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Stone Animals
A family moves into a house, a possibly haunted house, and the rabbits on the front porch stir and come to life.
This special edition of Kelly Link’s ‘Stone Animals’ comes with a letterpressed cover and interior illustrations by Lisa Brown, Lilli Carré, Anthony Doerr, Lev Grossman, Daniel Handler, Paul Hornschemeier, Ursula K. Le Guin, Laura Miller, Audrey Niffenegger, Tao Nyeu, Arthur Phillips, and Lane Smith.
This special edition of Kelly Link’s ‘Stone Animals’ comes with a letterpressed cover and interior illustrations by Lisa Brown, Lilli Carré, Anthony Doerr, Lev Grossman, Daniel Handler, Paul Hornschemeier, Ursula K. Le Guin, Laura Miller, Audrey Niffenegger, Tao Nyeu, Arthur Phillips, and Lane Smith.
92 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2012
23 people are currently reading
1008 people want to read
About the author
Kelly Link
214 books2,701 followersKelly Link is an American author best known for her short stories, which span a wide variety of genres - most notably magic realism, fantasy and horror. She is a graduate of Columbia University.
Her stories have been collected in four books - Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and most recently, Get in Trouble.
She has won several awards for her short stories, including the World Fantasy Award in 1999 for "The Specialist's Hat", and the Nebula Award both in 2001 and 2005 for "Louise's Ghost" and "Magic for Beginners".
Link also works as an editor, and is the founder of independant publishing company, Small Beer Press, along with her husband, Gavin Grant.
Her stories have been collected in four books - Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and most recently, Get in Trouble.
She has won several awards for her short stories, including the World Fantasy Award in 1999 for "The Specialist's Hat", and the Nebula Award both in 2001 and 2005 for "Louise's Ghost" and "Magic for Beginners".
Link also works as an editor, and is the founder of independant publishing company, Small Beer Press, along with her husband, Gavin Grant.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
July 2, 2020
Well written, well plotted, haunting, suspenseful and most of all brilliant.
February 13, 2015
Kelly Link is a writer I kept hearing about for her brilliant genre-hopping, though she’s someone I had never actually read. Hooray for serendipitous wandering through the Web, because it led me to this post on Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading that finally brought me around to Link again.
Link’s “Stone Animals” is a brilliant short story that starts off in a very normal, contemporary fiction kind of way, filled with psychological realism. It then free falls, veering sinisterly into the dark and fantastical. A lot of reviewers have thrown the term “magical realism” around when discussing the story, but for me personally, I think "Stone Animals" is a foray into horror.
It starts off with the classic horror movie trope of a family buying a new house. The opening lines are this:
The “haunted house" aspect is an inference we can make, and so we’re immediately primed to expect strange things to happen. And they do. Everyday objects outside and inside the home begin to emanate something strange. Thankfully, there are never any obvious confrontations with ghosts or poltergeists or anything outwardly paranormal. What happens outwardly is that the family starts to grow apart. They become increasingly alienated from each other and from their own things in the house. Their house is unfamiliar because its new, they just moved in, and their discomfort and unease are to be expected. But then that strangeness begins to permeate and spread—the TV, the alarm clock, and the family cat are affected in some way—until everyone starts to feel unhinged and out of control.
It’s not that the characters go insane or anything. The lack of control, instead, manifests itself in various ways. For Catherine, the wife, the lack of control is exhibited in all her little house projects ending in failure. She can’t seem to get the interior decoration right, and she ends up repeatedly painting and painting the walls. The garden she plants is over run by rabbits that live in warrens under their lawn. She can’t seem to get her husband, Henry, to stop working late at the office, or to get home on time, even though he’s supposed to be working from home.
The rabbits are undoubtedly the central symbol in the book. There are two stone statues of rabbits that flank the front entrance; no one is particularly fond of those sculptures. Then there is the infestation of rabbits that live on their property. Tellingly, Henry is dubbed the “king of rabbits” or the “the plenipotentiary of Rabbitaly” by Catherine when she sees him putting on a robe with a print of “heraldic animals” on them. The rabbits seem to represent the growing lack of control, an endlessly multiplying anarchy that plagues the family. You could write essays parsing those creatures.
