Nov 19, mark monday rated it it was ok Shelves: I'm just not that into you. I just can't with you though. Sep 01, Ori Fienberg rated it liked it. This book will sleep with you on the first date. Then when you wake up beside it in the early morning you will spend some serious time considering whether it was great, or whether it would have been better to wait a bit. For me it was a bit wild, which I like, from a book, but also a little cold, a little impersonal. This book may have issues with nymphomania. It's definately ready and willing to give you a thrill, but even though you've spent some time with it, it still doesn't quite love you ba This book will sleep with you on the first date.
It's definately ready and willing to give you a thrill, but even though you've spent some time with it, it still doesn't quite love you back. Sometimes I like a quickie on the T, or during my lunch break, but I really want to feel like the book loves me back. This relationship was fun, but I just don't feel like the commitment was really there. Don't get me wrong; I like this book, but in several of the stories I felt as though the strangeness was there to be strange, and that's not enough for me. I think the best surrealists and fantasy writers can tap easily into strange, but even the cryptic moments come together for cohesive delight.
One story in this collection is not to be missed. In "Vanishing Act" the strangeness is more subtle, and the magic totally feasible. The characters feel the most real, the most lovingly conceived, and I, the reader, love it without reservation for its uncanny mixture of tragedy and hope. This is a first collection, maybe the second collection will still have that spontaneity I love, but with a little more of the maturity I crave. Jan 26, Mike the Paladin rated it it was ok Shelves: I sort of feel I should apologize for this rating. I picked this up on the strength of some good ratings and reviews here.
But I just didn't like this book. I don't mean to be hard to get along with, but I found the stories rather silly. Again, I'm sorry if you like this book and please enjoy I wanted to like this book. Based on what I'd read I picked it up ready for some enjoyable weird stories. The first one left me cold This I sort of feel I should apologize for this rating.
This was the most "grope happy corpse I ever heard of. He finally puts it all together.. I almost put the book down there but I thought, no give it a chance. It was like a book of television episode outlines, something that might have been seen on the old "Night Gallery" series. Okay sorry, if you enjoy this please continue to enjoy. If I want weird tales I'll go back to H. Lovecraft and the like. I just found this one not for me. I almost went with one star I just didn't find it worth the time to read. Sorry I see a lot of you like or even love this collection, not me however.
View all 8 comments. Nov 07, Candiss rated it liked it Shelves: I really love Kelly Link's writing style.
- Stranger Things Happen;
- ShieldSquare Block.
- O Servo de Deus Modus Vivendi Modus Operandi (French Edition).
It falls somewhere between magical realist and full-blown surreal, and it manages to be very emotionally affecting without sacrificing subtlety. It is frequently surprising, often delightful, occasionally horrific. Link can get me to agree to suspend my disbelief in some of the most wildly imaginative and implausible situations, and she has a real knack for being gently disturbing.
However, I am only giving this collection, Link's earliest, which focuses I really love Kelly Link's writing style.
However, I am only giving this collection, Link's earliest, which focuses largely on referenced, re-imagined, and re-arranged fairy tales, myths, and legends 3 stars, because 3. It was simply stellar. These stories are worth the reader's time, and some are downright brilliant. But some left me neutral, and the overall feeling I was left with was one less bowled-over than when I'd finished Magic For Beginners.
If you've never read Kelly Link, start with Magic for Beginners , as it was wonderful and whimsical and weird and freaky and creepy across the board. Then, if you enjoy that, explore her earlier work in this collection, Stranger Things Happen. Jun 06, Punk rated it it was amazing Shelves: This was stamped "science fiction" by the library, but these short, fantastic stories have more in common with magical realism and retold fairy tales than science- or even speculative fiction.
Plenty of ghosts, being dead, being haunted, dating a son of Zeus, searching for the lover that the Snow Queen stole away -- that sort of thing. Written with a light hand, these stories are bittersweet, spooky, absurd, crazy, and freeing. Each one is perfectly self-contained, but taken toget Short Stories. Each one is perfectly self-contained, but taken together it's easy to see hints of a bigger world, tiny details that make you think everything might be related, so the book on the whole feels nicely tied together. Link even writes in such experimental forms as second person and present tense, which is not something you see very often in published fiction.
She treats the fantastic like it's ordinary, and the ordinary like it might be something secretly fantastic, and I loved every moment of it. Link writes great short stories. And I say this as someone who does not generally enjoy a short story. But these I'm going to read again and again. View all 5 comments. Jun 18, Ian rated it it was ok. The only reason I finished this book is because I read Magic for beginners first and I liked that one slightly more than this collection. In the end, I guess Link just isn't for me. I like my stories to make sense, to have some internal logic and structure I can follow and, possibly, an ending or a hint of an explanation my mind can work upon.
Link's stories instead feel to me more like a dream - scenes, images, moments where time slows down like molasses or jumps all over the place, where stran The only reason I finished this book is because I read Magic for beginners first and I liked that one slightly more than this collection.
Link's stories instead feel to me more like a dream - scenes, images, moments where time slows down like molasses or jumps all over the place, where strange things happen without reason beyond 'odd is cool'. The characters felt just as dreamlike, devoid of life and motivations, and I couldn't really sympathize with them.
I finished every segment asking myself what actually happened, and why, and why should I care. If you like when people tell you their latest weird dreams, Kelly Link's books are definitely up your alley. If you're looking for stories, well, they're not. Jan 30, Glenn Zorpette rated it did not like it. The stories are unusual and not at all predictable. They seem to have been written to impress critics or other authors with their strangeness.
