Get in Trouble: Stories

Kelly Link's stories are magical in that folklore way, that way that says maybe if you just tilt your head and squint, you'll find out the world isn't as boring as you thought. Frightening and wonderful and sometimes wise, they are not as distant and arch as most genre writing and not as wink-wink-aren't-I-so-clever as a lot of more recent writing. They are unexpected, and spend as much time on the ways we hurt ourselves and the complications of relationships (friendship and otherwise) as they do monsters and magic.

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 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.

GET IN TROUBLE: STORIES is a collection of nine stories by Kelly Link, who is perhaps best known for her short stories (beyond even her skills as an anthologist and small publisher). I'd read two of the stories: "The New Boyfriend" in MONSTROUS AFFECTIONS and "Secret Identity" in Geektastic. Neither were my favorite story in either anthology.

I feel like GET IN TROUBLE leans hard on the Kelly Link formula. Her mix of the ordinary and fantastic is nearly unmatched, but much of this collection feels like she's resting on her laurels. GET IN TROUBLE opens promisingly with "The Summer People," a sharply drawn tale that carefully breaks down both an Appalachian town and an aging estate full of fae. It hints at danger and dark fates while also focusing on the blooming friendship between two teen girls.

The second story, "I Can See Right Through You," killed all momentum to me. It is set through the point of view of the demon lover, an aging movie star who once played a vampire going to see the woman who played his love again. There's hints of good stuff in the story, but the conceit of calling him the demon lover through the whole story drove me nuts. Although the story has a pretty juicy payoff, it's not as good as an actual incubus showing up to make the repetitive epithet worth it.

My two favorite stories after "The Summer People" were the final two in the collection. "Two Houses" takes the classic plot of a bunch of people telling ghost stories to each other and takes it to a predictably meta but chilling place. I love a good creepy intelligent computer. "Light" is a story that takes place in a world where most people have a normal shadow, but some have no or two. It focuses on the main character Lindsey, recently divorced and a recovering alcoholic, and her gay brother who has moved back in with her. The setting of the story keeps revealing new strange details of this world (perhaps too much for one short story), but it goes down smooth and with no lingering unpleasantness.

I like Link's worth, but GET IN TROUBLE is not an essential collection. If you're a fan, go ahead and get this one from the library. Otherwise, stick to the first story (and maybe the last two).

Reading these women’s stories was different for me. I can use various descriptors: Macabre, challenging, time-slipped, poignant, trouble infused, doubled entendres, mystical and surprise.

The stories are easy reads but this collection is not really to my liking. I did not read all nine. I read the first six and put it down part-way through “The New Boyfriend.” This collection is not December reading.

The "Summer People” tells the story of a trapped “local girl” doing the clean-up work in her family’s summer rentals. She meets people, makes friends, boys and then runs away to a NYC life. Mistake.

“I Can See Right Through You” reminds me of a very twisted “mirror, mirror on the wall…”. A demon, a couple, interconnected lives and conflicts. What is the sex tape, are all three characters real, confusion, police and unexpected varied realities.

“Secret Identity” is about superheroes, sidekicks and the guy who didn’t show up. The convention hotel makes a nice setting, but is almost irrelevant to the twists and turns of the narrative.

“The Lesson”, simply, is about recognizing and understanding the reality and perils of life.

“The Valley of the Girls" is beyond me. No mental or intellectual fit.

"Origin Story” is another partial mystery to me. What is Bunnatine’s reality? Confusion, sex, friends. family and general inability to cope well or remember life’s goings on.

The writing flows well and holds together in potential surprise in these stories. While it’s a very comfortable read challenging your thought process, it’s just OK. Others will like “Get in Trouble" a lot more than I did.

