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Dec 16, 2009

Fred rated it:

Here's the review from my twice-yearly zine (October '06). I think I preferred Link's debut short story collection, Stranger Things Happen, but I definitely appreciate what she's aiming for her. Nobody writes stories quite like hers:

Kelly Link is herself no stranger to the bizarre,
or even to charges of sometimes wading too deep
into its waters for some readers’ taste.

In a recent missive to members of her online
writing workshop, Link encouraged writers to More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2007

Trish rated it:

Link garners effusive praise from Jonathan Lethem, China Mieville, Michael Chabon, Peter Straub, Alice Sebold, et al. Sometimes I get it, and sometimes I don't. Some of her stories I enjoy, some of them I don't.

For example, take the two stories in this collection that I had read previously: Catskin and Stone Animals, both of which I read in McSweeney's. I liked Catskin slightly more the second time around, but it still rates a thumbs down. It's the tale of a witch and her three chil More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 09, 2009

Rob rated it:

Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners collection. Pretty awesome. A lot of “coming of age” stuff and adolescent themes. But beyond charming and cute. Insightful and provocative. And sexy in that “I just found out what sexy is” sort of way. Highlights include “The Faery Handbag” (makes you bite your lip and fall in love with life again), the puzzlingly epiphanic “The Hotlak”, and the absolutely fucking terrifying “Stone Animals”. There are a couple of these short stories I feel the need to re-read to More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 01, 2011

Tristan rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2010

oriana rated it:

Reading Kelly Link makes me wonder why anyone else ever tries to write anything at all. Honestly. I mean, I'm sorry to have to say this to all the people who write short stories and everything, but "Stone Animals" is the absolute very best short story that has ever been written ever. Oh, wait, except for "Lull". That's actually the very best short story that has ever been written ever. I can't decide, but anyway, the rest of the writing world should just give it up, nothing c More...

8 comments like (11 people liked it)

May 21, 2008

Emily rated it:

Nine short stories of magical realism, stories that shift effortlessly from fairy-tale mode to a much more naturalistic mode to surreal absurdity.

The thing about these stories--the frustrating, beautiful thing--is that they are not merely hard to understand. They resist all efforts to understand them. They hint at the feeling that, oh, if only you were smart enough, if only you spent enough time decoding the symbolism and the turns of phrase, everything would suddenly become bright-c More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 10, 2008

Cher rated it:

This collection of surreal short stories is one of the most striking books I've read in...my life. There is something utterly primal about the odd goings on in these tales that speaks to one's subconscious more loudly than to one's consciousness. These stories are not weird for weirdness' sake, neither are they science fiction. They are more on par with fairy tales, strumming at universal tropes and archetypes in the back on your brain. There were a few stories I did not like, that did not reson More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 17, 2011

Melissa rated it:

Excellent short stories, surreal and dreamy but not confusing. This book contains one of my favorite short stories of all time, "Stone Animals," and also my new favorite short story of all time, "Magic for Beginners." Oh how I wish I could work at the Free People's World-Tree Library! "Euphoria is: The Librarian's Tonic - When Watchfulness Is Not Enough. Although no one is sure what Euphoria is for, whether it is alcoholic or caffeinated, what it tastes like, if it is po More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 29, 2010

Nancy added it

I can't give Magic For Beginners a rating, because it's simply a book that wasn't "for me." It's not fantasy; it's magic realism, and personally, I need some recognizable logic and structure in fiction. Kelly Link is a finely skilled writer, and there's many a delightful turn of phrase, but the complete picture of each story was unsatisfying. However, I don't care for Gabriel Garcia Marquez either, and while I couldn't even finish A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, I did feel driven to read More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2008

Jen rated it:

I read one short story by Kelly Link in an anthology and knew that she was magical. I had to have more, so I stole my man's copy of Magic for Beginners and read through it in one sitting. The realm of the fantastic is usually not my thing, but well-written creative pieces are and this book definitely qualifies. "Stone Animals" in this collection is usually picked as the stand-out piece, and it surely deserves to be so (who else could make paint licking sound so right?), but there ar More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Apr 15, 2008

Michael rated it:

I want it to be about good and evil and true love, and it should also be funny. No talking animals. Not too much fooling around with the narrative structure. The ending should be happy but still be realistic, believable, you know, and there shouldn’t be a moral although we should be able to think back later and have some sort of revelation. No and suddenly they woke up and discovered that it was all a dream. Got that?

