A review by megansmith
The Book of Love by Kelly Link

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Gosh I feel so torn on this. I don’t think this lived up to the hype but it was a really intriguing premise. The writing is strong and mysterious, i felt like i was in a dream myself for most of this book.

Ironically for “the book of love”, i felt very few deep connections to the main characters and there was very little love shared between them. Just because they fucked a lot doesnt mean they love each other! Idk all the back and forth in the relationships of hate and then “love” felt so flat to me and I wanted the characters to be much more genuine with each other if they swear these relationships were so real. Then again they are teenagers, so should I be surprised?

Also, the ending.

It felt like they just got the magical “wow we suddenly found a good solution and it worked” treatment, like tell me why it took 600+ pages to build up to a pretty clean and sacrifice free ending? For a book built on “2 win 2 die” i expected some more give and take other than Ruth, but they make Susannah taking over the realm seem like a fun side gig she can dip on whenever she wants.

Also, last note, any book over like 500 pages should be outlawed. This is no exception. It didnt prove it was worth the long read.

I know this is kinda scathing. But did i still enjoy it? Somewhat, yes. Its not the banger I hoped 2025 would start on but, its not bad.