I had not read this author before, and what became immediately apparent is that she has a singular ability to create worlds and reveal them slowly. To be honest, I was not all that enthused by the first story I read. I admired the way in which Link slowly revealed the world the characters inhabit and by the way that she seemed to tell just enough for the story to progress, withholding information for as long as possible. Perhaps it would help if I were more specific. The story, "Valley of the Girls," involves characters who have "Faces," apparently somewhat like clones or avatars to live their lives for them. Two of these characters, who are truly human in their emotions and desires, end up in an enclosed chamber. As they talk and it becomes clear that one of them has no desire to let the other one out, we gradually get to understand their world, the uses of "Faces," and, most important, their motivations.

As I said, I did not initially find this story enthralling. But for a few days afterward, I found that the story repeatedly coming to mind without my really bidding it to do so. So I returned to the book, found the stories more accessible, and decided that Kelly Link's stories should be absorbed slowly and read with full attention. They are truly inventive, and they ultimately reward the patient reader. At least, that was my experience.

I enjoyed several of the short stories in this collection but overall felt that this book was less solid than the author's prior work. Some of the stories just didn't click for me or felt too forced. When she is on, the author manages to meld unsettling quirks seamlessly into her stories while still maintaining a sense of personal immediacy. It's a difficult balance to maintain and in this collection that balance falls apart a few times. Even then, the writing is still enjoyable even though the story doesn't hold together. Kelly Link's earlier books serve as a better introduction to her writing but if you liked those you should also find some stories that you like here.

The phrase "genre-defying" may be overused and cliche when reviewing an author's work, but I think it perfectly applies to Kelly Link. I wouldn't be surprised to find her books shelved under fantasy, horror, or capital-L "Lit-trah-chah," as her stories contain elements of each.

Much of her fiction seems firmly rooted in the "weird" tradition, where reality and unreality are intertwined, but it's infused with a whimsical, Gaiman-esque quirkiness, as opposed to the doom-and-gloom nature of many of her peers. Some of her stories may be melancholy, but never oppressively dark.

One major attribute of Link that separates her from the likes of other modern "weird" writers such as Ligotti is her top-notch characterization. You care for these characters -- they aren't just a means to exploring mind-bending ideas and concepts. The novelette lengths of most of these stories allow enough room to explore the characters, but they're not so long that the magic-realist effects start to lose their...well, magic.

Her imaginative prowess is at its most impactful, imo, in the two stories that bookend this collection, "The Summer People" and, especially, "Light." The former is a moving fairy tale-like gem about a sick girl and her mysterious, magical little friends who live in a nearby cottage, while the latter is a surrealistic fantasy set in the Florida Keys, only one filled with strange pocket universes and living shadows. At it's heart, however, it's a stirring portrait of a lost, lonely alcoholic woman.

Elsewhere you'll find creepy gothic ghost stories in space, superheroes, Oz-themed amusement parks, and other dreamscapes that are too difficult for me to even attempt to describe. As with any short story collection, some tales will connect with the reader more than others, but on the whole, 'Get in Trouble' should satisfy anybody whose tastes run toward the weird end of the spectrum.

Kelly Link's latest collection offers more of her particular brand of literary fantasy, similar to (and likely to appeal to readers of) the work of writers like Karen Russell, George Saunders, Aimee Bender, and Melanie Lamaga, but with a distinctive voice that could only belong to her. Link plays with the tropes of pop culture, from superheroes to haunted campgrounds, but in spite of a lively style and quirky sense of humor there's an underlying bleakness to her work that's anything but mass market. Even stories written for teen audiences are pretty blunt about how manipulative and petty people can be, and about the sadness that often (but not always) drives such behavior. Perhaps the finest of these nine stories is "I Can See Right Through You," a non-linear ghost story about the corrosive effects of celebrity, though "Valley of the Girls," a science-fiction take on similar themes of privilege and emotional turmoil, is also powerful. Mention should also be made of "The Lesson," a study in the meaninglessness of tragedy that is at once wrenching and very funny. Despite the lack of genre elements, it feels very much of a piece with the more overtly fantastic stories in the collection, because the true magic of Link's writing is not in her concepts but in the execution. Even when the structural and stylistic gambits don't quite pay off, as in the intermittently successful "Two Houses," or when the concept feels less than innovative, as in "The New Boyfriend's" take on the popularity of teen paranormal romance, one admires the craft at work. For those who appreciate the surreal rhythms of Link's prose and plotting, Get in Trouble is a collection not to be missed.