Overall, Link has written a vivid story built on some psychologically penetrating scaffolding. Though the plot is something completely different, “Stone Animals” actually brought to mind Henry James’s Turn of the Screw. “Stone Animals” is unsettling and disconcerting like a funhouse ride, and was deliciously fun to read.
Link’s “Stone Animals” is a brilliant short story that starts off in a very normal, contemporary fiction kind of way, filled with psychological realism. It then free falls, veering sinisterly into the dark and fantastical. A lot of reviewers have thrown the term “magical realism” around when discussing the story, but for me personally, I think "Stone Animals" is a foray into horror.
It starts off with the classic horror movie trope of a family buying a new house. The opening lines are this:
Henry asked a question. He was joking.
“As a matter of fact,” the real estate agent snapped, “it is.”
The “haunted house" aspect is an inference we can make, and so we’re immediately primed to expect strange things to happen. And they do. Everyday objects outside and inside the home begin to emanate something strange. Thankfully, there are never any obvious confrontations with ghosts or poltergeists or anything outwardly paranormal. What happens outwardly is that the family starts to grow apart. They become increasingly alienated from each other and from their own things in the house. Their house is unfamiliar because its new, they just moved in, and their discomfort and unease are to be expected. But then that strangeness begins to permeate and spread—the TV, the alarm clock, and the family cat are affected in some way—until everyone starts to feel unhinged and out of control.
It’s not that the characters go insane or anything. The lack of control, instead, manifests itself in various ways. For Catherine, the wife, the lack of control is exhibited in all her little house projects ending in failure. She can’t seem to get the interior decoration right, and she ends up repeatedly painting and painting the walls. The garden she plants is over run by rabbits that live in warrens under their lawn. She can’t seem to get her husband, Henry, to stop working late at the office, or to get home on time, even though he’s supposed to be working from home.
The rabbits are undoubtedly the central symbol in the book. There are two stone statues of rabbits that flank the front entrance; no one is particularly fond of those sculptures. Then there is the infestation of rabbits that live on their property. Tellingly, Henry is dubbed the “king of rabbits” or the “the plenipotentiary of Rabbitaly” by Catherine when she sees him putting on a robe with a print of “heraldic animals” on them. The rabbits seem to represent the growing lack of control, an endlessly multiplying anarchy that plagues the family. You could write essays parsing those creatures.
Overall, Link has written a vivid story built on some psychologically penetrating scaffolding. Though the plot is something completely different, “Stone Animals” actually brought to mind Henry James’s Turn of the Screw. “Stone Animals” is unsettling and disconcerting like a funhouse ride, and was deliciously fun to read.
June 26, 2018
Really? I don't get all of the good reviews here. I see what Link was trying to do, but I found her writing to be choppy and abrupt, and to get the full effect of the creepiness and the family's descent, the story really needed to be longer. I feel like so much happened, but it was only touched upon and it was very unsatisfying.
And the end was perhaps one of the stupidest endings I have ever read, but I also find that this is a trend with contemporary short stories. It's like the authors are having an unspoken contest to see who can be the weirdest, but really, all I want to read is good writing and a solid story. I'll take the classics any day over this kind of nonsense.
And the end was perhaps one of the stupidest endings I have ever read, but I also find that this is a trend with contemporary short stories. It's like the authors are having an unspoken contest to see who can be the weirdest, but really, all I want to read is good writing and a solid story. I'll take the classics any day over this kind of nonsense.
August 19, 2025
I love a book that makes me feel like I’m having a fever dream but the ending felt a little too nonsensical. 3.5 stars.
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March 21, 2018Oh my...
This is amazing - utterly weird and yet logical. I couldn't stop reading it and I bet I'll dream of rabbits tonight, brrr...
This is amazing - utterly weird and yet logical. I couldn't stop reading it and I bet I'll dream of rabbits tonight, brrr...
January 1, 2024
3 1/2 stars! Liked the flow of the writing. Quite the fever dream. 🐇
February 10, 2023
Stone Animals, originally published in Conjunctions magazine, made me think about the distance between the activities of everyday living in a world built on money and the activities of real life - our wild minds, unknown worlds, unpinnable truths. The edition that I read has drawings from Ursula K. LeGuin, Anthony Doerr, and many other writers. A story that I will return to over and over.
