MADreads

Better than a monster mash

January 23rd, 2009 Kylee

I LOVE Kelly Link.  If I were stranded on a desert island and could bring just one book, her short story collections Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners would be very strong contenders.  These two collections feature brilliant stories that bounce between the real and surreal, written in a way that manages to be witty without being smug and poetic without being over-the-top sentimental.  When I saw that a new collection of her stories was being published for young adults in Pretty Monsters, her “major label debut”, I was very excited.  (Her other works have been published by her own Small Beer Press, where you can download Magic for Beginners for free!)  When I finally got the book in my hands, I was a little disappointed to find that many of the stories had been taken from her two previous collections, but the reprints are some of my favorites, and the new stories are equally delightful.  The stories that are reprinted in the collection are many of those that feature a young protagonist, making them a perfect introduction to Link for young adult readers in particular, but also for anyone else interested in short stories that are out of the ordinary.

For me, the highlight of the collection is the story “Magic for Beginners”, from the book with the same title.  In this story, a teenage boy goes on a quest to save Fox, his favorite character from a renegade TV show that’s randomly broadcast whenever and wherever its anonymous producers decide.  His journey with his mother in a very fancy van takes him to various eccentric libraries and his own phone booth, ending at a wedding chapel in Las Vegas that his mother has inherited.  Describing the plot doesn’t do the story justice; the breathless, excited narration makes the story so much more than a series of odd happenings.  Another favorite is the title story of this collection, “Pretty Monsters,” which interweaves a few different stories about teenage girls with werewolf connections in a pop culture-laden tale of teenage relationships.  I really can’t say enough about how fantastic these stories are, and Shaun Tan’s illustrations introducing each story add a lovely touch to an already exquisite book.

Entry Filed under: Literary Fiction, Short Stories, Young Adult