A review by readordierachel
Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

5.0

This book rocked my face off. I'm sad that it's over. If I had to make a criticism, I would say that some of these stories ended a little abruptly. But even then, I only hate that because I just want so badly for them to keep going. Kelly Link has this incredible ability to leave you hanging while also providing a completely satisfying ending.

Link's imagination is astounding. It must be vastly entertaining to be inside her head, and I'm glad she has chosen to share a bit of what that must be like. Even if you don’t dig magical realism or sci-fi, I would recommend these based on the writing alone. It’s crisp, with realistic dialogue, and a pretty amazing level of character development for short stories. It's also funny as hell. I would frequently stop to read passages to whoever happened to be around. (It made public transit a little awkward...)

I really did enjoy every story in the collection. I would read one and think, "Okay, this one is my favorite. This is the best of the bunch." Then I would read the next one.

There were standouts though (I’ve added some quotes that I marked as I was reading because I thought they were so funny or charming or whatever):

"The Faery Handbag"
A girl's grandmother carries a small universe in her purse---or a murderous, skinless dog, depending on which way you open it up.

"I hate those movies, those books, where some guy gets to go off and have adventures and meanwhile the girl has to stay home and wait. I'm a feminist. I subscribe to Bust magazine, and I watch Buffy reruns. I don't believe in that kind of shit."

"The Specialist's Hat"
Twin little girls playing the “Dead game” in a spooky old mansion. This story creeped me the hell out. In a good way.

“Mr Coeslak can tell the twins apart, even if their father can’t; Claire’s eyes are grey, like a cat’s fur, he says, but Samantha’s eyes are gray, like the ocean when it has been raining.”

"Monster"
A group of boys at a summer camp go camping up on a mountain, and shit gets crazy.

"You learn a lot of stuff at camp...You learn how to make something out of yarn and twigs called a skycatcher, because there's a lot of extra yarn and twigs in the world, and someone had to come up with something to do with it."

“The Surfer”
A soccer player and his father in quarantine in Costa Rica wait for the aliens to return. This was probably my actual favorite story in the collection. She could have made this into a 500-page novel and I would have happily read it.

“During flu season, up in the bleachers, during matches, everyone wore masks like hers…There were always girls who wrote DORN on the mask, and so I’d look up and see my name right there, over their mouths. It was kind of a turn-on. Sometimes there was a scout up in the bleachers. I figured another year or two, another inch or two, and I’d slip right into that bright, deserved future. I was the future. You can’t stop the future, right? Not unless you’re a better goalie than me.”

“Pretty Monsters”
The last story in the bunch, and the one that lends its title to the whole. I don’t quite know how to describe this one. Coming-of-age. Stories within stories. Goats. Lawrence of Arabia.

“Later it was clear that this was the good part of the evening, where she’d managed to get drunk and not be eaten by wild dogs. Things went downhill after that.”

Bottom line: Read it. It's fantastic.