October 27, 2020
I think I was having a fever dream while reading this.
August 24, 2025
Fascinating short story illustrated by multiple contributors that starts with a couple buying a possibly haunted house looked over by a pair of strange stone sculptures. I was attracted to the art press style of publishing of this distinctive little volume, and charmed by the mysterious story. A sly bit of social commentary disguised as fantasy? No matter, it is one of those bits of ephemera that just feels good in your hand. A collector's piece, for sure. For fans of Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains or of Light Boxes by Shane Jones.
April 23, 2019
Deeply unsettling.
August 23, 2021
**read for my short essay class**
All I have to say is wtf. Truly beautiful, I actually don’t really understand what happened tbh.
All I have to say is wtf. Truly beautiful, I actually don’t really understand what happened tbh.
December 6, 2018
Animales de piedra es, contradictoriamente, una historia de terror creciente, viva, constantemente estirándose como una bola hecha de cintas elásticas a la que cada día que pasa le agregás una nueva, esperando a que explote. O, mejor sería decir, hasta que comience la guerra.
March 4, 2022
3.5 I don't really understand anything that happened here (which seems to be the point) but I did enjoy this. Left me feeling very unsettled and like I just woke up from a very strange dream.
July 17, 2023
this is a fever dream
July 31, 2020
I loved it. The story is brilliant, heartfelt, and darkly funny, gorgeously imagined and written. And talk about an unforgettable ending!
Read
September 8, 2019I finished this short story a few days ago, but I wanted to take some time to work out how I felt about it.
Because this story was...odd, no doubt about it. Maybe 10 years ago I would have pretended to understand it, waxed lyrical about its hidden meanings and reflections on life, but 2019 me is unpretentious enough to admit that she has no effing idea what it meant. "A ghost story without any ghosts, domestic realism in which the domestic is unreal." is how the foreword described it.
Here's what I do know. A family of four: hard-working husband, pregnant wife, angry daughter and fearful son move from the city to a rural house, as a fresh start. Objects and rooms start to become 'haunted', not because they float or move around but just because they feel wrong. And then
That's my summary. Would you believe me if I told you that was LESS weird than the book itself? My theory is
"Tilly never liked talking to people on the telephone. How were you supposed to know if they were really who they said they were? And even if they were who they claimed to be, they didn’t know whether you were who you said you were. You could be someone else. They might give away information about you, and not even know it. There were no protocols. No precautions."
Because this story was...odd, no doubt about it. Maybe 10 years ago I would have pretended to understand it, waxed lyrical about its hidden meanings and reflections on life, but 2019 me is unpretentious enough to admit that she has no effing idea what it meant. "A ghost story without any ghosts, domestic realism in which the domestic is unreal." is how the foreword described it.
Here's what I do know. A family of four: hard-working husband, pregnant wife, angry daughter and fearful son move from the city to a rural house, as a fresh start. Objects and rooms start to become 'haunted', not because they float or move around but just because they feel wrong. And then
That's my summary. Would you believe me if I told you that was LESS weird than the book itself? My theory is
"Tilly never liked talking to people on the telephone. How were you supposed to know if they were really who they said they were? And even if they were who they claimed to be, they didn’t know whether you were who you said you were. You could be someone else. They might give away information about you, and not even know it. There were no protocols. No precautions."
February 20, 2019
Read it because my son was assigned it in AP Lit. Very interesting, gothic-type haunted tale, with echoes of The Yellow Wallpaper and other classic tales interwoven into something unique. Something as straightforward as rabbits become the antagonists of a family who are looking to take some sort of control over their lives. Atmospheric and very interesting.
September 9, 2014
I finished Kelly Link's Stone Animals short story that is included in Magic for Beginners and I want to read everything she has written. Love this.
April 14, 2018
A story that has stayed with me for a long time. It didn't help that the day I after I read it, there were 4 rabbits on my lawn.
September 1, 2025
#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Horror Short Stories #Anthologies
Kelly Link’s Stone Animals is an enticing blend of contemporary realism, magical surrealism, and subtle horror, showcasing her talent for weaving the ordinary with the extraordinary.