Get in Trouble, a short story collection by Kelly Link, is striking in that it encompasses a very wide range of genres and styles. There are nine stories, each about 25-50 pages in length, with elements of fantasy, science fiction, the supernatural, or any combination thereof (and even one story which, as far as I can tell, has none of these elements). All the stories are very unique. In fact, if this book had been given to me without a byline, I probably would have assumed that every story was written by a different author. This speaks to how talented Link is as a writer, and this talent definitely shines through.

One commonality, however, is that every story is very character driven. This also means that the plots are mostly very light, there isn’t much action, and the exposition is practically non-existent. Take as an example my favorite story in the collection, “Two Houses.” It’s about two sister spaceships traveling to populate a new world, until we find out that one of the ships has disappeared in the blink of an eye. An intriguing opener, but we never get even the inkling of an answer (not even a clue). Obviously the fate of the second ship is not the point of the story, but it still feels a bit disappointing to be teased with a hook that never pays off.

I also had a lot of trouble with the lack of exposition in Link’s writing. With every new story, I spent the first 10 pages just trying to get my bearings straight, a distraction from the interesting characters that Link has created. On one hand I understand that everything has to be streamlined for a short story, but on the other hand, the stories felt incomplete. Perhaps Link’s stories are just bigger than the short story format allows.

I generally enjoy Kelly Link's short stories which is why I selected "Get In Trouble" with barely a second glance, but as with any short story collection, there are some stories that I like and some I can pass on. With Link, I usually like more than I pass on, but with this collection, there was really only a few that I liked and the rest I found myself skimming through.

That said, Link is still a wonderful writer and I'd recommend to any Link fan to give this collection a glance.

Kelly Link does weird well.

Whether you're reading her story about a girl's entanglement with faeries in rural Georgia, or the one about a confused girl lost at a superhero convention, or the one where Earth sprouts pocket universes populated by attractive 7-foot-tall green men, you're transported to strange new worlds where everything is off-kilter ... except for the main characters' troubles. These stories appeal to people like me who probably wouldn't otherwise be a reading story about a high school student abandoned by her parents who befriends a lonely lesbian in order to help herself get out of a jam, or one about a fifteen-year-old girl who flirts with adult men on the Internet under a false identity, or the one about the extremities to which loneliness and envy drive another teenage girl.

It's not only the strangeness that makes Link's work attractive; it's also the sly silliness that often pervades her stories while never keeping them from being serious. Humor does help keep her stories ambiguous, however. They're not about heroes or villains, and, even when the story is deeply morally fraught, there's never anything as straightforward as a simple moral or lesson.

The book's title seems apt, because the girls in these stories (all the protagonists are teenage girls or young women) are either in trouble or on their way there. That's OK; anyone who takes risks -- like the fifteen-year-old at the superhero convention -- is going to get into trouble at some point. But to live is to take risks. Some people court trouble, and that's a bit different, but sometimes courting trouble is part of living, too. As is getting out of trouble that you had no part in causing.

In any event, Link is a writer of extraordinary depth, humor, and originality. Some of the literary kudos she's been getting might suggest that she is dressing up Litrachure in Fantasy clothing, but that's not the case. She's got solid roots in Fantasy, and crossover appeal shouldn't be held against her. Recommended.

Some stories work better than others for me. They are all strange and discomfiting, with a few unforgettable ones that I am still thinking about. The ones that don't quite work perhaps have to do with their unique narrative form, where I'm not sure what's going on or who's narrating (switching from first, to second, to third, all in one paragraph). These have a daring, experimental flair to them, which constantly drew attention to form rather than substance. I prefer to get lost in a story and Link's style at times made it difficult for me to immerse myself in her (odd and imaginative) worlds.

