Reviews

Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

thestarsaligned's review

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

burningupasun's review against another edition

I'm DNFing this, unfortunately. It's nothing against the actual stories, nothing offensive or anything. It's not even bad writing, it's just not MY style of writing. Sadly, I just can't get into it, so I'm giving up. Since I only made it 40% through I'm not going to count it towards my read books for this year either. Oh well!

nooneyouknow's review against another edition

3.0

Weird and entertaining collection of stories, but my interest flagged a bit as the stories went by. I particularly enjoyed "Two Houses" and "The Summer People", both of which had just the right amount off-kilter strangeness while still feeling familiar and a little more connected to reality.

xraysalad's review

mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

2.0

toc's review against another edition

5.0

I honestly do not believe I have ever read anything like these stories before. Ms. Link guides you into places you never thought you'd end up in. Her worlds are so real yet so weird. I swear I've lived in some of them at some point in time, in some other pocket universe, but my brain was unable to keep those memories intact when everything morphed into this universe. You know what I mean? That feeling that what you think you perceive is not actually what you should be perceiving? I fear that Ms. Link sees things the way they really are. And I'm jealous.

ciarafrances's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.5

luna1209's review against another edition

3.0

Starting to realize I just don't love short story collections. I will say that I enjoyed these more than I've enjoyed other short stories. The first one, The Summer People, was definitely my favorite and was easily a 4.5 star story on it's own, would love a full length version of this. The other ones were still extremely creative and eerie, but I was lost in the details of the "why" since there wasn't as much time to really explain what was going on.

thebookschico's review against another edition

challenging mysterious medium-paced

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

1.5

All the books I've read since the start of 2024 were 4 or 5 stars so I guess it was about time a book disappointed me, but I didn't expect for it to be Kelly Link's short stories. I read her other short story collection (White cat, black dog) and absolutely loved it so I thought I would love these stories as well, but... honestly, they were too weird and weirdly written. They were incoherent and lacked context, so I found myself disconnecting and not getting half of the story. None of the characters were likable. The plot of every story...what plot? I skimmed a couple of them. The only story I liked was the "Secret Identity" and hence the 1,5 star rating.

leexpen's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

jen_nej's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense

• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

Final review: This is a wonderfully unique collection of short stories. The author has such a clear voice despite each story feeling so distinct. I saw some reviewers upset about the lack of context but I think that’s the beauty of a short story. We’re dropped in and expected to catch up, learning things about each world along the way. 

There is something interesting about each story but, to me, there were a few clear standouts.

Also, not really a spoiler but, I loved that the endings of the first and last stories mirrored each other a bit!

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Update: my hold on this expired because i read before bed and this wasn’t one I could read before bed (but to be fair I am a baby!) 
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Will be coming back to this one! My Libby loan just expired.