The story exemplifies her signature style: familiar domestic settings infused with uncanny elements, where small disruptions—strange creatures, inexplicable events, or eerie atmospheres—gradually tilt the narrative into unsettling, otherworldly territory. Reading Stone Animals is like stepping into a liminal space where the rules of everyday life are subtly suspended, leaving the reader both intrigued and uneasy.
The narrative’s strength lies in its tonal precision and layered ambiguity. Link establishes an initially grounded setting, often suburban and domestic, allowing readers to recognize themselves in the ordinary details of life. Into this framework, she introduces fantastical or unsettling elements—the titular stone animals serving as both literal objects and symbols of unspoken tension—that shift the narrative into an ethereal, sometimes nightmarish realm. The story’s quiet suspense is generated less by overt threat than by the gradual accumulation of oddities and the psychological impact on the characters. This creates a reading experience that is immersive, contemplative, and subtly disturbing.
Comparatively, Stone Animals aligns with contemporary writers who blend speculative elements with psychological insight, such as Carmen Maria Machado and Laird Barron. Like Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties, Link’s story fuses the fantastic with the intimate, exploring human emotion, domestic life, and latent anxieties through surreal lenses. Similarly, her work resonates with Shirley Jackson’s stories, particularly in how everyday settings are transformed into sites of subtle dread and moral ambiguity. In both Jackson and Link, horror emerges from emotional tension and social undercurrents, rather than from graphic spectacle, making the uncanny feel plausible and intimately unsettling.
The story also echoes elements of magical realism, reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez, in its blending of the mundane and the fantastical, yet Link retains a sharper, more eerie edge.
While magical realism often emphasises wonder and allegory, Stone Animals leans toward ambiguity and unease, maintaining a delicate balance between wonder and disquiet. This positions the story firmly within the contemporary tradition of speculative fiction that interrogates reality through surreal and psychological means.
In essence, Stone Animals is a masterful example of modern speculative storytelling. Its strength lies in Link’s ability to juxtapose normalcy with strangeness, creating tension, wonder, and subtle horror in equal measure.
The story lingers in memory not through shock, but through its uncanny resonance, quietly unsettling the reader while provoking reflection on the fragility and strangeness of everyday life.
Kelly Link’s Stone Animals is an enticing blend of contemporary realism, magical surrealism, and subtle horror, showcasing her talent for weaving the ordinary with the extraordinary.
The story exemplifies her signature style: familiar domestic settings infused with uncanny elements, where small disruptions—strange creatures, inexplicable events, or eerie atmospheres—gradually tilt the narrative into unsettling, otherworldly territory. Reading Stone Animals is like stepping into a liminal space where the rules of everyday life are subtly suspended, leaving the reader both intrigued and uneasy.
The narrative’s strength lies in its tonal precision and layered ambiguity. Link establishes an initially grounded setting, often suburban and domestic, allowing readers to recognize themselves in the ordinary details of life. Into this framework, she introduces fantastical or unsettling elements—the titular stone animals serving as both literal objects and symbols of unspoken tension—that shift the narrative into an ethereal, sometimes nightmarish realm. The story’s quiet suspense is generated less by overt threat than by the gradual accumulation of oddities and the psychological impact on the characters. This creates a reading experience that is immersive, contemplative, and subtly disturbing.
Comparatively, Stone Animals aligns with contemporary writers who blend speculative elements with psychological insight, such as Carmen Maria Machado and Laird Barron. Like Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties, Link’s story fuses the fantastic with the intimate, exploring human emotion, domestic life, and latent anxieties through surreal lenses. Similarly, her work resonates with Shirley Jackson’s stories, particularly in how everyday settings are transformed into sites of subtle dread and moral ambiguity. In both Jackson and Link, horror emerges from emotional tension and social undercurrents, rather than from graphic spectacle, making the uncanny feel plausible and intimately unsettling.
The story also echoes elements of magical realism, reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez, in its blending of the mundane and the fantastical, yet Link retains a sharper, more eerie edge.
While magical realism often emphasises wonder and allegory, Stone Animals leans toward ambiguity and unease, maintaining a delicate balance between wonder and disquiet. This positions the story firmly within the contemporary tradition of speculative fiction that interrogates reality through surreal and psychological means.