The author seems to delight in showing us how clever and creative she can be. For example, there's lots of cute but ultimately meaningless word play. Unfortunately, the stories are not compelling or engrossing at all. Regarding its favorable reviews: I'd say there's a major "Emperor's New Clothes" effect with this book. To compare her wit The stories are unusual and not at all predictable. To compare her with Borges and Chandler, as Salon did, is absurd. Borges and Chandler managed to be innovators while writing utterly engrossing stories. Link hasn't figured out how to do that. Oct 09, Evgeny rated it liked it Shelves: This is a collection of urban fantasy stories with weird twists - and I do mean weird.
Think what would happen if David Lynch wrote some urban fantasy. Actually in the beginning I was almost sure it WAS David Lynch writing under a pseudonym, but later I realized this is just too weird for him. As for the stories themselves, they range from horror to urban fantasy to fairy tales retelling - and all are as strange as they can be. A word of warning: The last stories defy all logic and break all traditional structure of storytelling. I cannot say I like this book a lot, but I was sort of fascinated with it and I kept reading it just to see what kind of weirdness I will encounter next.
The book is freely available from Goodreads - for now. Try and see if this is your thing. View all 3 comments. Oct 09, Dan rated it did not like it. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious. It was just a couple lines. Now imagine an entire book done in that same sort of frantic voice.
You Must Read This
No real authority or ownership of the events that happened, just a string of hearsay from a high school girl. If you can do that, you unders "Um, he's sick. If you can do that, you understand what you are in for with this collection of short stories. Still not clear enough?
'Stranger Things Happen': You Must Read These Gleefully Deranged Stories : NPR
Ok - imagine a book where the goal is not to entertain or teach anything, but instead to try and convince everyone else that they were clever. When you get to the end of a short story, it isn't clever. It is the kind of thing where if you are expecting more - you are just not smart enough to get it says the rabble in the room. It just isn't compelling, interesting, entertaining or insightful in any real way. I had to keep checking back to see that this book was written by Kelly Link and not Lois Cook. To be fair, KL's grammar was fine I suppose.
Here is some Cinderella Fan Fic where the prince doesn't find her and instead develops a foot fetish. He spends his time going around being broken and creepy with a glass slipper in his pocket. I just saved you 30 pages. On to the next story every story written in a stream of consciousness style where the reader is kept at an arms length but I am sure makes perfect sense to the 12 year old girl who was being channeled. I imagine little hearts above every dotted "i" if this were written on paper.
Known as Green Flash. Horsetail Falls in Yosemite National Park. Happens once a year for just a few moments. A creature perfectly camouflaged that lives on the beach. Rainbow eucalyptus trees in Australia. They look like someone painted them. The Black Sun in Denmark. Millions of starlings make shapes in the sky.
Underwater Waterfall in Mauritius is actually sand being sucked into the ocean. So this is the story so far. You grew up, you fell in love with the boy next door, Kay, the one with blue eyes who brought you bird feathers and roses, the one who was so good at puzzles. You thought he loved you — maybe he thought he did, too. His mouth tasted so sweet, it tasted like love, and his fingers were so kind, they pricked like love on your skin, but three years and exactly two days after you moved in with him, you were having drinks out on the patio.
You weren't exactly fighting, and you can't remember what he had done that had made you so angry, but you threw your glass at him. There was a noise like the sky shattering.
- Gonecity (Portuguese Edition).
- Navigation menu.
- See a Problem?;
- Elegy (Pitt Poetry Series).
- !
- 40+ Rock Solid Ways To Make Money and Save Money!
- Anytime Prayers for Everyday Moms?
- Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link?
- Strange Things Happening Every Day;
- Fish Farming; For Pleasure And Profit?
- Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel (German Edition).
- Strange Things Happening Every Day - Wikipedia.
The cuff of his trousers got splashed. There were little fragments of glass everywhere. You weren't wearing shoes.
His eye was fine, of course, there wasn't a thing in it, but later that night when he was undressing for bed, there were little bits of glass like grains of sugar, dusting his clothes. When you brushed your hand against his chest, something pricked your finger and left a smear of blood against his heart. The next day it was snowing and he went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. You sat on the patio drinking something warm and alcoholic, with nutmeg in it, and the snow fell on your shoulders.
You were wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt; you were pretending that you weren't cold, and that your lover would be back soon.
You put your finger on the ground and then stuck it in your mouth. The snow looked like sugar, but it tasted like nothing at all. The man at the corner store said that he saw your lover get into a long white sleigh. There was a beautiful woman in it, and it was pulled by thirty white geese. You went home and looked in the wardrobe for that cloak that belonged to your great-grandmother. You were thinking about going after him. You remembered that the cloak was woolen and warm, and a beautiful red — a traveler's cloak.
But when you pulled it out, it smelled like wet dog and the lining was ragged, as if something had chewed on it. It smelled like bad luck: You waited for a while longer. Two months went by, and Kay didn't come back, and finally you left and locked the door of your house behind you. You were going to travel for love, without shoes, or cloak, or common sense. This is one of the things a woman can do when her lover leaves her.
It's hard on the feet perhaps, but staying at home is hard on the heart, and you weren't quite ready to give him up yet.
You Must Read These Gleefully Deranged Stories
You told yourself that the woman in the sleigh must have put a spell on him, and he was probably already missing you. Besides, there are some questions you want to ask him, some true things you want to tell him. This is what you told yourself. The snow was soft and cool on your feet, and then you found the trail of glass, the map.
After three weeks of hard traveling, you came to the city. No, really, think about it. Think about the little mermaid, who traded in her tail for love, got two legs and two feet, and every step was like walking on knives. And where did it get her?