My favorites are The Summer People (mysterious fairies), The New Boyfriend (supernatural boyfriends as life-sized dolls) ,Two Houses (sci-fi setting about two spaceships, with one that goes missing), and Light (about tourists in pocket universes). They are the most straightforward of the bunch, with a touch of familiarity in a speculative fiction universe.

Though Kelly Link seems to have garnered a veritable cult following, I have somehow remained ignorant of her charms. (This was not a deliberate snub, I assure you.)

All that's behind me now. I have downed her rather murky, yet sweet Kool-Aid, and like a lemming, will blindly follow her off any cliff of her choosing.

Her latest book will hit the shelves in February 2015. It is a collection of nine wondrously dark fairy tales about teenage girls, shadow people, imaginary boyfriends, reality TV shows, surrogate mothers, iguanas, superheroes, hurricanes and ghost stories told on spaceships.

In Link's stories, fantasy meshes so seamlessly with reality, you can't separate the two with a scalpel.

I have to admit that I didn't love all the stories, but I loved enough of them to join the "We-Heart-Link" club AND to start shopping around for my next Link book.

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 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.

This is an uneven collection of short stories ranging over a wide assortment of genres. The main theme seems to be about the strangeness of people. The cover is a bit deceptive as to me it looks rather light hearted. But one good thing about short stories is if you don't like one move on. There is enough good writing here to warrant a read by anyone who loves that art of the short story (I add an extra star for this).

A collection of tales that lead you along paths never seen until they suddenly diverge from the everyday "reality" we may inhabit, and leave you wondering at their sly observations of human foibles. Highly recommend this book.

Get in Trouble is a collection of nine short stories by the author. The story lines are creative and rely on the reader's acceptance of the otherworldly nature of the settings of the stories. Once you do, the author will pull you into the story. Whether it be creative beings living in an old house, a hotel convention of real life superheroes, teenage girls who have vampires and werewolf's created to be their boyfriends or pocket universes, the author takes the reader to new places each time.

The collection of stories felt in nature a bit like a collection by Ray Bradbury, but more modern and with coarser language and more adult themes. There is rarely closure at the end of the story. The reader is left to wonder or to imagine what happens after the words on the page run out.

The writing is good and the author helps to bring the world she created alive, but only to a point since ambiguity plays a big role in a few of the stories. The language and writing change to suit the storyline. In some sentences, the grammar is perfect and in other stories, the sentences and words are shortened and the grammar poor to match the language of the protagonist. But, I never felt connections with the characters in the stories, but that is probably because of the other worldliness of the conflicts and relationships. They are hard to empathize with but at the same time, the stories are difficult to put down.

I cant say that I enjoyed all of the stories, but I can't complain about the originality. Overall, I found the book to be entertaining, but not my favorite.

I first started reading Kelly Link's stories seven years ago, and one of the first stories I read was "Light," which is now in this collection. It's about a woman whose shadow broke away years ago and became her devilishly charming but wholly self-absorbed twin brother. Now the woman works at a kind of warehouse that stores the bodies of people who've fallen into a mysterious and irrevocable sleep. The warehouse is in Florida, of course. There's a hurricane. The twin brother shows up and ruins everything.

If all of that sounds very strange, well--it is. But the genius of Kelly Link's stories is that they have a way of making the strangeness feel so familiar, so inevitable, that what you really feel is *yes*, this *is* what it feels like--all of it, everything. And Link will slide in and out of these moments of profound clarity where what's literally happening on the surface becomes the perfect metaphor for what's happening underneath--the woman in "Light" is living in the shadow of her darker half. She's living her life as if she's in an irrevocable sleep. Her brother affects her life like a terrible storm.

To me, every story in this collection is astonishing. The only one I hadn't read before this book was "The Lesson," and that story might be my new favorite. It's about two men who've been married for six years (and have been together much longer), who decide to go to their old friend's wedding even though they are nervous about the surrogate who is "precariously" pregnant with their child. The relationship between the men is sharply drawn, real, hip, and tender, and you feel like you've spent a novel or a lifetime with them instead of twenty pages. That's because Link can convey a character in a word and a world in a sentence. She surprises you with a clever punchline in her left hand and then a devastating emotional sucker punch in her right.