In essence, Stone Animals is a masterful example of modern speculative storytelling. Its strength lies in Link’s ability to juxtapose normalcy with strangeness, creating tension, wonder, and subtle horror in equal measure.
The story lingers in memory not through shock, but through its uncanny resonance, quietly unsettling the reader while provoking reflection on the fragility and strangeness of everyday life.
April 7, 2021
Here's what happened as I read this incredible story: This story, that is really only about 40 pages long, took me so long to read it because I simply couldn't hold it, BE with it, for too long. Much like the haunted toothbrush or alarm clock -- the chills would come and I'd have to tuck it away for a bit. But it was a mental chilling. Images and thoughts in this story would stay with me and demand their attention. I'd read some pages -- sometimes only a paragraph! (like Catherine's dreams of people as paint colors!) -- and have to step away to absorb it and reflect (and think what colors the people in my own life are painted). Kelly Link writes in Midnight Magic -- never to be painted over.
I encourage anyone and everyone to purchase this book through the Gumroad link: https://gumroad.com/l/stoneanimals -- as it is a most artful edition featuring illustrations by all of the loveliest -- including Arthur Philips. Proceeds from sales of this copy go to The Fistula Foundation. Buy lots. Gift them. It's a gift multiplied many times over.
My next tattoo will certainly be one of these rabbits, perhaps with the line, "She was so brave, so angry."
I encourage anyone and everyone to purchase this book through the Gumroad link: https://gumroad.com/l/stoneanimals -- as it is a most artful edition featuring illustrations by all of the loveliest -- including Arthur Philips. Proceeds from sales of this copy go to The Fistula Foundation. Buy lots. Gift them. It's a gift multiplied many times over.
My next tattoo will certainly be one of these rabbits, perhaps with the line, "She was so brave, so angry."
March 28, 2023
i had no idea what was going on at any time. theres lot of going on here, a lot of interesting characters and situations that aren't as they seem. it's a very beautiful story with gorgeous imagery and gothic undertones. i feel that i would have loved it if i could just talk to the author and get some questions answered.
Quotes from this that I liked: Liz and she are drinking paint, thick and pale as cream.
Babies weren’t babies—they were land mines; bear traps; wasp nests.
They’ve been waiting for a long time, but the waiting is almost over. In a little while, the dinner party will be over and the war will begin.
if anyone can answer the questions i have, please (spoilers!!) was king spanky ever real? did catherine and henry get divorced and did he take Carleton with him? are henry and Carleton dead? what is up with the neighbors -- is anything up with them or are they just normal?
Quotes from this that I liked: Liz and she are drinking paint, thick and pale as cream.
Babies weren’t babies—they were land mines; bear traps; wasp nests.
They’ve been waiting for a long time, but the waiting is almost over. In a little while, the dinner party will be over and the war will begin.
if anyone can answer the questions i have, please (spoilers!!) was king spanky ever real? did catherine and henry get divorced and did he take Carleton with him? are henry and Carleton dead? what is up with the neighbors -- is anything up with them or are they just normal?
March 27, 2018
So, I wasn’t entirely into the ending of this piece, but the rest of it I adored in a sickly fascinated way. It’s just so wonderfully weird. Full of strangeness and descending into madness. I enjoyed the story much more than I expected to, given the slow beginning.
My favorite moments of the story was the continued descent into madness that happened every time a new thing became haunted. Especially when their son became haunted later in the story, it was just so creepily satisfying, narratively.
My question is “what happens next???” I really want to know more about the weird surrealistic magic of the setting and what the meaning of it all was, but I feel like I understand why the author ended it the way they did. It was wonderfully surreal, if a little sad to me, to see it ending there.
My favorite moments of the story was the continued descent into madness that happened every time a new thing became haunted. Especially when their son became haunted later in the story, it was just so creepily satisfying, narratively.
My question is “what happens next???” I really want to know more about the weird surrealistic magic of the setting and what the meaning of it all was, but I feel like I understand why the author ended it the way they did. It was wonderfully surreal, if a little sad to me, to see it ending there.
