), Gabrielle Zevin ("Elsewhere"), and Laurie Faria Stolarz ("Blue is for Nightmares")--love may be twisted

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Paperback, 263 pages
Published November 25th 2008 by Harper Teen
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 4,842)
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new_user
new_user rated it 4 of 5 stars
Shelves: young-adult
All right, this anthology should be easy to sum up. First off, the quaint title is completely misleading. Three out of these five stories were disturbing or sad and certainly not happily-ever-after. Scott Westerfeld and Melissa Marr's stories are among the lighter of the bunch, and I get the feeling that lot of readers were more dismayed about the sad tone to the stories in this anthology than anything else. To rate each one...

Sleeping with the Spirit by Laurie Faria Stolarz: Ghost l...more
Julie
Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for: paranormal and YA fans.
Recommended to Julie by: saw it on the shelf at work, and saw Scott Westerfeld and Justin
I picked this up pretty much entirely for the fact that it includes a story by Scott Westerfeld. I've also read Justine Larbalestier's How to Ditch Your Fairy, so she was a draw too. I'm not sure what I was expecting, since I'm not much of a fan of short stories and I didn't know any of the other three authors, but I was pleasantly surprised!

A brief rundown by story, without any spoilers if I can help it:

"Sleeping with the Spirit" by Laurie Faria Stolarz - Not q...more
Paige
Paige rated it 3 of 5 stars
I would give this book a 3. It's hard when it comes to anthologies, to rate the book as a whole, so here is what I thought of each story. 1. I never really liked Laurie Faria Stolarz's writing or stories, and that hasn't changed. Her contribution was bland, things were too cheesy or coincidential. I'd give it a D. 2. Scott Westerfeld has the most brilliant plots, but his writing is only okay. I'd give his story a B- or C+. 3. Justine Larbalestier owned this anthology. Her writing was surreal and...more
Jessie
Jessie rated it 4 of 5 stars
Melissa Marr 5 stars
Scott Westerfeld 5
Laurie Stolaz 4
Gabrielle Zevin 3
Justine L..... 2.5

As with all of these compilations, some of the stories were great and others okay. I liked the happy endings better, and some of the stories were just weird.
Mai
I've heard of all these authors, or noticed their books around my library at some point or all. I've never read anything by them, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to get a feel of their writing style. Most of these miss the mark. The one story that amazed me saved this anthology from getting a two star rating.


Sleeping the Spirit (2/5 stars)
The plot has been done, and better, with better writing, and more memorable characters.

Stupid Perfect World...more
JoYee Chu
It appears i am currently addicted to short stories. Well, i bought this book ages ago, because i really enjoyed the first of the many popular-authors-short-stories-about-something-Hell starting first with Prom Nights from Hell. I have also read Vacations from Hell and so felt that it was obvious that i would purchase this one. But i haven't read it until now, i think it must've been about 9 months or more since i bought the book.

My personal favourite, i must say, is [authorScott Weste...more
Murphy's
from Murphy's Library

Love isn’t always just flowers, right? Sometimes it can be a little hellish, and thinking of it some authors have done a collection with little stories about how love can be a tad too paranormal sometimes. I first thought the stories would be scary, but I was wrong… Some of them were sickeningly sweet!

In Sleeping with a spirit we are presented to a girl who can’t sleep without having very strange dreams that make her wake up startled since she’s moved to ...more
Em-em
Em-em rated it 4 of 5 stars
Love is hell is a collection of short love stories written by different authors. It shows the various sides and circumstances on which love might suddenly appear.

Love is truly hell! Most of the stories ended with the boy and the girl not being together there were only two stories upon which the characters ended being together physically. What I mean when I said physically is that although the characters might have gone away or died, their love was not diminished nor was it gone. It r...more
Cristy
LOVE IS HELL is a collection of short stories from various popular YA authors and as so I thought it only fair to rate each story independently. But first I’d like to state that I’m not usually a fan of compilations books and was surprised by how much I enjoyed this one as a whole. So here we go…

Laurie Faria Stolarz’s SLEEPING WITH THE SPIRIT is a well told and very sweet, touching ghost story; setting great pace and a promising start for this style of book… think The Ghost Whisperer...more
Jenna Christy
LOVE IS indeed HELL. BUT not all the time.
collectively, the short stories entertained me.

INDIVIDUALLY:

"Sleeping with the Spirit" by Laurie Faria Stolarz
There definitely was no sleeping with the spirit that happened. I liked the story, but the ending was like "what?". If you think about it, it wasn't really a happy ending with both of them, but each of them got a happy ending on their own. But that's just me.

