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Get in Trouble

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Kelly Link's 'Get in Trouble' is a collection of nine strange and bewitching short stories that toe the line of slipstream while speaking to present-day issues. The stories range from fables of the future to narratives that blend elements of fantasy, sci-fi, and magical realism, creating new worlds that captivate the reader's imagination. Link's writing style is described as whimsical, dark, and enchanting, with each story offering a unique perspective on themes like isolation, family, and the wonder of everyday magic.

Characters:

The characters are intricately developed, showcasing a range from whimsical to deeply flawed individuals, all navigating surreal situations.

Writing/Prose:

The writing style is characterized by its whimsical quirkiness, blending dark humor with surreal and fantastical elements.

Plot/Storyline:

The collection features inventive plots that weave together horror, fantasy, and magical realism, often focusing on the surreal experiences of its characters.

Setting:

The settings are diverse, mixing familiar modern-day environments with fantastical and surreal locations, enhancing the stories' eerie quality.

Pacing:

Pacing varies across the collection, with both slow-burn suspense and quick, urgent narratives.
Fran had the flu, except it was more like the flu had Fran. In consequence of this, she’d laid out of school for three days in a row. The previous night, she’d taken four NyQuil caplets and gone to sl...

Notes:

Get in Trouble is a collection of nine stories by Kelly Link, consisting of eight reprints and one original story.
The collection explores themes of magical realism, horror, and speculative fiction.
The first story, 'The Summer People', is noted for its fairy tale qualities mixed with modern settings.
Many stories involve teenage protagonists grappling with emotional complexities.
'Secret Identity' features a fifteen-year-old girl catfishing an older man and encountering superheroes and dentists at a convention.
The narrative style often blends the mundane with the fantastic, creating a unique storytelling experience.
Link’s stories are characterized by their quirky humor and a sense of foreboding.
'The Lesson', originally less magical, explores love, belonging, and familial connections in a more realistic setting.
Link's prose has been described as lyrical and vivid, with a talent for creating unsettling atmospheres.
The collection was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings

Content warnings include potential themes of mental health struggles, emotional trauma, and complex family dynamics.

Has Romance?

Romance plays a significant role in some stories, exploring relationships and emotional connections, though it may not dominate every narrative.

From The Publisher:

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A bewitching story collection from a writer hailed as "the most darkly playful voice in American fiction" (Michael Chabon) and "a national treasure" (Neil Gaiman).

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY

BookPage

BuzzFeed

Chicago Tribune

Kirkus Reviews

NPR

San Francisco Chronicle

Slate

Time

Toronto Star

The Washington Post

She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as "the most darkly playful voice in American fiction" and by Neil Gaiman as "a national treasure." Now Kelly Link's eagerly awaited new collection-her first for adult readers in a decade-proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the finest we have.

Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of her formidable powers. In "The Summer People," a young girl in rural North Carolina serves as uneasy caretaker to the mysterious, never-quite-glimpsed visitors who inhabit the cottage behind her house. In "I Can See Right Through You," a middle-aged movie star makes a disturbing trip to the Florida swamp where his former on- and off-screen love interest is shooting a ghost-hunting reality show. In "The New Boyfriend," a suburban slumber party takes an unusual turn, and a teenage friendship is tested, when the spoiled birthday girl opens her big present: a life-size animated doll.

Hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the Pyramids . . . These are just some of the talismans of an imagination as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, they are always grounded by sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty-and the hidden strengths-of human beings. In Get in Trouble, this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries of what short fiction can do.

Praise for Get in Trouble

"Ridiculously brilliant . . . These stories make you laugh while staring into the void."-The Boston Globe

"When it comes to literary magic, Link is the real deal: clever, surprising, affecting, fluid and funny."-San Francisco Chronicle

Ratings (5)

Incredible (2)
Loved It (2)
Did Not Like (1)

Reader Stats (19):

Read It (5)
Want To Read (13)
Not Interested (1)

1 comment(s)

Loved It
4 weeks

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley… and then I listened to the audiobook version on Scribd instead. It was worth it!

Kelly Link has a knack for expertly juxtaposing weirdness with the mundane, and it’s basically catnip for my reading soul. Get in Trouble is no different.

However, one thing I noticed as I read is that only a handful of these stories are terrifying, which is a change from the norm. Link never really writes flat-out horror, but she has a way with chilling details and building suspense.

Although her talent for disturbing atmosphere does still come into play, Link spends most of her energy creating real, lived-in characters that leap off the page. In many ways, Get in Trouble finds her in transition; it’s still odd and unsettling, but it’s also some of her most accessible work.