October 15, 2021
Subjective: I believe a short story should be designed to guide a reader through an emotion, idea, taboo, or perhaps a principle. This story offers an unsettling, somewhat believable narrative. The writing is concise and the prose is strong but Link gets carried away with unsettling the reader, and sacrifices narrative responsibility for the sake of oddity. This tip of the scales creates a dissonance between the reader and the story and the reader looses the breadcrumb trail of appreciation and is forced to decipher fever dream symbols in the context of a modern tale. With that said, the "short story" misses the shortened standard. This story takes more than one sitting to power through so it is a novella at best, yet without chapters. Maybe the crafting of the story is more haunted than the narrative...
December 4, 2019
Stone Animals is a creepy AF, modern gothic short story from Link's collection Magic for Beginners, which has been published separately as a novella.
A family of four (a workaholic husband, pregnant wife, petulant daughter and timid son) move to the suburbs to the city, but find that rabbits keep encircling their house and that gradually their possessions start becoming 'haunted' in that they just feel 'wrong' somehow.
Whilst I can appreciate that some people might not like the choppy, disconnected writing style, it added to the sense of surreal unease and reminded me of A.M. Homes who I love, so I was totally there for that!
There's a lot to unravel for such a short narrative, with lots of subtexts and nuances. I really really enjoyed this and will definitely be looking out for more by Kelly Link.
A family of four (a workaholic husband, pregnant wife, petulant daughter and timid son) move to the suburbs to the city, but find that rabbits keep encircling their house and that gradually their possessions start becoming 'haunted' in that they just feel 'wrong' somehow.
Whilst I can appreciate that some people might not like the choppy, disconnected writing style, it added to the sense of surreal unease and reminded me of A.M. Homes who I love, so I was totally there for that!
There's a lot to unravel for such a short narrative, with lots of subtexts and nuances. I really really enjoyed this and will definitely be looking out for more by Kelly Link.
March 10, 2019
A disappointing read with a boring ending. The writing was disconnected and the perspective character changed constantly, sometimes only a few paragraphs between each point of view. The author had this way of writing like William Gibson where they would use sentences without verbs. Personally I find that irritating, not poetic. All the characters are unlikable so it's hard to care what they do.
There were some technical issues too like improper punctuation, double words, and missing capitalization.
On a positive note, there is a sense of tension as the story progresses and it's a short read. I did not hate the story but I don't like it either.
There were some technical issues too like improper punctuation, double words, and missing capitalization.
On a positive note, there is a sense of tension as the story progresses and it's a short read. I did not hate the story but I don't like it either.
January 24, 2020
It took me several days to decipher how I felt about this story, and what exactly it meant. And can I tell you? It packs a fucking wallop. Link has turned the concept of “horror” and our idea of what it means to be haunted, and has stretched that concept and morphed it into something so sneakily subtle yet terrifying. This is not a ghost story. This is about the vicious cycle of everyday hauntings, and how inner psychosis reflects on the world around you. If you have skeletons in your closet, your new house isn’t going to hide them; it’s going to put them on display. Masterful, absurd, and well-crafted. I loved it.
February 12, 2021
Forgive me, but a good short story or book has to have a point. What exactly was I supposed to learn from Stone Animals? A family moves into a new house and all their old possessions seem to become haunted. The wife can't stop painting, the little girl can't stop sleepwalking, the little boy is afraid of everything, and the husband is never home. Then we add some magical realism with riders of bunnies attacking and other bizarre events and end up with a mess. I disliked this story intensely - a complete waste of time. I would have preferred to spend my time under the bed with the cat. Kristi & Abby Tabby
March 10, 2022
Bruh what a story. It's so creative, the idea and the way they make the house haunted, the word choices and scenes, how the ambivalent feelings culminate to harsh confessions. The characters slowly go crazy in their own way and the writing gets more and more dreamlike and concerning and the reader doesn't know what's going on at times. Real page turner just by the what-the-heck nature of the story itself.
March 28, 2018
The tension grows and grows and grows in this amazing short story by Link. It got to the point where every time a rabbit was mentioned I could feel my nerves begin to jangle a little more. By the end, this horror-cum-psychological-thriller-cum-magic-realism tale made my whole gut turn over. Kelly Link is a fantastic writer, whose work I always forget and then am reminded of, joyfully.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews