The Book of Love, Kelly Link’s first novel, is a love story, yes. It’s also a ghost story, and a coming-of-age story, and a portrait of a small town. It’s about magic and music and morality. It’s about how annoying siblings are, and how much you need them. It is a book that contains many books, that is bigger than the sum of its many parts. It is also, perhaps, a book that should have been a touch smaller.

The Book of Love begins with three teenagers back from the dead: Type A Laura, eternal elder brother Daniel, inquisitive Mo. They have been in some strange limbo, “a blotted, attenuated, chilly nothingness,” for almost a year. They can’t remember how they died. They don’t understand how they happened to come back.

Their old music teacher, the enigmatic Mr. Anabin, seems to have some answers, but he’s not willing to tell them much. Instead, he puts them through a series of trials, informing them that if they don’t complete their tasks successfully, they will doubtless find themselves back in limbo. Helpfully, Mr. Anabin also enchants all the revenants’ friends and families so that they believe them to have been studying abroad instead of dead — although Susannah, Laura’s rebellious sister and Daniel’s ex-girlfriend, seems to cherish........

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