"Stupid Perfect World"...more
Say
5 stories in one book.....

story one: sleeping with the spirit by laurie faria stolarz (3 stars). it was ok, has the same theme as blue is for nightmares series. a girl haunted by a ghost asking for her help to be able to move on.

story two: stupid perfect world by scott westerfeld (2 stars). ok, i havent read any books by this author and this was the first one. i totally didnt get this story...kinda weird in a way. sorry!

story three: thinner than water...more
Claudine LeBosquain
I picked this book up not quite knowing what to expect. It was remarkably thin for a collection of short stories, and I wasn't quite sure if each author would have enough time to completely develop their stories.

As has been mentioned in past reviews, it is extremely difficult to rate an anthology, but all said, I really liked this book. Before obtaining this collection, I'd already read works by several of the authors, both short stories and full length novels, and was pleasantly su...more
Angela
Great way to sample YA paranormal authors, 3.5 stars

LOVE IS HELL is a neat little anthology composed of five paranormal romances from five popular young adult authors: Melissa Marr, Scott Westerfield, Justine Larbalestier, Gabrielle Zevin, and Laurie Faria Stolarz. The stories include a tension-filled romance about a ghost with unfinished business, a futuristic perfect world where hormones and sleep are turned off, and a seal faery's struggle with the two tugs on his heart, the sea...more
Ashlee
Ashlee rated it 4 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Samantha
Samantha rated it 5 of 5 stars
Shelves: favorites
From quirky to chilling, in this collection of short stories there's something for everyone. I really enjoyed these stories by five of todays hottest teen authors. They were well written and each one was surprisingly different. The first story, Laurie Faria Stolarz's "Sleeping with the Spirit" is the least remarkable of the five. But it's still an entertaining if predictable tale about a girl in love with a ghost. Next is "Stupid Perfect World" by Scott Westerfeld. It's set i...more
Nicole R
Sleeping With The Spirit by Laurie Faria Stolarz: I thought it was just okay, but didn't stand out.

Stupid Perfect World by Scott Westerfield: I loved the world-building, and I wanted it to be longer just so I could learn more about a world where sleep doesn't exist and people can teleport to Mars in a manner of minutes. This is my favorite of the 5.

Thinner Than Water by Justine Larbaleister: It was just okay, and it's one of my least favorites.

Fan Fictions ...more
Rose
Rose rated it 3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for: Those who love YA paranormal short stories
"Love is Hell" follows a list of young adult paranormal romance short story anthologies (alongside "Vacations from Hell" and "Prom Nights from Hell", if I'm not mistaken), with a diverse array of authors and subjects approached within. I'll say that much like other books in this scheme of anthologies, certain works appealed to me much more than others, and I think it depends highly on personal interests as to what story most appeals to the reader.

For me, ...more
Stefanie
Stefanie rated it 2 of 5 stars
Recommended to Stefanie by: Came across it looking 4 Melissa Mar's "Wicked Lovely" @ Library
I picked up this book because I'm familiar with two of the authors, Scott Westerfeld and Laurie Faria Stolarz. Both are authors of series that I really enjoy: The Uglies (Scott Westerfeld) and Blue is for Nightmare (Laurie Faria Stolarz).

The five short stories in this book were interesting enough to continue reading to the end but none of theme stuck out as being fantastic. Two of the five stories end in a positive light but the other three end sadly and/or tragically. I guess that's...more
Claire
This was a surprisingly entertaining and well put together anthology. It wasn't exactly gushing with awesomeness like some others I've read, but it was still pretty enjoyable and I was still thinking about it the day after. It's definitely an improvement on Prom Nights From Hell, mostly because of the presence of Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier. It's so awesome that they're married. Their stories were back to back in the book, and complimented each other surprisingly well.

Any...more
Kindred Spirit
This was a pretty good anthology of short stories. They were all fantasy, but not overly 'supernatural' or 'paranormal'.

My two favourites were Justine Larbalestier's 'Thinner Than Water' and Melissa Marr's 'Love Struck' and they were both fey oriented, which was so refreshing to see in todays seemingly vampire-and-other-supernatural/paranormal-being dominated market.