The audiobook version, narrated by a full cast, features both familiar and new voices, some of whom are better than others. Tara Sands, who reads Secret Identity, is probably my favorite of the bunch. Ish Klein, who reads The New Boyfriend, has a high-pitched voice and staccato delivery that actually adds to the strangeness of the story. The only narrator I had some trouble with is Susan Duerden, whose odd cadence and breathy voice was very distracting at first.

“The Summer People” read by Grace Blewer

Fran and her (alcoholic, absentee) father are caretakers for vacation summer homes. Most of the time this just involves cleaning up after out-of-towners, but sometimes Fran has to deal with a different and far more dangerous type of summer people. This story starts out slowly, but Link steadily builds the danger and weirdness until delivering a punch of an ending. My only complaint is that the audiobook narrator completely ignores Fran’s accent.

“I Can See Right Through You” read by Kirby Heyborne

The Demonlover, aging star of a massively popular supernatural romance, reconnects with his former co-star/girlfriend as she films a TV segment about mysterious disappearances at a nudist colony. This story actually manages to humanize a celebrity couple who bear a very strong resemblance to Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. That said, the story opens with a prologue that feels completely disconnected from the main plot, and the ending is both sudden and unexpectedly surreal. I enjoyed the middle, but I’m still not quite sure what to think about the rest of this story.

“Secret Identity” read by Tara Sands

Told in the form of a confession and an apology, this story relates the adventures of a sixteen-year-old girl who travels to a New York hotel to meet a man more than twice her age under false pretenses. When she arrives, she discovers that the hotel is hosting two conventions: one for dentists, and another for superheroes. Much to her dismay, everyone assumes she is there to audition as a sidekick. Easily my favorite story in the entire collection; the main character is sympathetic and relatable even when she does terrible things. I also loved how Link plays with the idea of “secret identity” throughout.

“Valley of the Girls” read by Robbie Daymond

Decadent rich kids fight and fuck and build pyramids to house all of their worldly goods while lookalikes called “faces” make public appearances in their names. This story felt a bit overstuffed – too many disconnected ideas and not quite enough character development. Either “faces” or the Egyptian aspects of the story would have been enough to carry it, but both together are a bit too much. Ultimately Link doesn’t spend very much time exploring the concept of “faces”, so it just ends up confusing things.

“Origin Story” read by Rebecca Lowman

A small-town waitress spends the night with her former boyfriend, a now-famous superhero, at a dilapidated Wizard of Oz theme park. They have sex and talk about life, slowly but surely revealing shared histories and the intimacies of a long friendship. As they speak, we get glimpses of the strange world around them, full of mutants and people with superpowers. This story was a little willfully confusing at first, but once I got into the world, I definitely enjoyed it.

“The Lesson” read by Cassandra Campbell

Tan and Harper decide to attend a wedding held on an island despite the fact that their surrogate, Naomi, is in danger of delivering their baby prematurely. This is definitely the most realistic story Link has ever published, but there are still a few quirky touches and moments of strangeness. I liked this story, but I spent the latter half waiting for supernatural occurrences that never arrived.

“The New Boyfriend” read by Ish Klein

Immy and Ainslie are best friends, but Immy kind of hates Ainslie for getting everything she’s ever wanted and more. Especially her “boyfriends”, which are actually lifelike robots entirely devoted to their owner. When Ainslie receives a new boyfriend for her birthday, Immy’s jealousy overwhelms her, and she takes drastic measures. This was probably my second-favorite story in the collection. The narrator’s flat affect and unreliability paired well with the creepy concept of a “ghost boyfriend” who might be possessed by a real ghost.

“Two Houses” read by Susan Duerden

Astronauts on a long-haul spaceship – the House of Mystery – tell ghost stories during one night of their years-long trip to Alpha Centauri. This story was a mix of sci-fi and the supernatural, and although it builds to a particularly creepy moment at the end, it mostly relies on atmosphere and not plot or character.

“Light” read by Kirsten Potter

This story is so full of strange details that it’s nearly impossible to summarize properly. An alcoholic woman with two shadows works security at a company caring for “sleepers” – people found randomly lying asleep on the ground. She visits pocket universes, sleeps with the occasional wolf-man, and fights with her troublesome twin brother, who sprung forth from her extra shadow. Although I did enjoy this story, the strangeness was at such a high level that it was kind of overwhelming at times.

(Originally posted at

Full of Words)

 

About the Author:

MacArthur "Genius Grant" fellow Kelly Link is the author of the collections Get in Trouble, Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and Pretty Monsters. She and Gavin J. Grant have co-edited a number of anthologies, including multiple volumes of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and, for…

 
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