Love Is Hell is a collection of five short supernatural love stories (around 50 pages each, so on the long side of short) by five wonderful authors. I’ve loved the work of all of these authors individually, so I was excited about this book!
The first story, Sleeping With The Spirit, by Laurie Faria Stolarz, is about a girl who falls in love with a ghost, and it’s an enjoyable read, if not particularly compelling.
The second, Stupid Perfect World, by Scott Westerfeld, is set in a futuristic world where students take a class called Scarcity, about the hard parts of history before all the technology they have now that keeps their world “perfect.” The class involves a project in which students suffer one of the ills of the ancient world (our world) for two weeks. When two students choose hormones and sleep (things eliminated by their technology), there are unexpected consequences as they realize that imperfections can be beautiful things. I really loved this story. I loved the spirit of it, and of course I love Scott Westerfeld’s writing. He is able to create a completely captivating world and story in only 55 pages.
The third story is Justine Larbalestier’s. Thinner Than Water is about a girl in an odd sort of historical tourist village, only the people in the village actually live in old-timey ways, with varying degrees of belief and loyalty to their lifestyle and the odd ideas (like believing in fairies) that come with it. The heroine’s family is very strict in their ways, which include things like schooling only to age fifteen, keeping modern things out of the house, and marrying off their daughter at sixteen. She wants to go to school and be a doctor, which means running away to the city. Meeting a boy who’s not quite like the rest of the village (in more ways than one) will change her, though. I enjoyed this story. It was a little creepy and sad and different, and I really liked it. The setting is intriguing. The story and characters begged me to keep reading!
The fourth story is Gabrielle Zevin’s Fan Fictions. It’s about an ordinary girl who meets a boy and reads a book and meets a boy, and, well, it’s really difficult to say anything without giving away the story, but, my god, it is creepy. Eerie and kind of disturbing and shuddery. I wasn’t captivated by the main character, and I couldn’t get past the story’s creepiness. It also doesn’t tie together in a nice sense-making package at the end, and I feel like this is a story not entirely told, and I don’t like it. This was the low point of the book for me, which is sad because I’ve loved Gabrielle Zevin’s books. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t my cup of tea, either. I can’t really speak for its quality because it was so solidly not something that I enjoyed, but not because of anything that made it bad, just because it wasn’t for me. At all.
The fifth and last story, by Melissa Marr, is called Love Struck. In it, Alana is trapped by a selchie (rather than the other way around, which is how the stories she’s heard tell it). She has to untangle fact from fiction and decipher the motives and thoughts of those around her, as well as deciding what part of what she feels is magic and enchantment and what is real. Melissa Marr is amazing. In this story, she’s able to create a character and a story that I could have read entire books about. Alana, more than any of the others in this collection, really feels like a person at the end of the 44 pages (although this may have something to do with the fact that she reminds me a lot of Ash, another of Marr’s characters in her novels). And she is an awesome person at that! The story itself is interesting, too. I would have loved to read more. Melissa Marr rocks.
Overall, this collection is definitely worth reading. Though one wasn’t really my style (you may think it’s fantastic), I loved three of the stories and liked a fourth. Three of the stories would have been mind-blowing standouts in any other company, but when you put great writers together, it’s hard to pick a favorite! This is definitely worth reading.
December 30, 2008 at 5:28 am
This is a fascinating review – I really want to read the book now and see how my opinions of the stories compare to yours!
December 31, 2008 at 8:38 pm
[…] Uncategorized | Tags: links, the interwebs | At Teen Book Review, Jocelyn thoroughly enjoys Love Is Hell, but finds Sister Wife too much of an “issue book” for her taste. The 3 Evil cousins […]
May 31, 2009 at 7:21 pm
An interesting reveiw. Might get the book later
June 19, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I did not like fan fiction much either because of the way it ended, but I do wish there would more to it. I did like the other stories though and I hope there will be more.
August 22, 2010 at 1:01 pm
I agree, the ending felt like it just stopped. What I really wanted was for it to explain a bit more, I was left confused; but maybe that’s what the author wanted.
October 27, 2009 at 10:50 pm
I rather liked Fan Fictions because of the way it ended. It is creepy, but it is also really sad and leaves you wondering about the order of events and cause and effect chains that caused it all to happen. Or whether it happened at all.
March 18, 2010 at 6:20 pm
I love the first part of the book that i read online hope to read the rest soon
May 6, 2010 at 3:59 pm
i love sleeping with the spirits because i wish if i had a boyfriend like that and hes a ghost.
November 2, 2010 at 11:45 am
I love first story, in my opinion its the best of this book
November 2, 2010 at 11:46 am
i agree with aleia
October 20, 2011 at 12:13 am
i love the book especially the first story that was my favourite !!!!
October 27, 2011 at 2:47 pm
this story is the truth because love is like hell and i like the book…