I am so glad the store's star-rating system only asks what *I* think about these stories, and not whether I think they're for everyone or some impossible-to-tell thing like that. Who knows. But I love them. I do. And if you've ever looked around at your life and felt like a shadowy twin brother, a superhero convention, or a mechanical ghost boyfriend wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen to you today, you'll probably love these stories, too.

There were only one story in the entire book that I enjoyed and it was called The Summer People, the very first story. The remaining stories I had to force myself to finish hoping with each passing word that it would get better, but it didn't. Each one just felt weird to be weird with no reason for existing until they meandered into a non-ending. There was no story arc, no nothing. I really enjoyed Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen and Magic For Beginners, but this collection just doesn't live up to them. Wish I'd have skipped it. I'll still read Link in the future though.

Kelly Link's style is sometimes hard to follow, but a few of her stories were really wonderful. Others, I found it a bit hard to get into. The story about the Summer People was my favorite, and definitely worth reading!

This book contains 9 stories which take the reader into some strange areas of human and other behavior. We read of summer people and a demon lover among further themes. Some of the stories are more engrossing than others, but all are bizarre in many ways.
The stories are all very inventive, but definitely for a mature reader who appreciates innovative characters. The writing at times is a bit uneven, almost as if a different personality was making up each storyline. At times for some, the plots are so convoluted that a reader is not too sure what is really occurring.
Those who enjoy short stories with a difference and with some emotional twists and turns will enjoy this book.

Kelly Link is a master of the short story, especially when she's using it to bring readers into her own special version of reality. This collection is chock-full of sad superheroes, demon lovers, and pocket universes where people can go for vacation. As usual, Link eases us over the line between the real and the unreal without us being aware of the border we've crossed.

One of the best short story collections of the last few years. Link's at a new height. She's writing longer stories (several that approach, but ultimately skirt away from becoming novellas). Some great sci-fi in here, along with fantasy tinged work (how else to subscribe stories that blend The Wizard of Oz and superheroes). More than anything, she's found a compelling way to explore digital and 'geek' interests (D&D, MMORPGS, etc.) through these stories.

Like a bite of tasty cake, the first story teases you, it is very good, good enough to be the plot/premise for a book, sadly, it is the only bright spot in the book, the rest of the stories are a mix of garbage, gibberish, babble, and boring.

I was so aggravated with the book by the 6th story, that I had to restrain myself and keep myself from throwing it against the wall, that is how bad it got.

Not recommended, which is a shame as the first story is the only reason I even gave this mess any stars

Short stories are tricky when it comes to the plot/character balance. Link seems to have struggled with this. Get in Trouble gets in trouble with too character centric stories that are difficult to follow.

The style is to be commended. It's unique and fresh. Problem is, it doesn't really go anywhere. You want to really love these stories. But I didn't.

Which is unfortunate since the praise from Neil Gaiman really had me interested in this collection. I'm sad that it didn't live up to expectations. It's decent writing, but not particularly satisfying work.

There are a couple of winners here, notably "Two Houses" and "Valley Of The Girls". The stories are on the weird side and most just don't quite come together. I am interested though in reading more by the author.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first story "The Summer People" but the rest of the book veered deep into science fiction/fantasy territory and that's not my cup of tea. I read all of the second story "I Can See Right Through You" but didn't enjoy it. I flipped through the rest of the stories but nothing piqued my interest.

While these short stories may be dark and twisted in my opinion that is not enough to recommend them. The author seems to add details that make no sense just to make things weirder and quirkier. The first story about the teenage girls and "the summer people" is the best but I still only rate it average and it is all down hill from there. If you like Karen Russell (I don't) who endorsed these tales you may like them. Personally they reminded me of poorer examples of stories you might find in an introductory creative writing class at a community college class.