A review by peeled_grape
Stranger Things Happen: Stories by Kelly Link

4.0

It was hard for me to get into this one (though maybe that's because I read this in the strange time of quarantine, where I can focus on very little). Some of these stories read like dreams -- nothing makes sense, and only follows a loose line of logic. For me, this randomness was a little much at times, and I found myself agreeing with Link when she writes that other people's dreams aren't particularly interesting. Still: "Flying Lessons" is one of my favorite short stories ever let alone one of the best in the collection. Link has endings mastered, and that shows in this story a lot. "Shoe and Marriage" and "Travels with the Snow Queen" are the other two I really liked. There is this quirkiness to "Shoe and Marriage" I admire quite a bit. There is a lot of turning stories that are familiar to us (Greek mythology, fairytales, etc.) into something both ordinary and magical, and I think that sticking those stories in the same collection unified it. The reconstruction of these more classic stories worked really well, and I really loved them.