These are the instructions given to sex-line operator Starlight i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 16, 2008

Dusty rated it:

Nothing is impossible in a Kelly Link story. There are nine stories in this collection, and while a few of these shine more luminously than the others, all are read-worthy. That is not a compliment I would give many one-author short story anthologies, most of which resemble pop albums -- a few noteworthy singles, enough filler to make us feel like we've purchased a full album.

"Stone Animals" I first read in The Best American Short Stories of 2005. It introduces us to a nort More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2008

Benjamin added it

It could be that I am simply unpleasable; or that these stories would have tickled the part of me that enjoys clever writing had I simply read them at the right time. But as it is, this book was a real grind for me to get through.

It could have been the clever turns-of-phrase that exposed rather than hid a certain hollowness of feeling at the core of these stories. (Or is this just an effect of writing about characters who are numb or inarticulate or vaguely longing or just plain vagu More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 15, 2008

Thomas rated it:

I marvel at Kelly Link's raw imaginative power, darker than a Grimm fairy tale, fluid as dream.

Here's me trying to explain one of the stories to my wife: "You see there's this convenience store next to a place called the Ausible Chasm, where zombies live. The zombies come into the store but never buy anything. A woman named Charlie drives past on her way to the animal shelter. Her car is filled with the ghosts of dogs she has killed."

Here's my wife's reactio More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2008

Kathryn rated it:

Some of the stories were pretty amazing--the kind you finish and immediately want to start again to see what you might have missed. I like the air of mystery and missing-ness, the way she fills the pages but leaves spaces inbetween for the imagination. I'd read some of these in anthologies. There were stories I loved (The Hortlak, Some Zombie Contingency Plans, The Faery Handbag), some I liked a lot but didn't connect to as well (The Great Divorce), some that didn't work for me (The Lull) and on More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2009

Nicole rated it:

The stories in this book ooze creativity and imagination, which I'm generally a sucker for. There's a risk, though, in straying too far from traditional lines, in that the stories still have to connect for the reader on some level strongly enough for us to be willing to let go of the fact that we're being asked to take this bizarre world at face value.

For all of the creative elements, many of them very well-rendered (zombies really are vastly under-utilized in contemporary fiction, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 05, 2010

Cedar rated it:

I love Kelly Links short story collections. Yes there is a couple of repetitions (if you have read "Pretty Monsters") however if you haven't read the stories in awhile, its nice to reacquaint with old and distant friends; they are always worth it.

Now for the review...
Kelly writes with a style that is reminisce of peep shows. The nineteen-forties kind, not the today's big flash; all over. No, they have the intricacies of a fan dance, a flutter here, a tease there, and More...

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Sep 07, 2009

Phoebe rated it:

I usually enjoy being unsettled by writers; when reading a skin-crawlingly creepy Stephen King novel, or spooky and sexual and gross alien sex story by Octavia Butler, I enjoy the little shivers that run up-and-down my arms. Unfortunately, though I was frequently unsettled by the stories in Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners, it wasn't always a good kind of unsettled.

Link's tales ranged from nearly straight-forward fiction (the title story) to extremely surreal and dreamlike vignettes More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 07, 2009

Whitaker rated it:

It's somewhat unfair to put this as read, since I haven't read all the stories in it. But I'd read enough to know that it wasn't really my cup of tea. That's entirely a subjective reaction and could be as much due to what my expectations were. It's like putting an olive in your mouth thinking that it's a grape - the shock puts you off even if the olive is perfectly good for what it is.

When I bought this, it was shelved under the Fantasy section. I was expecting Fantasy a la Charles More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Aug 21, 2010

Richard rated it:

I think my biggest issue with the stories from this collection was timing. Granted, I had about as bad an introduction as you can get to reading this--I had been shown "The Specialist's Hat" from Stranger Things Happen, which is a phenomenal story, so what's worse than starting with someone's best and then going to other things?

But even that aside, I must admit that I found myself saying (and jotting) "Stop!" while reading. Link does have a good ear, but it seem More...