Scott Westerfeld's 'Stupid Perfect World' was set in a very similar world to his Uglies series (I don't *th...more
Melissa
Absolutely amazing is all I can say! I truly enjoyed each and every one of the stories in this compilation! :) I do have a question about the title though. Why "Love Is Hell"? It makes me want to think that all the love stories in the book are bad ones, like abusive ones or something equally hideous. I mean, all, if not most, of the stories have somewhat happy endings. The rest have bittersweet endings, which in my opinion, are good endings sometimes. I suppose "Love Is Hell"...more
Siti
Siti rated it 1 of 5 stars
Shelves: 10grade-shelf
3RD QUARTER
Siti H.M. Khairi

Love is Hell
by various authors
263 pages
HarperTeen $9.99
ISBN: 978-0-06-144304-6
(Ages 12 & Up)

Love IS hell. At least, that's what it seems like in these five short stories by Laurie Faris Stolarz, Scott Westerfeld, Melissa Marr, Gabrielle Zevin and Justine Larbalestier. Each story demonstrates how love does more bad than good but people still choose to fall for it.

Brenda is in love with a ghost, Mar...more
Sandy
Sandy rated it 4 of 5 stars
Shelves: 2009
This book is five love stories by five authors.

Sleeping with the Spirit by Laurie Faria Stolarz ***
This story was about a girl who meets the ghost of a boy in her dreams. After Brenda and her parents move into a house that is haunted by a Travis, who was killed there, she has to help him move on.
It was okay, I didn't think the story was very complete. There could have been more there. Also, it was odd trying to read in the first person present tense.

Stupid P...more
CekMoNSter
Okay..So, I had finished with reading this anthology..

I`m not particularly sure to why it was named as Love is hell, considering that most of the endings end happily..Except for two stories which ended quite sad.

The first story wasn`t really engaging in my part..It puzzled me in some way to why it was choosen as the opening story. I feel like reading some school essays..The predictability of it, somehow made me lost interest..

For the second story, I must say saved t...more
oliviasbooks
Surprisingly good. Out of the five stories I liked four. That's good for an anthology. In contrast to others, I enjoyed the Westerfeld-story the most. But I have to admit, it stands out a bit, because it is the only Science Fiction story in the midst of urban fantasy: In a future classroom students attend "scarcity class" and have to chose a self-experience project lasting for two weeks. It is a future in which hunger, illness, long-distance between places, exhaustion and other problem...more
Andrew
Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars
Firstly, I ordered this book because I was craving something new from Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier - and having the two of them side-by-side in an anthology was too good to resist!

But novelty aside...

I enjoyed this collection a lot.

Stolarz eases us into the genre of supernatural romance, with a slightly-cliched, but still sweet and well-written story of a girl who falls in love with a ghost.

And then, bang! We're dropped into the world ...more
Christine_v
Christine_v rated it 3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Christine_v by: Completes From Hell collection
Shelves: fantasy, romance
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Zuleika
5 short stories on supernatural (and one futuristic) YA romance

Sleeping With The Spirit by Laurie Faria Stolarz - 3/5

Stupid Perfect World by Scott Westerfeld - 3/5
Awesome setting and interesting plot, but the characters lacked depht to me. I liked the ending, it was very cute.

Thinner Than Water by Justine Larvalestier - 4 stars
My favorite from the whole batch. It had a darker/heavier feel to it and I did cry at some scenes. It had a very beautiful,...more
Holly
Well, Valentine's Day is tomorrow, so why not kick it off with a book called Love Is Hell for those of us who don't have a boyfriend to spend it with? I love the idea.

In this collection, there are five stories. I personally only liked two of them. Stupid Perfect World by Scott Westerfield was my personally favorite, but Melissa Marr's came in second. Perhaps it's because those are the only two authors I'm big fans of, I don't know. I thought the first story (I think it was writt...more
Ron
I haven't read this entire collection yet, but I did read Justine Larbalestier's beautifully haunting story, "Thinner Than Water," about a young village girl whose parents object to the boy with whom she handfasts, a story which ought to be remembered when they start making nominations for the next World Fantasy Awards. I also read Scott Westerfeld's "Stupid Perfect World," a goofy, highly entertaining high school romance in one of those future societies (like in a Twilight Z...more
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Love Is Hell (Hardcover)
Amor en el Infierno (Paperback)
Amours D'enfer
Love Is Hell (ebook)
Love Is Hell (Paperback)

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175855
5 stars= If I love you, I'll buy you a copy from this list of books. (Pls note, if you are my family or dearest friends, feel free to remind me to do so. I am lousy w remembering birthdays/holidays.)

4 stars= Don't even ask to borrow it. You should prob buy it though.

3= If you borrow it, you better not lose it, mangle it, or keep it too long.

2 or 1 star= I don'...more
More about Melissa Marr...
Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely, #1) Ink Exchange (Wicked Lovely, #2) Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely, #3) Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4) Darkest Mercy (Wicked Lovely, #5)

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