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Jan 07, 2009

Megan rated it:

I really wanted to like this book. I first heard about it on Novelist maybe a year ago, made a note of it, and just recently found it at Bookman’s. It seemed like just the kind of book I would like – I often read novels and short stories like these, and I love magic realism - and so it moved to the top of my mental “to-read” queue. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into it.

There were a couple of stumbling blocks to me in all of the stories except the very first one in this collectio More...

8 comments like

Nov 21, 2008

Deb rated it:

Can't concentrate lately? Me neither. I've been on a short story kick for the past month, and this book catered to my cravings pretty perfectly: it's literary fantasy with a focus on magical realism. Even gothic at times, due to the uncanny factor and the odd shiver up the spine that some of the stories produce.

The stories are interconnected by almost-invisible strands, words or imagery re-used in different settings. The stories vary in intensity and understandability, they're a bit More...

0 comments like

Feb 08, 2010

Elizabeth rated it:

It's probably unfair to short stories that rating an entire collection involves averaging ones that are just okay with ones that are truly exceptional. I was fully enraptured by over half the stories in this collection, finding Link's use of surreal elements utterly believable and, as the title alludes, magic. I could have read hundreds more pages about the family who moved to the haunted house with stone rabbits out front, the universe inside the grandmother's pocketbook, or the mysterious tele More...

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Jul 17, 2011

Fox rated it:

I've been debating whether to rate this three stars or four. Some of the stories in this book I thoroughly enjoyed - "Magic For Beginners," "Catskin", and "The Faery Handbag" in particular were ones that I couldn't put down. Other stories in it, however, for some reason or another failed to engage me. The ending of "Stone Animals" in particular felt like a let down to me - I believe it was more of a stylistic problem that I had with it than a content on More...

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

The stories-within-stories feel of Magic for Beginners, not to mention its absurdist magical realism, left some critics feeling alienated. Nor could many place Link (Stranger Things Happen) in a precise literary niche. Yet all agree that Link's imagination is a plausible, even powerful, force. Even when critics admitted that allusions and postmodern ploys went swiftly over their heads, no one forgot a single story. And, if the weird, creepy, and unbelievable predominate, Link pens characters and

More...

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Jul 19, 2011

Sarah rated it:

Did you ever finish reading a work of fiction and desperately wish it were true? That's how I feel about Kelly Link's stories. She immerses the reader in a strange-but-plausible world of magical librarians, haunted cats, and mysterious handbags that is hard not to love.
The stories are all good, but the particular ones I treasure are: The Hortlak, Stone Animals, & Magic For Beginners. The Hortlak concerns zombies wandering into an all-night convenience store and a wonderful collection of pa More...

0 comments like

Feb 26, 2010

Cate rated it:

I downloaded this book electronically and read it on my iPod, based on a glowing review from Laura Miller on Salon.com. Somehow, I didn't get that it was a collection of short stories.

The first story, about a magical handbag ("The Faery Handbag"), charmed me completely. So you can imagine how disappointed me I was to find out that the book wasn't actually a novel. Maybe if I had known that going it I might have liked it better. Maybe not.

Of all the stories, o More...

0 comments like

Jul 23, 2011

Julie rated it:

This book is weird. Or the genre (magical realism) is weird. I don't know if I'm smart enough or deep enough to "get" this book.

Also, I didn't know it was short stories at first, and I was disappointed. I got into the stories, but a lot of them didn't really end. That can weigh on me--what happened?!

Oh, and! This book and I got shat on by a pigeon! It hit equal parts of my hand and the page. I'm sure that has some significance. Right?

The writing is More...

1 comment like

Mar 23, 2010

Renee rated it:

The first story (The Faery Handbag) is fantastic. I wish it were a full-length novel. Unfortunately most of the following stories didn't hook me the same way; it's a real shame because this book set me up to have my chest blown open on every page. If it had been buried a bit further in I think I would have enjoyed the other stories more, because they are all very good. But this one almost jumped the shark immediately; the only other story that caught me the same way (and had me SO DISAPPOINT More...

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Jun 23, 2009

lnb rated it:

this book is so fucking good. i feel like this book is the kind of book i hoped to read when i resolved to start reading more and so now all is right with the world.

i thoroughly enjoyed every single story. some of them ("stone animals," "magic for beginners") were unbelievably wonderful and stood out to me but never did i wish for one to be over so i could read the next one, which may be a first for me and short story collections. i may think a little bit less of More...

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